Random Moments from the To Be A Hero Universe
Jessylane318
-Shinsou's POV-
Takes place when Rin-chan runs away in chapter 31 of Determined.
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"Hey Shinsou-kun! Shinsou-kun! Have you talked to Rin-chan?"
Hitoshi frowns, head tilting sideways as at least a quarter of Eraserhead's ridiculous class swarms him. He takes note of a few familiar faces, a pink-skinned girl, the blonde with the jokes, and the green-haired boy Rin had saved that one day at the mall.
"No, why?"
Knowing Rin, there could be any number of reasons for this conversation.
"He was the guy I saved on the beach!" the dark-haired girl had scowled abruptly, her emotions clearly shifting, her face shifting from anger to shame in a heartbeat. He almost felt bad for Eraserhead, the way her mood swings spazzed. "He came back later and- and hid in a bush and-"
He loses track of what she's saying for a moment, because… what?
In a bush?
"-So I had bad luck. And everything kept going wrong because he said if I didn't come with him people would get hurt! And he wanted me to follow him, but I told him no-"
The fuck?
"-but when I told him no, all these bad things started happening even worse and Sensei—Yamada-sensei, I mean—got hurt because I didn't. Shinsou, he was bleeding! He was bleeding all over, and it was my fault because I had the bad luck and- and-"
Hitoshi hadn't known what else to do.
"Hey! Woah, what?"
Bad luck? Bleeding?
He'd looked anxiously toward Eraserhead, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself in. And the hero, probably the only normal person around (because Present Mic was freakin' psycho), had put his phone away to scowl.
"She left with all of this morning, but then she went back to the dorms saying she had something important to do and never came back!" the blonde boy with some sort of electrical quirk spits out. He wrings his hands, clearly concerned, and stares up with too-wide eyes. "We told Present Mic-sensei, cause Aizawa-sensei is out, and he looked really worried-"
His heart stops.
A million thoughts racing through his head.
A memory of a happenstance phone call he'd nearly not answered. A muted, muffled scream—You came.
"What?" he scowls, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rising.
Got your hero blood pumping?
"What do you mean she never came back?" he snaps. "No one went back to check for her?"
The students in front of him shift, eyes avoiding eye contact, expressions turning into surprise.
"It wasn't like she ran off with someone chasing her," the invisible one growls. She shoves her way to stand in front of him. "She just said she had something to do. Considering how she's been acting since that trafficking bust Friday, we thought she just needed space."
Trafficking bust?
What?
Hitoshi furrows his brows.
She hadn't said anything, though he'd been with Snipe all weekend.
I literally just saw her yesterday at lunch.
What the hell?
"You didn't know," the invisible girl sighs. Her sleeves move, as if cradling his forehead, and he can feel his ears heat. Especially when the blonde one hums something about trouble in paradise. Asshole.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he snaps.
"C'mon guys, let's go sit down," the pink one says, reaching for several of her classmates. A couple of them grumble, but Invisible doesn't move. Instead, she moves closer.
"Rin-chan got involved in some human-trafficking case. Iida-kun said he saw her leave the night before she was out those few days, and Midnight-sensei told him to stand down. Rin-chan was in a weird mood Saturday though, when she came back. She was super sad, and she fell asleep on Todoroki-kun and was hugging people a lot, which isn't normal for her. And then, like when she woke up, she started talking about someone getting kidnapped and her brother being tortured and people trying to sell her. It was all really confusing. Some of it was on the news, but nobody had any video and the story wasn't as big as you guys taking out that villain and exploding like half asleep, so there wasn't much to find out, and you know how she is about sharing stuff. It's like pulling teeth to get anything that bothers her out of her."
Hitoshi feels his lip thin.
It was exactly like pulling teeth. Stubborn, annoying, refusing-to-be moved teeth.
She didn't mention any of that.
She'd just sat there, scowling at something on her phone, and said she was fine.
I'm gonna beat her ass when I see her.
What the hell Rin.
"And she didn't say anything about leaving?" Hitoshi asks.
Was she kidnapped?
The alarms would have gone off.
They didn't for that one time.
"No!" the Invisible girl growls. "We were walking to the school this morning and then she just stopped. She was making this face, and then suddenly asking weird questions! Something… Something about if you wanted something a lot, what would you do? Bakugou told her he'd take it, which is so typical of him, ugh. And then she just smiled, turned around and ran off!"
Hitoshi scrubs his face, feeling a headache building.
That sounded just like her.
He remembers when Sensei sent them home and she just ignored him, heading into that burning building. And then there was that time at the beach, when she apparently ran off to help some weirdo from the evil sand.
