A/N: OCs in this chapter:
Nato Hachisho – PR manager for HPSC
Takaga Mayori – HPSC agent
Kobaru Maediri – Quirk: Seek, former patient on the Adult Unit at Fields who interacted with Neito and Hitoshi, habitual troublemaker for casinos due to the nature of how her quirk can be used
Omoto Sezuno Isozan – Quirk: Full Throttle
Omoto Sezuno Uretori (aka Phantasm) – Quirk: Hallucinogenic Gas
"All I'm saying," Denki continued to complain, rambling in circles as Dabi groaned, dragging a hand down his face, mindful of the staples, "is that you said that you didn't have a magic healing lady to kiss your boo-boos away, yes? But that was a lie, Touya!"
"It wasn't a lie if we don't have regular access to her!" Dabi argued back for what felt like the millionth time. "You hero students could just pop in whenever you wanted. It would have been really suspicious if she just vanished regularly after we were seen being injured somewhere publicly and then we were magically very much fine the next time we were seen again, wouldn't it, Denki?!"
"And you didn't want to know anyone on our side," Shigaraki added.
Denki turned on his heel to face Shigaraki, his eye roll turning into an intense glare. "Whose side are you on anyway?!"
"Uh… Mine, obviously," Shigaraki answered. He could only hold the straight face for a few seconds before laughing, the others joining in. Shigaraki's laughter was contagious, even more so after those few weeks of immense melancholy where nothing could lift his mood. His happiness was never taken for granted.
"You're oddly quiet," Denki whispered, sliding up next to Isozan.
Isozan sent him a what he hoped was a reassuring smile. By Denki's recoil, it was probably more like a terrified grimace.
"It's just—" Isozan rushed to explain, hushing his voice to match Denki's, grateful that he was mindful enough to keep this little insecurity between the two of them, "I really fucked up with you. I lucked out when your soulmates and the League just took your word when you vouched for me, but I can't expect that to work for everyone."
"Why not?" Denki asked, voice sounding completely genuine.
Isozan looked over, and Denki's face looked genuine, too, like he didn't understand Isozan's thought process.
"Hey," Denki said, changing tactics. "Uretori's not the only one in your corner anymore, yeah? You have me, my soulmates, and the League now, too. They aren't just bystanders in this, content to stand by and watch now that I've said you're cool with me. They're fully on board. You know this, right?"
"In theory, I do," Isozan admitted. "In practice…"
"It'll take some practice?" Denki guessed.
Isozan smiled, and was more confident that it actually looked like a smile this time by Denki's returned grin and wink (and sparking finger guns).
"I really should have known, I think," Denki continued, his voice picking up to include the others once again. "When I was… recovered from you guys, Recovery Girl seemed a little surprised that I didn't have as many injuries as I should have, but maybe not as surprised as she should have been."
"Oh, she probably was surprised," Shigaraki said. "Just because we had people on the inside doesn't mean they actually liked us. You were one that we didn't have on the inside and actually did like us."
"We talked about how ironic it was all the time," Dabi added. "Then we got Hawks who seemed to actually enjoy our company, but he was a plant by the Commission. Everything was just so messed up all the time. Nothing was like how it was supposed to be."
"Well, I'm just surprised that Toga kept getting through the UA gates all the time without getting caught. I mean, she's good, but Principal Nezu is Principal Nezu, and—" Denki stopped short, both in speech and his forward progression as his mind caught up with his words. "Uh, guys?" he squeaked. "Is Principal Nezu—?"
"Oh, look!" Shigaraki blurted, interrupting Denki's question and pointing ahead. "We're here! You were so right, Denki! Walking instead of using the warp gates is refreshing!"
Denki squinted his eyes in suspicion at Shigaraki's dramatic behavior, knowing that he was trying to be distracted from his line of questioning. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and allowed the smile to slide naturally onto his face. "Oh, Shigs. Flattery will get you everywhere!" he crowed, batting his eyelashes as he flung himself in Shigaraki's direction, only to be intercepted by Dabi wrapping him in a headlock and roughing up his hair as Denki laughingly tried to escape.
"You trying to steal my boyfriend out from under my nose?!" Dabi huffed, not letting up as they rough-housed on the sidewalk.
