"We need something to keep their hands busy, or I'm going to end up like Deku next," Full Throttle hissed backwards toward his companions in crime.
Razor's eyes locked on something shiny and purple and decided to enact the first of many demands. "Yo, Grape Juice!" he yelled, immediately getting the attention of the short hero who approached slowly, cautiously. "Give each of our hostages one of those," Razor demanded, pointing vaguely at his own head to show what he meant. "The conscious ones at least."
To their surprise, Grape Juice shrugged, pulled off two of the pop-off balls from the top of his head, and walked around the outside circle of the group, making sure to keep a comfortable distance while also being within a good tossing distance to get the intended object to the intended target. He didn't even try to "accidentally" miss and hit the villains behind the hostages instead. It was a little too easy if the villains had anything to say about it.
The little girl currently sitting on the ground in front of Full Throttle easily caught the ball, gave a hesitant little sniff and wiped the tears from her face with her arms without removing her hands from the ball, and then gave a wondrous little laugh that seemingly escaped her throat without permission. It would have been a very cute moment if any press were still around to capture it on film, showing the world how the villains didn't care who they took captive in their mission to tear the world down, including this cute, innocent, little girl.
Then the girl experimentally bounced the ball on the pavement in front of her.
Haze groaned. "What the f–"
"Language!" the old man hissed, already knowing what was coming.
What was his quirk anyway? Some kind of fortune telling, maybe? Probably not, considering all of the times they found themselves tied up with villains. Twice more than the usual person was the running tally so far, by Haze's count.
"Why isn't your quirk working?" Haze asked then, directed to Grape Juice.
"It is," Grape Juice said, a fine line of offense running straight through the words as he sniffed with indignation. "The stickiness depends on my mood."
Haze groaned. Of course it did.
"Well, we didn't know that!"
"Why would I make that public knowledge?" Grape Juice shot back.
"Why would we essentially ask for bouncy balls for our hostages?!" Haze argued back, exasperation clearly in his voice.
The old man watching the argument with amusement not well-hidden on his face wasn't helping.
"Well, our other option was UNO," Ingenium offered on his approach from his successful crowd-control mission if the now-empty streets were any indication, "so I thought it was very creative!"
"... What?" was Haze's intelligent response.
Full Throttle groaned. "Fork Brigade?" he guessed.
"Reporting for duty!" Uravity chimed.
"Put the poker chips back!" Ingenium demanded suddenly, sounding oddly like a disappointed father figure.
The villains turned to see an approaching Creati and Earphone Jack, the latter holding a silver box that probably had the said poker chips. Earphone Jack stopped in her tracks and made a vague noise of displeasure, but no actual words left her mouth.
Ingenium responded to the weird communication effort anyway, like he understood exactly. "She's a child! We're not gambling with a child!"
"Have you seen her acting skills?" Deku chimed from where he lay slumped in Razor's grip, eyes still closed, making Razor startle. "If we risk gambling with this child, we will lose. Her poker face will be unlike anything you've experienced before, I guarantee it. It's best we don't take the risk."
"Oh, but we can take the risk of playing UNO with villains in broad daylight?" Earphone Jack demanded, settling down in front of Deku where he still visibly looked unconscious.
Razor gave him a shake. "Would you knock it off? You're freaking the kid out."
Deku snorted. "You call yourself 'the kid' in third person?" But he did open his eyes and look up at Razor, squinting against the sun shining through the clouds, laughing outright when he saw Razor's unimpressed look. "She's fine," Deku said. "Like I said before, her acting skills are off the charts."
Razor looked over at the girl who once again wiped the residual tears off her face and preened under the praise.
"That was all an act? All of it?" Razor gasped, looking down at Deku who continued to lounge in Razor's lap like he was on vacation or something. "You were in on it from the start?! She never even used her quirk on you!" he said as he came to the realization, inhaling dramatically as he pushed Deku off of his lap, losing his bargaining chip entirely, but it's not like he really had one to begin with anyway.
Deku went easily, rolling into a coordinated tumble, laughing as he went.
"Deal me in," Razor demanded, scotting himself sideways to make the starting semblance of a circle.
"Use the chips if you want," Full Throttle said as he and the girl joined the circle. He gave her a nudge as he sat down next to her. "It won't be the first time I've lost to a little girl, and I'm sure it won't be the last."
