I don't have a terrible amount to say about this chapter, just that there's a lot of fallout left to be dealt with.
Enjoy! And, as always, sorry for the upload speed, I still haven't gotten free of life! It's not a long chapter but it's... yeahhh...
Setbacks were inevitable. In any circumstance that relied on timing, recovery, and most importantly, rest, there were bound to be moments of unfortunate setback. Sometimes, the emotional strain was too much, and it crippled the recovery time, having the entire plan fold in on itself like a cardboard fort in the rain, standing only as long as it could bear the torrential downpour. Other times, there was a mistake made. It could've been avoidable, but only in hindsight.
"A-are you sure this is a good idea...?"
It wasn't that Kaminari didn't want to see his green-haired friend. If nothing else, there was almost nothing more that he wanted in the world. He wanted to see how he was coping. How he was recovering. He needed to see that Midoriya was as alive as everyone said he was.
But he was scared, too.
"C'mon, just take it slowly." Jirou's encouragements did little to quell the nerves that ran through his body like the electricity he could discharge at a moment's notice. The same electricity he used to put Midoriya down. He grimaced, though Jirou was unaware. "You don't need to rush in and smother him. Just, start with seeing him. Then work from there."
Recovery Girl's office was a rather open, and unfamiliar space, Kaminari thought to himself. He'd only been to the office once or twice, and only as a result of his quirk's drawback. He'd avoided any serious injuries, thanks to his ability to force opponents to keep their distance, lest they desire a tingling sensation throughout their entire body. Lately, he'd been unable to muster up the courage to use the normal full-powered blasts he put on display, and Aizawa had taken notice.
"If you're not going to give it your all in these exercises, you're wasting everyone's time - including your own. If you're that scared of using your quirk... go see Midoriya. And take Jirou with you."
He tried not to clench his fist. He wasn't scared. That was preposterous. He was Denki Kaminari, a prospective hero! He'd survived the encounter with the villains as the USJ, and sustained only a minor injury, despite being held captive. He'd taken out several villains without rendering himself totally incapable, and he'd saved Yaoyorozu and Jirou with a large-scale attack. He had been strong.
He wasn't scared. He was terrified.
What separated Midoriya from those random grunts was precisely in the name. He knew Midoriya. He interacted daily with Midoriya. They talked, they laughed, they studied, they were classmates. They were friends. Those random thugs... he didn't know them. They didn't have families that he knew of. They didn't have dreams at one point. They didn't have feelings. They were villains, which made them emotionless husks that served only to stand as a dangerous obstacle.
But that was wrong, wasn't it? He'd readily reflected on that since he'd injured Midoriya. They weren't just... bodies that didn't matter. They did have families, and at one point, they probably did have dreams. They weren't men and women designed to be electrocuted with haphazardness, because they were more than just decoys. They might have been trying to kill him and his classmates, but that didn't mean he shouldn't have care when throwing his electricity around. One wrong move... and he could've ended someone's life. He didn't know if one of them had a pacemaker. He didn't know.
And that was the problem. He didn't know anymore.
"Denki...?" Jirou asked softly. He barely registered her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, look at me."
Slowly, against his own will, his head turned and his vision settled on Jirou's concerned face. Her eyes were full of emotion, much like they had been over the entire ordeal, since before Midoriya was even found. Her earjacks hung loosely, dangling lifelessly, a sign of her concern. "What's wrong?"
He sighed. He wanted to tell her, really, he did. But he just didn't know how. There was no easy way to come clean about his fears. Plus, so far, no one had acknowledged the difficult position he was in right now. Everyone simply chalked up his fear to hurting Midoriya, and while that was part of it, it wasn't the entire story. He had a dangerous quirk. He only now understood what it meant.
He settled for a white lie. He felt bad, but right now, he wasn't ready to talk about it, and the last thing he wanted was to be grilled at every corner, until he came clean. That wasn't the way he wanted to reveal anything.
"I'm just a bit, nervous, y'know? Last time I really saw him... he was just really messed up." Well, a partial lie. It was still true, but just not the primary reason.
Jirou sighed, and Kaminari couldn't tell if it was out of relief or exasperation. "It'll be okay. I'm a bit... nervous, too. But I think it'll be fine. Midoriya's a..." she paused, trying to find the words. "...well, he's a good kid. It'll be okay."
"Should we... wait for Recovery Girl?" Kaminari looked around the room, not finding any evidence that the elderly nurse had been in her office recently.