"Which one?" Denki asked on a wheeze, making Dabi pause. "One of my soulmates is a collector of blondes, you know," Denki continued as he caught his breath. "He's been working on adding Bakugou and Toga to his collection. It's only a matter of time until he sets his sights on Ha—" his speech turned into a shriek as Shigaraki helped Dabi sweep Denki off his feet, most likely to whisk him off to his untimely demise when a door opened adjacent to the sidewalk they were all making a ruckus on.
Recovery Girl stood in the doorway on the porch of her home, looking out at the group.
Dabi and Shigaraki stood, huffing with the effort of wrangling a squirming Denki, hair in their faces as their hands were otherwise occupied with the defected hero in their grasp. Denki was screeching and yelling out vague threats, sparks dancing across his body in a fantastic, intimidating show, but getting nowhere near close enough to actually harm his companions. Isozan was standing a few feet away, watching with endless amusement, and giving pointers to both sides.
"Tell them about that time on the mountain!" was one of his suggestions to Denki that had Denki's eyes lighting up, his mouth opening to do just that (with about a million embellishments, Dabi and Shigaraki were sure) when Dabi slapped a hand over Denki's mouth to not hear the incriminating evidence any further.
"Yeah!" Isozan cheered from the sidelines. "Slam him to the ground!"
The villains smirked at each other and did as they were instructed, Denki's eyes widening as he felt the change in gravity as he was forced downward, his instincts merging with his quirk to zap him the two feet down rather than to let the villains put them there themselves, which was what Isozan's end goal was the whole time.
He whooped, jumping up and down. "That was so cool! Do it again!"
Recovery Girl cleared her throat, making all four hooligans freeze in place and look in her direction.
"I'm taking bets," Isozan offered impulsively.
"Denki wins. I bet my services," she said.
Isozan smiled, and the chaos resumed.
Denki's quirk ended up "not working" somehow, so he was unable to escape the two villains pinning him to the sidewalk. (Maybe Aizawa was in the area? Maybe he got struck with a stray Eri-bullet that hadn't been pulled from the market? Maybe he overheard the bet and threw the match? Who knows?)
Isozan got healed with little fanfare or negotiation needed.
Denki cried while in Isozan's care when he learned that he had two soulmates. Isozan cried while in Denki's care when he learned that he could be more than a glorified battery pack for Neito.
-.-.-
"Talk," Denki demanded, sitting down across from the two men.
They were dressed down in casual wear, but still looked out of place just by how tense they looked. A lot were riding on this meeting going well, so it was hard for them to relax. They wore that tension on their shoulders.
They sat in a dim corner of the bustling casino, roped off but not entirely sheltered from the main floor—just enough so that the main foot traffic wasn't bumping into them as they passed by.
The men glanced around, looking for Hitoshi and Neito, most likely. Or maybe member of the League of Villains. They must have realized that their efforts would be fruitless because they focused back on Denki pretty quickly, almost zeroing in on him and refusing to move their eyes even a centimeter away, like they were afraid of accidentally seeing a member of the League wander by when they weren't supposed to.
"Why here?" Nato asked after clearing his throat and leaning forward over the table to be heard more clearly without raising his voice too loudly over the noise. "We thought that you'd pick somewhere more… open."
Denki's lips twitched into a smile as he shrugged in a non-answer. "I'm surprised you let me pick at all."
"This isn't a trick or a trap or anything," Nato said. "So, we figured we'd let you set the stage as an act of goodwill. Start off on the right foot."
Denki's eyes switched between the two of them. "So, where's the rest of you, then? Hiding throughout the casino?"
"No. It's just us," Nato stated.
"I know," Denki admitted.
Nato and Takaga shared a look. "If you knew, then why did you ask?" Takaga asked, finally speaking up and contributing to the conversation.
"Just wanted to see what you'd say, I guess. To see if you'd bluff. I still don't know why only you two came," Denki said.
"We're the only two left," Nato said, answering Denki's unspoken question. When Denki squinted, in either confusion or suspicion, Nato continued, "you're looking at the president and the PR guy. There's currently…" Nato paused, seeming to mentally count before giving up, "a lot of openings for agents right now. So many people royally screwed up so many things. Your case being a major one."
Denki put his elbows on the table, putting his lips against his fingers as he furrowed his brow in concentration as he watched them as they explained.
