"So, there we were," Spinner said, spinning the tale for Denki's soulmates to catch them up, "out of our goddamn minds! Uretori and I are ducking because we're the only two who can see the giant-ass eagle flying above everyone's heads—" Hitoshi and Neito are howling at this point, tears escaping their eyes beyond their control. "And don't get me started on Twice."
"I already apologized a million times! I'm not sorry! I can't go back to prison, Spinner!" Twice interjected, thoroughly exasperated that Spinner has not let up on how easily he had offered him up.
"And then Uretori had the absolute audacity to suggest that she leave!" Spinner continued, ignoring Twice completely. "That she's a danger to us, which, fair, I guess, but we handled that shit like bosses, if I do say so myself!"
"No one died," Dabi said. "No one even was injured. She tried telling everyone that Isozan fits in so well here, so he should stay, and she'll find somewhere to go where she won't cause any more issues for him. Isozan threw a bitch fit—"
"She was inconsolable!" Isozan argued.
"I didn't say it wasn't a justified bitch fit," Dabi said.
Isozan opened his mouth to retort, closed it again and sat there in thought for a few seconds before shrugging and nodding his agreement.
"So, to stop the nightmares to put Uretori more at ease, we're just going to dismantle the Omotos, so she doesn't have to worry about shit anymore," Dabi finished. "You want in?"
"Uh, yeah!" Neito answered, filled to the brim with attitude, like he was offended that Dabi even had to ask instead of knowing that they would want to play their parts.
That's how Neito ended up copying Hitoshi's quirk and holding it at the ready as Isozan activated Full Throttle to see how it would affect Brainwashing. Everyone braced themselves as Isozan reached out and touched Hitoshi's arm.
Hitoshi looked around and was about to open his mouth to ask a question, thinking that maybe his quirk just made it easier or made complex commands more effortless, but then he realized that there was a constant buzzing murmuring in his ears. When he focused on it, he could bring up different, separate ones. If he tried to focus on more than a few at a time, it became a little overwhelming. Neito had asked him a question at that point, but instead of answering, knowing that his own quirk was primed and ready to go, Hitoshi waved him off, indicating that he was fine and just trying to get his bearings.
Hitoshi looked at Shigaraki, whose gaze flickered around the room, always keeping his eye on everything, taking on the burden of leadership.
I'm going to miss this. I wonder if it'll hurt when he takes over. I wonder how long it'll take for anyone to notice. I wonder if he'll try playing along with the romance aspect or distance himself from Keigo and Touya right away. I wonder which will hurt more. Will he be a better leader than me? Will this all be worth it in the end?
He looked at Denki who was looking at him.
—wonder if he's okay. Maybe we should—no. I'm sure it's fine. He would say if he wasn't fine. He wouldn't leave us behind by doing something so stupid as to let this continue on if it wasn't something he could handle. I just have to have trust in him, just like I always do. Deep breaths, Denki. If you can handle seeing him peel his own face off, you can handle this.
For a second, Hitoshi thought he might be able to read minds, which was fucking crazy! But then he heard something about peeling his face off and thought maybe not.
Denki's eyes wandered over to Neito's form.
Neito can handle it if anything goes wrong. He always does. God, he's so cool. How did I get so damn lucky? Even when they were peeling their faces off and coming at me with bloody fingers to do the same, I wanted to jump their bones. Oh, that's so weird. I still need to talk to them about that. Is that weird? Would they have flirted with the hallucination version of me if put into the same situation I was in? I would like to hope so. I would hope that my hallucination would be as cool and as hot as theirs were, and—
"Denki?"
"Yeah?" Denki asked, looking back over at Hitoshi.
He seemed surprised when he wasn't put under Hitoshi's quirk, but there was still time for that later. Hitoshi had more pressing questions than what his quirk could do under the effects of Full Throttle.
"I don't mind that you flirted with the hallucination version of me," Hitoshi said nonchalantly, forcing himself to keep his giddiness in check at Denki's wide-eyed expression.
"You told him?!" Denki accused, turning to point a finger at Dabi.
Dabi held up his hands, laughing. "I did no such thing! Damn! Someone must have beat me to it!"
Denki sighed, defeated. "Yeah, the hallucination version of you said that he talked to you guys, and you said that it was fine if we flirted."
"We did not say it's fine!" Neito argued.
"I know that!" Denki quipped back hastily. "How could—ugh." He closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. "When the whole thing with Uretori happened, I hallucinated both of you, but it was some weird horror version of you two where you peeled your faces off and then tried to peel mine off, too."
Neito paled.
Hitoshi didn't, because he knew where the story led already.
"It's fine, though!" Denki was quick to reassure. "They were actually kind of funny. They were witty and flirty, and it wasn't that scary once I figured out what was actually happening. But they kept trying to flirt with me, and I kept almost falling for it because they were so much like you, but with no face—"
"I see how you couldn't tell the difference," Hitoshi said, snorting.
Neito shot him a glare, but it had no bite to it.