"Oh," said Ingenium, perking up. "That's a good thought, actually. It's a noble cause to go all in, regardless of the projected outcome, and give it your all, regardless if you might lose. That actually seems very Plus Ultra now that I think about it–"
"Gambling with a child?" Uravity interrupted.
"Well, when you put it like that…" Ingenium conceded.
"Uravity," the girl whined. "I was going to take him for all he was worth!"
Uravity shot her an unimpressed glance. "You've been spending too much time with the villains."
"Hey, now! It's not like we're dragging her along by choice! They just kind of show up now!" Haze said.
He was ignored.
"I would have shared my winnings with you, of course," the girl said.
Uravity perked up. Even more so when she got a glimpse at the cards in her hands. "Well, maybe gambling wouldn't be such a terrible idea–"
"Draw four," Creati said, putting the card on the discard pile.
Uravity inhaled sharply. "Momo!" she admonished. "I thought we were friends!"
"We're all friends here in the Fork Brigade," Creati answered diplomatically. "Doesn't mean that I'm not going to absolutely demolish you where you sit, Uravity!"
"What were you saying about gambling?" Full Throttle asked, playing his card with a perfect poker face.
Uravity looked around at the very scary players around her. "Nothing."
Full Throttle hummed. "Yeah, that's what I thought."
Haze played a reverse card and Full Throttle used the opportunity to skip Uravity's turn, making her groan, throwing her head back in pure distress.
"This fight is relentless!" Uravity complained loudly. "The worst villain fight I've been in for a while!"
The villains laughed. The heroes laughed, too. So did the civilians caught in the crossfire. When was the last time she was in a battle where all sides were laughing and no one was getting hurt?
"Turning my comrades against me, even?!" Uravity said as the game was reversed again and Creati threw down a plus two. "Wait–! Is this–Momo… why is this card a different texture than the rest?"
"Oh, nice try Ochako!" Momo said, placing a delicate hand on Uravity's shoulder. "When I cheat, I don't get caught with silly mistakes so obvious such as that, though."
"Can't blame me for trying–when! You said when! Did you hear that, everyone?! She said when she cheats, not if!" Uravity yelled, standing up and pointing a finger in Creati's direction.
"I didn't hear a thing," Earphone Jack said, rushing to cover her ears as if she could stop the evidence from hitting her eardrums retroactively, elbowing Grape Juice next to her for backup.
"Yeah–no. Me neither," Grape Juice said, coughing to cover his laugh.
"UNO!" the little girl called, guarding the final card in her hand close to her chest in case anyone dared to try to see what it was to guard against her near-win.
The players around her screamed.
"How is this possible?!"
"What a sneaky little runt!"
"Did you see what it was?! If we all hold her down–"
"I'm a villain, not a cheater! Cheating at UNO is unforgivable!"
"Oh, but blowing up the metro tunnel isn't?!"
"That wasn't us! How many times have we been over this?!"
"I know that's right!" Creati sang out above the rest of the voices.
It was odd enough and didn't fit in with anything else that everyone else kind of just stopped in their tracks to look over at her as she blinked in concentration at the pile of cards in the middle of the group.
"Phase one is complete," Creati announced, looking at Deku, but the villains lost some tension in their shoulders when they heard, too. "They're running into some issues with phase two."
"Phase one was supposed to be the hard part, right?" Full Throttle whispered to Haze and Razor, only to get worried shrugs in response. "Why would they have trouble with phase two if phase one is completed already?"
Creati took out the communication device and passed it over to Deku who didn't hesitate to put it into his own ear, pressing the button at his temple.
"Deku here. What's the situation, exactly?"
-.-.-
"What the fuck?!" Dabi bellowed as he and Hawks came through the warp gate. "Denki?! What the fuck are you doing?!" Blue flames flaring before being extinguished altogether as he reached out to his lover.
As the warp gate faded, Kurogiri warped himself to the same location, ever Shigaraki's servant. That was Bakugou's cue. Dabi and Hawks barely spared them a glance, even as the explosions started and Bakugou immediately went for Kurogiri. Neither of them seemed concerned with the trap they had just walked into, intent solely focused on their lover lying in the grass in front of them.
Before Dabi and Hawks could reach Shigaraki, Denki stepped into their path, making the flames reignite once again.