"At every turn, with every decision, they just made it worse. United Nations got involved, cleared the whole agency out, and we're the only two left, now. So, now we get to do it our way," Nato said.
"You should have never been declared a defected hero," Takaga said. "We want to fully reinstate you. To do that, we need help bringing in the League of Villains."
Denki laughed harshly. "You think—?!"
"You don't have to decide now. You can think about it," Nato said, holding his hands out in a placating gesture.
But Denki did pause and think, looking around the room where he knew his companions were hidden. He turned back toward the two Hero Public Safety Commission agents.
"Counteroffer," Denki said, and dove into his plans, the two men leaning forward to soak in every word, eyes never straying, not because they had to force them to, but because they couldn't tear them away if they tried.
Across the casino, the woman shifted her head from side to side, getting a good view of the room not only from what she could see in front of her, but also taking advantage of the sparse reflections she could see. A window here, that man's glasses there. It gave her a pretty wide view of the room, even with her back to a big portion of it.
Shifting her head back to the center, she focused on the cards in her hand, feeling the soft tresses of her wavy, shoulder-length hair sweep against the bare tops of her shoulders, almost looking like the hair was a paint brush leaving freckles of paint behind. She felt like a masterpiece sitting in that stool, sporting the low-cut, sexy red dress. The black fishnets might have been overkill, but—oh, who was she kidding? They weren't overkill at all! They were perfect! She was perfect.
She had all eyes on her for once.
It was strange.
Usually, when she wore someone else, she was trying to avoid being detected, trying to avoid attention at all costs. This time, though, the goal was to be noticed.
She blinked slowly, painting a deliberate smile on red lips that perfectly matched her dress as she leaned slightly toward her companion, eyes flickering in his direction.
He nodded.
She sighed.
Was this what heaven felt like?
"All in," she rasped, putting her cards face down on the table and pushing all of her tokens into the pile in the middle.
The group held their breath. The men who were so smug at the beginning had no idea what to do now, did they? The woman held in her laugh but couldn't help her smile.
It was too bad security had to come ruin their fun.
"Kobaru Maediri," the security officer announced as he stood behind the woman, invading her space. "First time you've tried to sneak in forgoing an actual disguise," he commented.
She licked her lips and smiled, answering to him without turning around. "It's because I'm the distraction," she admitted, reaching in front of her to flip her cards over, displaying her losing hand. She cackled as the security officer took hold of her arm and began to drag her away, yelling, "I don't even know how to play that game!" over her shoulder. Another security officer reached for her companion, but he stood up, lifted his hands in easy surrender, and followed without further ordeal.
Toga could have learned how to play the game to really get into character, but it wasn't necessary to go to her normal lengths for this particular mission. Especially not with the endless wealth of Endeavor's that she had access to. She could lose all night long and still barely make a dent. And she really, really, really didn't have to play the part of Maediri besides just wearing her face, so she figured she'd have fun with it instead of spending time learning how to gamble when it wasn't in the cards. Pun fully intended.
She cackled at her own thoughts as the security officer led her to the back room, passing Denki who was meeting with the HPSC agents as she went. She shot him a wink, and he nodded at her in acknowledgment before going back to whatever he was discussing with the agents. It looked serious, whatever it was. Toga was just glad they hadn't jumped him and that the place wasn't crawling with HPSC lackeys. Small blessings.
Toga trailed her fingers along the back of an identical neck as she passed; the clone was decked out in a wig and faux glasses, though, so they weren't an identical match in every sense. The clone turned and smiled. The security officer turned to apologize, then did a double take. He stopped in his tracks and looked between the two.
"Is my sister causing you any trouble?" the one next to the clone asked, turning to see what the commotion was about.
Seemingly an identical twin. Yet another clone.
The security officer furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at the three women in front of him.
"Don't think too hard," Toga warned. "We just got into the good graces of the public. It wouldn't look good for us to go around causing people to self-destruct."
The security officer's face fell. "League of Villains?" he ventured.
"Got it in one!" one of Twice's clones crowed, hopping up from her spot at the slots.
"You could have picked literally anyone other than Kobaru," the security officer stressed, immediately taking his hands off of Toga and looking around to see if anyone else was heading in their direction to intervene. "Everyone knows her face. She's either to be kicked out, or… well, with how often she keeps sneaking back in, the Omotos are going to demand to see her when it's reported that she's here again. That's not a situation you want to find yourselves in."