Jirou began spinning her jack in her fingers, looking around the room for something to distract her. While Kaminari would never say it aloud, he was certain one of the traits that the two shared was their lack of attention. He'd been diagnosed with A.D.D. at a young age, which caused his parents to sign him up for music lessons to help appease his deficit. Jirou had never mentioned anything about being tested, but she displayed a similar tendency as he did, and he thought about asking, but knew better.
Some questions were just off-limits.
"You can head in." The elderly voice came from the doorway, and both students turned to see Recovery Girl standing with an empty saline bag and what looked like a small jar of liquid. If Kaminari squinted, he could make out 'Lidocaine 1%' on the label, though he had no idea what that was used for. "I just stitched up a few of his small wounds that weren't healing well with my healing treatments. He's probably going to be a bit sleepy, but I'm sure he'll be happy to see you."
"Thank you, Recovery Girl," Jirou and Kaminari said in tandem, bowing at the end of their thanks. Slowly, they made their way into Midoriya's room, ignoring how dark it seemed to be. The destruction of the room has been cleaned up slightly, but remnants of the one-sided fight still remained, such as slight cracks on the wall and scuff marks on the tile floor. There were several broken lights, but thankfully, no glass on the floor.
Kaminari paused as he saw Midoriya's form stir in the bed. He was laying on his back and was shirtless, with the upper half of his body exposed. Admittedly, he looked significantly better than he had initially. His skin, while still pale and scarred, was no longer cracked and bruised, although some fresh scars now lined his pectorals and obliques. He had one particularly nasty wound on the left part of his collarbone, running across toward his shoulder, red and jagged, it was held together by a collection of small black fibers - presumably the wound that Recovery Girl had been talking about.
His arms were no longer as disfigured as they'd initially been, but there were still sights of dark bruising on the surface on his skin, along with angry scars from overuse, which seemed that much more insidious. Bandages lined his wrist and hands, wrapped tightly against his delicate skin, and for a second, Kaminari feared that if the white wrappings were removed, the poor boy would disintegrate into ash.
He shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking like that. Midoriya was strong. He was fine. He was alive.
The room was quiet, and Kaminari had been writing a book, he would've described it as deathly quiet. There were no noises from within; not even Midoriya soft breathing was audible enough to disrupt the deafening silence. The ECG that had been previously filling the room with subtle noises was now disconnected and sat lifelessly in the corner of the room, having served its purpose.
In this moment, the yellow-haired boy was glad he wasn't Jirou - the lack of noise would only be that much worse for someone with delicate hearing. Or would it be better, because she could hear subtle things that he couldn't? He didn't know; and frankly, he didn't care to focus on that. He just wanted to know what to say.
Fate spared him. Midoriya rustled in the sheets, and slowly, as if sensing the presence of foreigners in his room, he cracked an eye open and tilted his head to get a better view of the doorway. The second his emerald eye made contact with Kaminari's, both his eyes were wide open and he seemed to tense nervously. Not a good sign.
"W-who...?"
His voice was weak, quiet, and everything that made Kaminari's heart hurt. Midoriya never had a booming, strong voice, but he did put whatever he was feeling into his words, and this was no different. The injured boy was so scared and that, in turn, scared Kaminari.
Jirou took the reigns, and the electrical-user silently thanked her for stepping in. "Do you recognize us?"
"Y-you're here to t-t-take me... a-aren't you?" It was barely above a whisper, but the words seemed so loud. He thought they were here to kidnap him. To hurt him.
"T-take you?" Jirou was obviously confused, but the waver in her voice suggested she was getting nervous, too. This was already going off from their initial plan. If they even had a plan in the first place. "No... n-no, we're here to..."
Whatever it was that Jirou had to say, Midoriya wasn't interested, because he groaned - possibly out of pain, possibly out of defense - and raised his less injured arm. Thanks to the lack of an IV line, he was able to move it more than his other arm, but the speed he rose it with was slightly concerning, because it was slow. He was so slow.
Kaminari hadn't forgotten Recovery Girl's mute concerns about Midoriya's arms. She hadn't meant for anyone else to hear her - it was just a journal log she was voicing aloud. But it was startling to learn about, and personally, he thought that everyone deserved to know.
He was losing the use of his arms - and she was concerned he'd already lost use of them.
"Y-you won't take me..." The weakness in his voice was masked by the fire in his eyes. Behind the fear, behind the pain... burned the same fire that everyone in Class 1-A had come to admire.
"P-please..." He hadn't even realized he'd said it. It was so... out-of-character for him. But before Kaminari realized he was speaking, he was practically on his knees, head down, begging. "Midoriya... I never..."
I never meant to hurt you.