"Get out of my way," Dabi snarled.
"Please," Hawks tacked on, taking the more pleading route while Dabi took the demanding route.
Dabi wasn't yelling, but it was clear that he was leaving no room for argument. Denki and Dabi went way back, but even Denki was aware that if he did not move, he might not make it out of this encounter alive.
Well, if that's what it took.
He knew what he signed up for.
They all did.
"It's fine, Dabi!" Denki tried to placate, putting his hands up and still refusing to move out of his way. "Hawks! It's fine!"
When Dabi made to move around, or maybe to just barrel right through Denki if he wouldn't move out of the way, and Hawks countered by going to the other side around Denki, Denki activated his quirk, and in a flash of light and in a boom of thunder, he was at Shigaraki's side once again.
"Don't touch him!" Dabi yelled, voice cracking with the effort and the emotion, the desperation. "Don't touch him."
Denki ignored him, reaching out to Shigaraki's lax body and activating his quirk again only to reappear with Shigaraki across the field.
He stood up, holding his hand out toward Dabi and Hawks.
"Touya, Hawks," he called out across the distance, voice steady, holding his hand out in a stop motion. "You know I can do this for hours. I can play keep away and just keep talking in fragments until I say what I need to say, or you can just stay there and listen instead of dragging this out and wasting time. What will it be?"
The flames got bigger, but Dabi made no move toward him. Hawks shifted from side to side. His wings quaked and flexed, but no feathers shot off in Denki's direction, so he took that as a good sign.
Denki nodded more to himself than to the two across the field and continued in a loud voice to be heard over the larger distance. "I know this isn't going to be easy for you, but you need to know that Shigaraki's okay with all of this. He had all of this planned out. His life and All For One's in exchange for full pardons for the League."
"No—!" Dabi automatically tried to deny, but Denki nodded off to his right, so Dabi looked over in that direction and saw up on the incline, his brother, Shouto, standing right next to Hitoshi. Behind them was the recognizable figure of Present Mic and less recognizable figures, but those who he knew to be a detective and two Hero Public Safety Commission agents. "No," Dabi repeated with less energy, less sure of himself. Hawks reached out a hesitant hand and placed it delicately on Dabi's shoulder in a show of solidarity, careful to avoid any active flames that had yet to be extinguished.
"Shigaraki knew that All For One was going to take his body over, so he figured he could set you all up and take him down at the same time," Denki said. "I'm really, really sorry I kept this from you, but he knew you wouldn't understand, and you would try to stop him."
"Of fucking course, I would!" Dabi screeched, throat pained with the effort, taking a half-step forward, causing Hawks's hand to drop back down to his side. "He's my soulmate!"
"But he's not!" Denki screamed back, matching Dabi's energy. "Hawks is your soulmate, and I know this is going to hurt, but you're going to be fine! You and Hawks will have each other to lean on, and you'll get over this!"
"Fuck you, Denki!" Dabi said, taking a full step closer, flames flying higher. "Fuck you for saying that and fuck you for helping him do this! I'll never forgive you!"
Dabi moved forward again as Hawks shot some feathers forward, and Denki zapped himself and Shigaraki further away again. Dabi screamed in frustration—no words, just a sound of pure hatred.
"It's too late, anyway!" Denki said, throat clogged with emotions as tears fell down his face. "I'm sorry, Touya. He's gone! He hasn't had a pulse since we left the hideout. I made sure of it."
"You're lying! It's not too late! There's still time!" Dabi shrieked. "What kind of fucking hero are you?!"
Hawks watched with guarded eyes, feathers floating, indecisiveness clear on his face for all to read. Denki knew he was trying to figure out if there was some hidden motive going on, and beyond that, taking in all the available options he had for actions he could take.
"Even if there was a chance, he'd be brain dead, and you know it! There's no coming back from this!" Denki screamed.
"You know you have to let us try," Hawks said, trying to play on Denki's heroic side. "We would let you if our positions were reversed."
"Yeah," Denki said, letting his voice drop, letting himself be cruel for once. "Because Hitoshi and Neito are actually my soulmates and I wouldn't be able to live with myself otherwise, but Shigaraki. Is. Not. Your. Soulmate. How many times do I–?"