"Except that's exactly the situation we want to find ourselves in," Toga said with a shrug. "Lead the way, yeah? We'll give you a five-star review and everything!"
"You should get a raise for this!" one of the clones chimed in.
"Definitely!" the other added helpfully. "You're totally doing us a solid, here!"
He turned to look at Toga's companion who had been hanging back, observing. "You, too? Last chance to back out."
"The whole reason they're doing this is for me," Isozan said. "They're my ticket into the room."
The security officer looked around at the group before looking toward the back of the casino, hesitant. It was a chance the group took, laying it all out on the table to a guy on the inside like that. The little fork pin pinned proudly on his uniform glinting under the dim casino lights with every shift of his weight as he considered his options made them confident that they made the right decision.
"They won't be a problem after tonight," Isozan said. "You'll be safe."
The security officer took a breath, steeled himself, nodded, and lead the way.
"You think that'll work?" Nato asked. "That's a big risk you're taking that riding on a lot of assumptions."
Denki shrugged. "It's worth it," he said, leaving no room for compromise. His eyes followed a group of what seemed to be triplets and a man led by a security officer and he hopped up. "That's my next appointment!"
Takaga snorted. "You stacked your meetings? That's why you decided to meet here? What's so important that you're cutting this short?"
"We're taking out the Omotos," Denki said with a mischievous grin, like he didn't just proclaim that he was going to be bringing down a major crime organization like it was no big deal. "Want in? You have about five seconds to decide!" Denki offered before leaping up from his seat and speed walking after the group.
Takaga and Nato looked at each other, stricken. Then, intrigued. Then, they nodded, stood up, and rushed after Denki, wondering if there was going to be any members of the HPSC after this little venture they were getting themselves into. But what better way to garner Denki's trust than to thrust themselves into an impromptu mission?
They pushed through the doors that the group had entered through seconds earlier, the security officer quickly taking his leave.
"—real Kobaru is not here?"
"Oh, she's here," the woman in the red dress mused, seemingly delighted despite the dangerous situation she was in. "She's out there, gambling away! Good luck finding her, though! There're still about fifteen more disguised clones to help muddle things a bit!"
"Why are you doing this?" the older woman on the other side of the room asked. She did seem genuinely confused. "We have no issue with the League."
"You don't recognize me?" Isozan asked, stepping forward. Denki rushed forward to join his side. "Maybe a reminder…" Isozan reached out without taking his eyes off of the woman and touched Denki's arm.
Electricity crackled along Denki's skin unbidden.
"Isozan," the woman said, recognition flashing in her eyes before she schooled her face once again. "I do recognize that little party trick," she sneered, "but I have an electric type of my own, so I'm afraid you've sacrificed your little friend for nothing." She gestured to her side without taking her eyes off of the threats in front of her and a young man joined her at her side, bright blue electric whips extending down his hands and cracking in the air.
Denki looked over at Isozan, then, a look of delayed understanding crossing his features.
"Dude," he drawled, ignoring the rest of the room. "I see where you get the whole being ignorant to current events thing from!"
Despite everything, Isozan's mouth quirked up into a smile as he turned to look at Denki. He laughed and shook his head, incredulous, wondering how he could be laughing and having fun at such a tense time, and knowing that he wouldn't want any others by his side except the League and, well, those who are League-adjacent if not considered part of the League itself.
"Yeah," Isozan exhaled. "I guess so. Isn't that right?" he asked, turning back to look at the woman across the room. "Mom?"
Recap of the last 100 Chapters:
Denki heard soulmate voices in his head, but instead of only hearing one, he heard two at the same time, which knocked him on his ass (literally)! Because it's rare to find your soulmate so young, and even rarer to have two soulmates, the doctor told his parents that he most likely has early onset schizophrenia and is hallucinating (even though that's rare for such a young age, too), but marks in his chart the potential that he might have heard his soulmates just so that the possibility can be explored more discreetly, once he's away from his parents and so no one's getting their hopes up just for it to not be true.