Denki blushed and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "When I argued that I hadn't okayed it with you two, hallucination-Hitoshi said that he already talked to you two and you both said it was fine, which was an obvious lie, but it was so strange for a hallucination to claim."
Neito sighed, exasperated. "Well, for future reference, it wasn't terrible seeing you with the Twice clones of myself, so I don't have a problem with you flirting with figments of your own imagination either, as long as they are, in fact, in the shape of me or Hitoshi."
"Oh, yeah! That was pretty cool, right?"
"Looked like you should have been in Fields with us," Neito quipped.
"Well, I was trying, Neito. What else should I have done?!"
"Are we just all going to overlook the fact that Hitoshi is reading minds right now, or…?" Isozan hedged.
Before anyone could respond, a figure came crashing in through the window to land crouched on the floor, eyes red glaring menacingly and hair floating when he looked up and around the room to gauge the situation.
"Eraserhead," Shigaraki greeted. "You could have knocked."
-.-.-
The heroes lounged around the back of the stage, waiting to be announced to the public of their official hero rankings.
"Congratulations!" everyone had told the blonde.
It's such a great honor to be number nine, especially as a rookie hero in his first year. It's never been done before, in fact, so he's already breaking records. Too bad it had to be like this.
He gritted his teeth and took a few calming breaths.
He could do this.
He could do anything, so he could do this.
He looked over at Mirko who didn't seem happy or energetic, either. She, like him, was just waiting to be announced, and waiting to take off as soon as possible. Most likely right after the announcement and not even waiting until it was deemed socially appropriate. No standing around and conversing with the other heroes, no signing autographs and posing for photographs with the fans. He wondered if she was missing Hawks, even if that would have bumped her down a spot if he was still around. It would make sense for them to be close, even as competitors for the top spots, seeing as they were both wielders of animal mutant quirks.
He watched as her name was called and she walked over to the curtain. She paused, took a deep breath, puffed her chest out, plastered an arrogant smile on her face, and started her forceful strut onto the stage.
He could do that, too.
With the title of number nine hero came great power. Even if he didn't earn it, he knew it would be foisted upon him anyway, whether he wanted it or not. He had learned his lesson back at the sports festival, after all. But he could make up for his shortcomings by striving to do better in the future to really earn his place that was given to him too soon and using his newfound position of power to bite back at the ones forcing him into that position in the first place.
Yeah. Everything would be just fine.
He could do this, because he had a plan—an end goal—something bigger than himself and his own ego this time.
They wouldn't even have to chain him and muzzle him and wheel him out onto the stage. He'd comply and act like a good little hero for the Hero Public Safety Commission.
But, oh, would they regret it.
"And, now announcing, the new number nine, rookie of the year, Pro Hero Ground Zero!"
Bakugou steeled himself and forced himself forward onto the stage. He didn't have to force the sneer on his face or the arrogant look in his eye; that came naturally with the thoughts of what he was going to do to make everyone regret ever putting this power in his hands so prematurely. He did, however, have to force his face to not deepen his sneer and give away his intentions before he could enact his sense of justice upon those who felt he would be a good option to be a pawn for them.
He wasn't even a good option.
He'd been too busy building his own agency from the ground up to get any real traction with the general public for his rookie year. He expected to not even make it in the top 100, let alone the top 50, let alone the top 30, let alone the top 10. That was fine, because he knew with his own agency and being able to follow his own rules without anyone else breathing down his neck, he'd be able to climb the charts easily and quickly.
He wanted to earn it, damn it. Not be given the spot to act as some scapegoat for an organization who can't do anything right.
And it wasn't like he could start over from scratch the next year. It wasn't likely that the public would overlook his new status and not pay attention to him. They would find his attitude endearing because they would think that the majority of other people did, too. Even if they didn't at first, they would think they must be missing something and keep an open mind.
This wasn't how he wanted to do things at all. He didn't want to brainwash the public into liking him. He didn't want to allow the natural continued conditioning of the public to continue to like him after the fact to verify in their minds that he was chosen as number nine for a reason.
A reason that the Hero Public Safety Commission wouldn't even say to his face, even though it was obvious.
That sunshiny motherfucker, Kaminari Denki, broke national records and made number nine within his first year, even after going rogue and breaking out of fucking Tartarus on Live TV and following up with crazy-ass TikToks that should have landed his ass back in Fields in a permanent capacity. Even the other heroes were continuously showing him their continued support, using the hashtag #GetForked on every fucking social media post to give a subtle (not so subtle) fuck you to the Hero Public Safety Commission.
Bakugou was going to use his newfound power to do something about this fucked up situation. And he'd start by tracking down Chargebolt, the defected hero-turned-villain. The true number nine, oddly enough.
Bakugou sulked on the stage as the top three gave their speeches, pointedly acting like he was ignoring every word with his hands shoved deep in his pockets as he glared out into the crowd at anyone who dared to make eye contact. He lightly traced the edges of the quirk-cancelling handcuffs in his pocket with his fingers, itching to get them around Denki's wrists.