He scowls.
"Ugh," he says, turning away and stomping back out of the cafeteria. Invisible squeaks before chasing after him, somehow surprisingly keeping up with his long strides.
"H-Hey! Where are you going?"
"To find Present Mic," he answers, though really that should have been obvious.
"Oh. But, wait! We already told him!"
"Then he should have an update," Hitoshi snaps, turning down another hall and passing a few upper classmen. The uniform beside him 'ahhs.' Idiot. "If he's not freaking out, she's probably safe enough. He's too dramatic not to cause a scene if nobody had heard from her. Has anyone called?"
"Multiple times," the girl growls. "She just keeps sending them straight to voicemail."
He stops outside of the teacher break room and glowers.
Then, reaching forward, he knocks loudly.
Snipe is the one that opens the door. His familiar cowboy hat pulled down on a thick gas mask and burgundy, red cape. The man tilts his head, looking between the two of them before turning around and huffing.
"Mic, two for you."
There's a sound, like someone tripping over something, and Hitoshi is unsurprised to see a wide-eyed blonde, sunglasses halfway down his nose and the fakest smile ever slapped on.
"Hitoshi-kun! Hagakure-chan! YOOOOO!"
Hitoshi can feel his eye twitch.
"How's it goin' little listeners?" the man asks too brightly, he swings his arms around and flails them into rotating finger guns. "Aren't you two supposed to be at lunch? What can I help you with?"
"Rin," Hitoshi says flatly. "She's not here."
The skin around Present Mic's eyes tighten. He flashes his sunglasses up, smile becoming more strained.
"Ah… no. It would seem not!"
"Have you heard back from her? Is she okay? Why isn't she responding to any of our texts?" Hagakure asks, sounding worried.
Hitoshi's eyes narrow.
The blonde waves his hands dramatically, palms up as if in peace.
He's hiding something.
"Ah! Yoooo… I'm sure she's fine, right? Now why don't you two crazy cats-"
"Mic-Sensei!" Hagakure growls. "Don't dismiss us!"
"Kids…"
Hitoshi breathes deeply, swallowing his pride.
"Mic-sensei, if something's happened…" he lets the sentence trail off, meeting the older man's eye. He knows the hero understands. Cold sheets of rain and muffled screams. She was just behind me. Why didn't I look back?
Present Mic deflates, head falling. He almost seems to hang there, limp, before coming to a decision with a sigh.
"Ah… Shinsou-kun, it's… I mean… Ugh. Fine!" He steps into the hall with a scowl, shutting the break room door behind him loudly. "She's not in danger, well… not actively anyways. There's just nothing safe about riding a train halfway across Japan alone, but it's gonna be fine, yah dig? Eraserhead got in contact with her this morning."
There's nothing remotely fine about that.
He can feel his jaw drop.
"Halfway across Japan?"
"Oh my gosh, why?" Hagakure says, sounding just as horrified.
"Look, I think that's enough, she's just looking for her brother-"
"You mean that bastard that tried to kill her?" he snaps, immediately forgetting herself.
"What! We need to go now!" the invisible girl exclaims, arms waving. "He's so dangerous and-"
"No!" Present Mic whines, his voice rising as he brushes his hands up his hair. It's a weird tic, as if reminding himself he's still in uniform. "No, No! Hold up! I just told you she's not in danger. It's the older brother, and even if it wasn't, you two aren't going anywhere! It's bad enough we've got one kid facing expulsion-"
"Expulsion!"
His heart drops into his stomach.
Expulsion?
They were going to expel her?
It… It made sense, in a dark, round about way, especially if she'd left the school without permission, or broken the rules, but… expulsion?
What would that mean?
Was she going to have to leave? Would Eraserhead? What did that mean for everyone else? Class 1A?
Him?
Would they replace her like they had the last three students?
"You can't."
He looks at the invisible at the same time Present Mic does.
"Eh?"
"She doesn't have anywhere else to go!" Hagakure growls. It's pretty impressive, even completely invisible he can feel the anger rolling off her. "Besides that, she's finally starting to actually open up! You can't expel her! I'm sure she has a reason! Rin-chan wouldn't just run off for nothing!"
"Oi! Eraserhead isn't going to just abandon her," the hero sighs.
"If they kick her off campus, he'll have to quit!" Hagakure snaps. "He can't. You can't quit teaching in the middle of the year like that! My cousin's a teacher, I know all about it! You guys are supposed to be bound by contracts, and if you break one, especially one with an entity as big as UA, you're practically screwed! Nobody hires contract breakers!"