Denki is sent to Fields Mental Hospital where he meets Momo, Kyoka, and Touya and jams out during music therapy. Back in school, Hitoshi and Neito hear Denki sing and the general consensus is that Hitoshi's mental quirk is interacting with their new soulmate bond, so they are sent to Fields Mental Hospital to do some testing with Hitoshi's quirk and their bond to see if they can determine what is going on. My OC, Hitoshi's foster care caseworker, Wakakuro, is mentioned, but not actively introduced. Denki gets to meet Neito and Hitoshi. Neito lives up to his reputation as a frequent flier of Fields. An OC technician, Chizato, is introduced. He has a lighthearted, easygoing relationship with frequent flier, Neito.
Neito doesn't act like he normally does around Hitoshi and Denki, and Touya wants to find out what's going on. Denki and Neito are amazed that Touya was trained by Endeavor, so they get Touya to agree to train them after catching him up about how they had arrived on the unit together (and how it actually wasn't Neito's fault, for once). The QQQ (Quick, Quiet Quad) was formed, training regimens were made, and code names were dished out. Neito was deemed "Raion," meaning lion. Denki was deemed "Tensai," meaning genius. Touya was deemed "Aka," meaning red. Hitoshi's code name was deemed "Seigen," meaning limit.
Hitoshi and Neito go through quirk-bond experiments after roping Touya and Denki into the mix. Hitoshi and Denki are amazed at how easily Neito and Touya can stand up for themselves against adults and how the adults actually listen to them and respect them because they are both used to following adults' blind authority.
After being released from Fields, Hitoshi get placed with new foster parents, more of my OCs, the Hamabi family, consisting of his foster father, Genori, and foster mother, Hanisu. They are pretty great, but Hitoshi also had to move schools after finding his soulmate, but he luckily finds himself at Denki's school! They go on a field trip to the zoo and have a great time after locating and rescuing Neito from a group of bullies who target him because of his quirk.
Neito's birthday party consists of only Denki and Hitoshi. They practice using Hitoshi's quirk and careful instructions to add to Touya's continued training programs to add an extra level to the piñata. Denki's birthday party is fun because Neito and Hitoshi look out for him and don't let his other "friends" ruin his day. Denki secretly invites the others from Fields (Kyoka, Momo, Ochako, Minoru, Tenya, and Izuku) to Hitoshi's birthday party, knowing that no one from class will show up. Neito gets ahold of Endeavor's phone number to track down Touya so that he can crash the slumber party to hold an impromptu training the next morning. Touya dies.
Neito and Hitoshi distance themselves from Denki after they discover that they feel the same about Denki as they feel about each other. Denki spends some time with his other friends from Fields, but ultimately finds new hobbies, like playing online video games and making TikTok videos.
Neito, Hitoshi, and Denki all make it into UA. Denki and Neito face off in a battle where Neito steals his quirk with the plan to outdo him with his own quirk in front of both hero classes, but it backfires spectacularly, and Denki jumps in to undo the damage as much as possible. Bakugou is a good friend to Denki, and even though he doesn't understand what he sees in Neito and Hitoshi, he provides Denki with some much-needed catharsis in the form of junk yard therapy. Denki makes a new connection with Shouto, and then promptly destroys the gym by almost reconnecting with Neito, getting caught almost kissing him by Hitoshi and freaking out by assuming that he must hate him for getting in between the soulmates.
The sports festival happens, Bakugou wins, and he is thrown onto stage in chains and muzzled for the effort. This is more important that whatever is going on between Denki and the soulmates, so Denki puts this all aside and asks Hitoshi and Neito for their help in leading another demonstration, which is pretty damn successful and also has the added benefit of having the whole school pretty competent with sign language (which is used to their benefit throughout the fic, like when going to rescue Denki from the League and when making sure there are no bugs in the room before speaking to each other).
The students are shipped off to Beasts Forest for the training camp and Neito goes wild. On top of his classes from studying with Denki instead of being preoccupied with harassing Class 1-A, Neito is able to participate in the festivities, and so he is in the forest when the League of Villains attack. Neito is an absolute menace and takes every advantage, copying Twice's quirk to make a clone of Bakugou so they kidnap a clone instead of the real thing. He also copies Toga's quirk and turns into Toga during a scuffle with her, but Denki is able to quickly tell them apart. Mr. Compress makes quick work of knocking Neito out and taking Denki as another captive, though.