A stray, red feather flew by Denki's face, ripping his communication device from his ear. Denki immediately dropped down, placing his hands on Shigaraki once again and activating his quirk to move out of the way. It would be hard to stay out of the way of the feathers, and now that his communication was cut off, he knew that the soulmates in front of him were going to go all in. Play time was over.
Too bad there was another way for him to communicate. Because, he thought cruelly, Hitoshi and Neito were actually his soulmates. He wasn't just playing make-believe like Hawks and Dabi were with Shigaraki all this time.
"Everybody wants to change the world Everybody wants to change the world But no one, no one wants to die" Denki sang.
"Wanna try," Hitoshi sang from the hilltop before sending Shouto down to join the fray.
"Wanna try," Neito sang from the bottom level of Tartarus, eyes on an unresponsive high-level villain, just to show his support, wondering why Denki was reverting back to singing rather than using the high-tech communication devices that Hatsume worked so hard on.
"Wanna try," Denki echoed, the tension leaving his form as fast as it came, knowing that his soulmates were there for him.
At the same time, he ached for his two opponents, knowing that they must be hurting. Still, he pushed that down. He had a mission to accomplish.
Feathers rushed him from behind, and were promptly blocked by a thick dome of ice that surrounded him on all sides. Ice so thick and dense that it would take minutes for the feathers to drill through, and Denki doubted that Hawks actually wanted to kill him. No, the goal was to get to Shigaraki and try to render aid. Even so, once any feathers would force their way through, Denki would just have to lightning zap their way out and Shouto could make a new dome over them and keep repeating until they gave up.
Hopefully.
Denki sighed in relief when he heard the sound of explosions shift, knowing that Bakugou successfully secured Kurogiri and joined Shouto in his fight.
Denki sung to drown out the noise, wincing at the sounds of fire and fighting outside, "Wanna try, wanna try, now I'll be your detonator."
"What happened?" Neito asked, pressing the button at his temple once his turn with Erasure was over.
"Hawks got the coms off of Denki. Shouto is in play, now. Denki is with Shigaraki's body under the dome. Everything's fine," Hitoshi reported.
Everything was physically fine, sure. But what Denki was doing was sure to be rough on him emotionally. Neito wished there was a way to check in on his mental state.
If I were a fish
"Oh, no!" Neito lightheartedly complained through the coms, laughter already on his lips. "I swear every time this song finally leaves my head, there he goes again!"
And damn it all to hell, did Hitoshi really just hold down the button on his communication device just to transmit his laughter through?
I'd be a fish with a top hat, and a cape, and vampire teeth, and I'd bite you on the neck, and turn you into a fish next.
"Oh, well that's different!" Neito commented. "I don't think I've heard this version, yet."
And if I were a rock, you'd be a rock, too. We'd both be rocks living in a rock zoo, and people'd pay to see a couple rocks just like you and me.
"Then you're in for a treat!" Hitoshi responded, the delight clear in his tone. "Hey, tell Toga to record your reaction for me!"
And they would say why did we pay sixteen dollars each to see a couple rocks sit in a zoo. This rock zoo don't seem legit. I think they're laundering money for the mob or some shit.
"Bite me!" Neito responded.
"I'm not the vampire fish in this equation!" Hitoshi immediately retorted, quick on his feet with the response. "That's Denki's job!"
And we'd plan our escape from the zoo, that's true. We'd sneak out in the night, find a canoe, and we'd hold that zookeeper hostage, and threaten to kill his wife and his kids.
"When has he ever minded?" Neito retorted back lightly, just to have the last word, and he was sure that everyone else who had access to their airwaves was completely confused because they didn't have access to their soulmate's singing. Risking a look over at Aizawa and Toga, though, they just seemed mildly amused, like they knew if it was important, he'd tell them, so it must just be some lighthearted soulmate business.
"But the zookeeper, he had a secret plan. He done planted dynamite there underneath the land. When that dynamite goes off, we both died. Couple dead rocks," Denki sang to Shigaraki's body, wondering how the fight was progressing and wondering what his soulmates were doing at that very second.
"Dead as you, huh, All For One?" Denki mused, forcing himself to keep talking as to not stress about the fight going on outside. "Maybe you should have taken my quirk and killed me when you had the chance all those years ago. I bet you're really regretting it now. Hey! You still in there?!" Denki asked louder, tapping on Shigaraki's forehead.