"Kaminari..." Jirou whispered, but he paid her no heed. He sniffled - had he been crying? - and raised his head again, to find that Midoriya's fist had lowered, and his determined expression had faded into a concerned look. He was confused, but who wouldn't be?
The words came tumbling from the yellow-haired boy's mouth before he could stop to consider them. "I'm s-sorry. When... when I first saw you, I didn't think about anything but trying to help you, and maybe... maybe I could've done something else but... you just looked so... broken."
For a moment, Kaminari actually forgot he was speaking to Midoriya. He forgot Jirou was right next to him. He just... he had so much weigh on his chest that he needed to get off, and it seemed like fate had given him the perfect opportunity, even if there was nobody that could actually offer him advice.
"My mom warned me as a kid, y'know? My quirk can be dangerous, 'cause not everyone can handle electricity like I can. I never hurt anyone before, n-not like that. It never really sunk in that... I could do that."
"Wh-what are you going on about...?" Jirou asked quietly.
Kaminari winced. He'd never told her. He hadn't told anyone.
"I... a-after we brought Midoriya back... and, remember, you left the room for a second to call your parents...?"
"Yeah?"
He took a breath in and slowly turned to face Jirou. She wasn't making this much easier, but then, she had no reason to. "W-well, I left the room, too, remember? It was... M-Midoriya had a seizure. They think my electricity might have accidentally triggered it. T-that's... that's why they think he might have had brain problems..."
"I thought it was because of the abuse...?" Jirou mumbled. He recognized the delay before she spoke - she didn't know what to say, and he didn't blame her. There wasn't a whole lot someone could say after hearing that. Denial? He'd already tried that. Consoling? Wouldn't do a lot.
He shuffled in place. They hadn't moved farther into the room yet, and his ADD was beginning to kick in. "It might have been. A factor, anyways. He was already somewhat... out of it when we found him, but... they don't know for certain. All we know is that he had a seizure after arriving... and that's why..."
"I... f-for... forgive you."
Kaminari froze. Had he...?
Slowly, he turned to look at Midoriya again, disbelief written all across his face. Midoriya was nervous, obviously. But... amidst the fear that still wrinkled his brow, there was a familiar look of understanding. There was a hint of the old Midoriya.
"I... I was hurt. Scared. Fighting. You h-had to. You didn't... do this."
"Who did?" Kaminari nearly hissed, but managed to bite his tongue and asked in a semi-calm voice.
Midoriya turned his head straight again, so that he was looking up at the roof, and he exhaled shakily, the memories practically present on his face. He was... remembering things, Kaminari realized.
"Men. I... I-I don't remember names. B-but they... took me because..." His face scrunched up as he struggled to remember. Jirou reached forward and looked like she was going to speak, but she was cut off as Midoriya groaned painfully, but continued speaking. "Quirk. Strong. They wanted... t-they wanted..."
Thin red lines began working their way across Midoriya's body, and his muscles tensed up in response, at the same time as a pressure began building in the room. Midoriya's eyes clenched shut as he began to quiver in place, his jaw locking as his shaking worsened. Sweat began to bead on his forehead and dampen the gown he wore, all as a faint white electricity began to dance around his body.
Kaminari's eyes widened. "H-he's having another seizure!"
From behind them, Recovery Girl came darting in with surprising speed for someone that needed a cane to move around, and she was already pressing on what appeared to be a pager - supposedly for All Might, or Aizawa. She turned to the two children, her expression as stoic as ever, despite the arising crisis. "You two need to leave, it's not safe!"
"B-but he-"
"No buts! It's dangerous!"
"THEY WANTED ME! MEDICINE! DRUGS! THEY WANTED ME STRONGER! THEY KILLED MY MOTHER BECAUSE I WOULDN'T-"
Whatever else he had to say was lost as he began to shake uncontrollably, trembling restlessly in place as Recovery Girl quickly pushed a syringe filled with a clear liquid into his line, and Jirou hastily pulled Kaminari from the room. Tears were plainly obvious in her eyes, but he was numb. Too numb. It didn't register that she wrapped herself around him, burying her head into his shoulder.
He felt like he'd overused his quirk and was barely in control as he stood there, in the hallway, blanking staring forward as a few teachers rushed into the room behind them. He didn't notice someone come to take the duo away from the room, muttering quiet reassurances as they feebly tried to console the two spectators. He didn't notice when he was being taken home. He didn't notice that Jirou refused to leave.
The only thing he noticed was the delicate breathing from the girl next to him as he laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking to himself...
'This is all my fault.'