The League of Villains find out quickly that Denki is the only student they have because the Bakugou they have is a clone. Denki recognizes that Dabi is Touya immediately and starts to worm his way into the hearts of the members of the League, one by one, starting with Shigaraki once Dabi figures out that Denki is none other than their online gaming friend that they've been playing regularly with for years. Denki declares his friends as off-limits, and my OC, Force Majeure, is introduced, using her quirk, Compulsion, to protect Denki from being suspected as a traitor to UA when he is ultimately returned. During the botched rescue, Shigaraki is electrocuted, and Denki ends up performing CPR and acting as an impromptu AED. He can't tell anyone anything because of Force Majeure's quirk, so everyone thinks that he's been tortured instead of that he's worried that he wasn't able to rescue Shigaraki.
Hitoshi gets moved from his current placement with his foster parents, the Hamabis, to his pre-adoptive family including Aizawa and Yamada. Hitoshi and Neito are able to cheer Denki up, and after a visit from Toga (which Denki, at first, mistakes as a visual hallucination) in which he learns that Shigaraki had survived and is alive, he is back to his cheerful self. Hitoshi and Neito find out about Denki's time with the League of Villains by going through his TikTok drafts, and Denki tells them some about what actually happened with the League. The boys start seeing evidence of the League's intentions in action through their internships when villains refuse to go against or injure them. My OC, Full Throttle, is mentioned, as he is the cause of the building collapse that Denki meets my other OC, Razor, in.
Hitoshi and Neito confess their feelings to Denki and invite Denki on a waterpark date where they experience some quirk discrimination and run into Toga. During training, Neito and Hitoshi both put Denki under Hitoshi's brainwashing quirk to gather up the nerve to kiss him for the first time.
Denki spends his internship with Hawks and has his suspicions that Hawks is the hero that was sent to infiltrate the League of Villains by the HPSC. Likewise, Hawks requested Denki for his internship to try to get a better read on the League of Villains in the first place to try to make a decision on what he should do, who he should ultimately betray. During internships, Neito is hit by a civilian's quirk in which he says the worst things that come to mind that are not necessarily truthful or things that he means, just things that he knows will cause pain to those hearing his comments. Hitoshi was out with Aizawa on his own internship, so Class 2-B asked Denki to help as a last resort. Everything turned out fine, but Neito was hard on himself until Bakugou took him for some junk yard therapy and blasted some sense into him. Denki corners him during a rescue mission when their internships line up and they are able to talk things out.
Denki is targeted by Full Throttle and being the self-sacrificial type, runs up a mountain to get as far away as possible from everyone else. Hitoshi and Neito go after him. Neito makes a circuit to buy some extra time while Yaoyorozu makes an insulated suit for Hitoshi so he can get close enough through all the lightning, then Hitoshi puts Denki under his quirk and commands him to shut it off, and it actually works. They make it down the mountain successfully surviving Full Throttle, something that has never been done before.
Hawks teaches Denki how to turn into lightning by pushing him past every limit he has ever known. The League of Villains corner Hawks into bringing Denki to them during patrol where it finally comes out that Denki and the League are familiar and friendly with each other, and it wasn't what Hawks thought it was. Denki discovers that he is being targeted by the HPSC and seeks out a contract with Endeavor, which he successfully wins by proving that he's the new fastest hero on the scene. He's great at his job—the smiling face of the company. Hawks is officially labelled as a missing hero and his undercover mission is blasted on the news, obviously a scheme by the HPSC to get him killed by the League if he is still with them when it airs.
Denki is targeted by Full Throttle again, out to finish what he started, this time with my OC, Phantasm, added to the mix. We learn that Full Throttle's quirk can cut through quirk-canceling technology. Hitoshi and Neito finally meet the League of Villains and find out that Dabi is actually Touya. Light-hearted threats to Dabi's life are made. Denki is rescued and everything promptly goes to shit when the heroes intervene, causing a lot of collateral damage with their dramatic entry. Toga is separated from her escape route, and Denki gets her to pose as him to spare her from Tartarus.
Tartarus sucks and is super corrupt. No one believes Denki when he tries to tell them that he is actually himself, even after days have gone past without him "switching back" into Toga and the real Toga makes an appearance as herself on the outside. The other prisoners call him the "people's hero" and give him information about what it has been like on the inside for them. Eventually, when it seems like they are starting to suspect that he might be himself, they lock him in a room with my OC, Full Throttle. Denki convinces Full Throttle to use his quirk on him again to burn through the quirk-nullifying drug and blasts them both out of there, making history as the first ever successful escape from Tartarus.