Shigaraki's head shifted limply with the light force behind the taps, and Denki sighed as if bored by the lack of response.
"I thought you'd be more of a challenge, really," Denki rambled. "I thought Deku was nuts when he said that my lightning would knock you out, you know? I told him that you must have some kind of insulation quirk hoarded in there somewhere, but he was pretty sure that you wouldn't have all your hoarded quirks right away when you transitioned into Shigaraki's body and they'd take time to be pulled in from your old one. Hey–why'd you pick Shigaraki anyway? I think I'm a pretty strong contender–Don't tell my soulmates I said that! But I guess you never really liked my quirk or anything, but hey, I mean, Shigaraki was quirkless, right? So I guess I don't know why you picked him, either. Maybe you thought he would go down without a fight? Well, you chose wrong, dude. And now you're both going down for it, both trapped in the same body. Is he like dead-dead or is he still talking to you in there? I'm talking your ear off out here and he's in there telling you all the ways you fucked up? It's kind of poetic, don't you think? Can you even hear me? I heard that hearing is the last sense to go when you die–I wonder how long that lasts. Come on! Surely you have some kind of quirk that can let me know if you can hear me or not! You can't leave me hanging like–"
The future is bulletproof The aftermath is secondary It's time to do it now and do it loud
Denki screamed, slapped his hands down on Shigaraki, and lit up the inside of the ice dome with an extensive amount of lightning as he hightailed it out of there, back into the open.
This time, when Dabi and Hawks rushed forward, Denki didn't move to zap them out of reach again. Dabi dropped down onto his knees at Shigaraki's side and Hawks took a protective stance over them in case Shouto and Bakugou decided to try to separate them. Even though it looked like they were calling a delicate truce as they stood off to the side, he wouldn't allow themselves to be pulled away from Shigaraki now that they finally got to him.
When, finally, Dabi had reached Shigaraki, he got into position for CPR compressions, only to be once again foiled by Denki, pushed out of the way and off of Shigaraki. Igniting in blue flames once again, he turned on Denki, tackling the hero into the cold, wet grass, ignoring the melting chunks of ice from the fighting that had taken place with his brother who was still breathing heavily next to Bakugou from taking on both Hawks and Dabi. The heroes were decidedly not interfering at this point as they watched from a few meters away, not daring to get any closer under the watchful eye of Hawks.
"I'll fucking kill you," Dabi threatened, and he felt in that moment, that he very well could hold himself to that promise.
"Yeah, well you'd have to get in line behind Shigs if I let you break his ribs again for no fucking reason, man," Denki said, and he didn't even look or sound scared when he very well should have been.
Dabi was this close to snapping. The only thing holding him back from murdering his long-time friend was the fact that he had to try to save his lover first, so—
But wait. What Denki said didn't make any sense, unless…
Dabi righted himself and crawled back over to Shigaraki, but instead of the franticness he felt before, he was hesitant and hopeful. Instead of placing himself on Shigaraki's chest, ready to crack ribs and take names, he placed his fingers delicately on Shigaraki's neck.
Dabi could have cried when he felt that Shigaraki's skin was warm and soft. Not cold and rigid like he was dreading and expecting. Dabi would have cried if he had any tear ducts left when he felt the steady thumping of his heartbeat against his fingertips a moment later.
"You said—" Dabi accused.
"I lied," Denki said with an easy shrug and a wobbly smile.
"You fucking asshole," was all Dabi could manage. And he wasn't sure if it was directed toward Denki or Shigaraki. Maybe both. Probably both. "You fucking asshole," he repeated for good measure, just to cover all his bases, before he collapsed against that chest that was very much rising and falling, taking in oxygen all on its own. He felt Hawks collapse against his own back and never felt better to be sandwiched between two, living, breathing beings. He swore he'd never ever take this for granted ever again.
A/N:
OCs in this chapter:
Sezuno Isozan (aka Full Throttle) – Quirk: Full Throttle
Razor – Quirk: Sharpening
Haze – Quirk: Fog
Songs in this chapter:
Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) by My Chemical Romance
Variation of "If I were a Fish" on TikTok by creator littlevictorianboy (it's been running through my head for weeks, so now I've bestowed this masterpiece upon you, too. You're welcome.)