"And I'm telling you Eraserhead made the call. I'm sure he knows what he's doing!"
Hitoshi closes his eyes, feeling a headache building.
Eraserhead was expelling his own daughter?
What the fuck.
What was he thinking? Sure, it made sense logically, but Rin wasn't gonna see that. She was just going to see more abandonment. Just another shitty person that didn't want her anymore. She'd fall apart.
And the worst part was, he didn't even have to imagine it.
The girl that sits in the hospital bed looks empty.
Dark hair spilling across wan, sickly skin. She'd looked small, unflatteringly delicate with clothes nearly falling off her bones, despite having filled them only weeks before. She'd lost weight, too much, looking more like a waif then the smiling goofball he remembers. But it's not even that. It's the haunted look in her eye that scared him. Infuriating, the way it claws at his chest.
"He was there," she whispers, face buried in his neck and halfway off the bed. She feels like paper in his arms, so worryingly frail that one wrong move will shatter her apart. "He was there."
"Asp?"
"My… My brother is Asp," she whispers.
He makes a noise and pulls away, unable to look away from the hollowness in her gaze. The tears that spill across her cheeks hurt, and he wants to dry them, wants to fight something.
That bastard.
That fucking bastard.
"Then he's not your brother," Hitoshi growls, and he can't stand the way her eyes widen, as if surprised by his anger. As if he could feel anything else after all those weeks they'd spent together. "Because brothers don't do that! God, Hoki. Nobody deserves this shit."
"He… He said I did…"
He wants to kill him.
He's never wanted to kill someone so much in his entire life.
"He's wrong." He has to bite back a snarl, watching as the girl in front of him shivers. "Fuck him. That- that doesn't even make sense! What could you possibly have done to deserve any of this shit? Give him too many damn hugs? What a bunch of bullshit! Are you even listening to how ridiculous that sounds? You had a panic attack when you bloodied my nose, and we barely even knew each other! You don't deserve to die just because you're related to a fucking psycho."
The invisible girl flickers, a glimpse of tears spilling from large, round eyes.
He doesn't know what to say. Doesn't know what to do.
Expulsion?
"Fine!" Hagakure cries, one of her ghostly shoes rising up before stomping viciously. "Fine. I'll- I'm calling my mother!"
Present Mic frowns, all the ridiculous sliding off his face in a second.
Hitoshi recognizes it instantly. It's the face of a hero, the one strong enough UA hired him to teach at one of the most prestigious academies in Japan.
"Hagakure."
There's a warning in that name, in the way his expression darkens and his eyes flash green. The invisible girl trembles, and despite that, he can see the barely contained rage.
He feels his opinion of the girl rise, especially as she squares her shoulders and faces down the pro.
"She works in the media," the girl says sharply. "I know how politics work, especially with heroes. Heroes do idiotic things all the time and- and it's their PR's job to fix it. They fix it by selling better stories, and Rin-chan is good! If you're all gonna expel her for leaving campus, then I'll ask my Mom to blow up the press about Rin and that- that trafficking scandal!"
She spins, stomping off, and Hitoshi follows after her.
Glancing back to see Present Mic pulling out his phone.
They make it around the corner before the girl snarls, stops, and shoves her hand in her mouth to let out a muffled, angry screech. He isn't sure what to expect.
"Are… Are you really calling your mom?" he asks, brows furrowing. "You know if you do, you're putting yourself at risk. The other side of politics is that UA could hold a grudge."
He'd had it happen often enough in middle school.
"I don't care," the girl snaps furiously, already pulling out her phone. "Rin-chan saved my life. When we were in the forest and all those villains were running around, Kyoka-chan and I passed out from the gas. Rin-chan could have left us, could have just hidden us in a bush and moved on! She had any number of options, but instead, she put me on her back and carried me to safety.
"Her brother was out there trying to kill everyone, she could barely walk, and even though we'd barely ever said more than a handful of words to each other, Rin-chan still put me on her back and saved me!"
Hitoshi scowls, completely unsurprised.
"So a person like that deserves to be a hero," Hagakure says, voice warbling as she stomps her foot. "I don't know why she ran off or what she was thinking, or even if she was. But considering the way she was crying this weekend; I don't think it was for nothing. So expelling her is wrong, because Rin-chan already is a great hero, and if there's anyone, I want at my back out there when we're fighting, it's Rin-chan!"
More than anything, I really wanted to highlight Toru and Hitoshi's feelings. :) I know the ending is kinda abrupt, but that's weirdly where it just stopped in my mind. LOL. Oh well! Thanks for reading!