Hitoshi and Neito go to find Denki to release him from the effects of Full Throttle but get sidetracked by a distraction caused by a HPSC agent in the form of a metro tunnel collapse. Neito finds a metro car full of injured civilians and villains (including my OCs, Razor and Haze) and acts as a mediator instead of going in like a hothead and coming out with even more injuries. Eventually, the civilians take it upon themselves to work together with the villains to get themselves out safety so they can send Neito onward to meet up with Hitoshi and get to Denki faster. Hitoshi ran into my OC, Wakakuro, who was his foster care caseworker and who was absolutely terrified to see him, convinced that he was a villain that was going to take revenge on him for using the muzzle on him or something. Hitoshi talked his way through Wakakuro's fear by revealing his relationship to other heroes as he worked to cut him free, talking about how he himself had been put under his own quirk thanks to Neito's Copy quirk, and offered the same to prevent Wakakuro from inhaling too much dust from the increased breathing rate his panic was causing him, which Wakakuro ultimately took up the offer on. All that effort went to hell when Neito showed up with Razor and Haze, though, but at least Haze got the dust to settle with his Fog quirk and Razor cut Wakakuro free with his Sharpening quirk.
Hitoshi and Neito finally make it to Denki, who collapses just before they get to him, six hours after Full Throttle took effect. Once back at the League's base, Isozan (aka my OC, Full Throttle) and Wakakuro recognize each other because Wakakuro was also Isozan's and Uretori's (aka Phantasm) foster care caseworker when they were in the system before they were adopted by the Omotos who turned out to be part of a large crime organization who wanted the children for their quirks. We learn that Wakakuro has had a traumatic run-in with a mind-control quirk-user (Isozan and Uretori's biological father), but he has looked out for Hitoshi in the past and has prevented his very situation from happening to him because he puts in a lot of effort to make sure children under his care do not fall into the wrong hands, especially those with powerful quirks who are actively being sought out.
Denki participates in a Live interview for channel six in which he is "abducted" by the League of Villains so that the HPSC cannot interfere and get their hands on him. Hitoshi and Neito are taken in for questioning and then taken to Fields once again for a 72-hour hold in which they have a good time and even run into the Hamabis' current foster daughter, Tohiro, who was there for a quirk analysis and evaluation. Denki makes a lot of wild TikToks (lol).
Despite everything, Chargebolt ranks as ninth in the hero ratings, but the HPSC shoves Bakugou into that position to try to smother the good publicity surrounding Denki. This is a mistake because Bakugou uses his new position of power to fully support Denki and his new affiliations; no one had felt comfortable enough to outwardly do this before because of the pressure of the HPSC, but they went and handed a lot of power to Bakugou on a silver platter, and he was damned if he wasn't going to use it.
Isozan (aka Full Throttle) gets diagnosed through Tohiro and figures out what caused his quirk malfunction (the fact that he can only use it once every two weeks). Uretori (aka Phantasm) released her quirk in the middle of the night and tried to convince the League to kick her out. Everyone decides that the Omotos have to be taken down to relieve the siblings' anxiety and just for the sake of justice in general. Toga disguises herself as Kobaru Maediri (my OC who was first seen on the adult unit at Fields and whose quirk, Seek, was first mentioned when the trio was playing cards and they questioned if there were any quirks that helped with poker) who is banned from the casino to get herself and her companions to the back room to address the head of the Omoto organization. Meanwhile, Denki meets with the HPSC who apologize for everything he has been through, offer to reinstate him, and ask for his help to take down the League of Villains.
Now that we're all caught up, let's move on to Chapter 101! 3
A/N: OCs in this chapter:
Nato Hachisho – PR manager for HPSC
Takaga Mayori – HPSC agent
Kobaru Maediri – Quirk: Seek, former patient on the Adult Unit at Fields who interacted with Neito and Hitoshi, habitual troublemaker for casinos due to the nature of how her quirk can be used
Omoto Sezuno Isozan – Quirk: Full Throttle
Omoto Sezuno Uretori (aka Phantasm) – Quirk: Hallucinogenic Gas