Chapter One Hundred and Eleven
Mina rushed down the hall, the others trailing her, pushing past the nurses who tried to call after her, seeing the door number and opening it up, to finally see her Sparky.
And was taken aback, as he looked terrible.
It almost took her a second to even recognize him, as while he still looked like Sparky, with his yellow hair and its black zigzag stripe, his muscular frame, and his golden eyes, it was just, at the same time, he didn't seem like Sparky.
It was… it was like he'd lost his spark.
But, as he looked at her, she saw a flicker of something across his flat, almost emotionless face, and he whispered, "Mina?" and she knew it was him.
"Sparky!" she yelled, crossing the distance and slamming into him, freezing as he grunted in pain, because, like, duh, Mina, he's in the hospital! "Sorry!"
"It's… It's fine," he told her, even as she felt him shake. "I… I… It's…"
And then the others made it to the door, Midoriya opening it with a call of "Kaminari!" that just made her laugh, though, at the same time, instead of making a joke, Sparky just went completely still.
"Izuku," Denki nodded, coldly, formally, even as Mina, holding onto him, felt his heart suddenly start thudding in his chest, a different kind of shaking running through him, even as he tried to control it, which…
Oh, Sparky, what happened to you?
"And… others?" her man continued, seeing the rest of their class come in, at least the ones that could, or would, be there. "I… what are you all doing here? It should have been ten days, at least, since…"
"You're not the only one we're here to see, Pikachu," Bakugo rebuked. "But you're the worst off." Mina let go of Sparky, at least a little, moving to stand next to his bed while holding his hand, as the explosive teen frowned, adding, "Or, you were. Guess having that Nomu fucker's Quirk pays off."
"… what," Sparky stated, twitching a little, small arcs of electricity starting to play across his body, one hitting Mina, which stung a little, but she didn't let go.
Instead, she held his hand a little tighter, and got his attention. "Aizawa already knew you were a Quirk Copier, and, well, you told Kendo, and she told the others, but I made sure to tell them it was supposed to be a secret."
Sparky stared at her for a long moment, as if he didn't understand what she was saying, his eyes dull, before something stirred behind them and he nodded, giving her hand a squeeze, the electrical arcs all around him stopping.
"I… Right. I… did that, didn't I. Is Kendo…?" he questioned, looking to the others.
"She made it," Mina reassured him. "She and the others from class B are visiting Kuroiro."
Sparky slowly nodded, "Then, worth it, I guess." He looked at those gathered, and asked, "And the others from our class?"
"Asui and Ida are still recovering," Midoriya stated, as he looked around at the others, Kirishima, Jiro, Todoroki, Hagakure, Mineta, and Momo, the rich girl looking concerned, and holding her hands to cover her injury, but not saying anything. "And Ochaco got let out yesterday, so she's going to be home for a day or two. I'm sure she'll visit you when she can!"
"No need," Sparky deferred glancing to the side, and, following his gaze, Mina realized there was a glowing portal in the corner of the room. More than that, though, as a couple others glanced that way too, it was just as clear to the girl that they couldn't see it. "And the others?"
"You know what happened to Sero and Sato," the pink-skinned girl reminded him. "And Aoyama… Aoyama's gone too. The others…"
Bakugo sneered, "The others are fuckin' pussies!"
"Kacchan!" Midoriya gasped, but the explosive teen wasn't having it.
"What? We all went through shit, but they're running!" he shot back. "Heroes don't fuckin' run!"
"Koda's parents are pulling him out," Hagakure countered. "Mine wanted to too, but I told them no."
"Same," Jiro added. "But from what I heard… Shoji and Tokoyami aren't okay. Not injured but, not okay."
There was a moment of awkward silence, before Todoroki, addressing Denki, stated, "You were the one that fought All-for-One."
Sparky winced, face going expressionless a moment later. "What make you say that?"
Taking out his phone, the other boy brought up an image of a small man made of glowing energy, blasting fire from his right hand, while shooting ice with his left. "This. That's my Quirk. And yours. But it isn't you."
Mina's lover stared at the image for a long moment, then sighed. "I… I don't actually remember the fight, because… you know I copy powers, and I copied All Might's."
"Which is something that's not supposed to be fuckin' possible," Bakugo observed, annoyed, but not at Denki.
"Indeed," Sparky agreed flatly. "But it's not a Power type, it's an… Intensifier. All Might was born 'Quirkless', and didn't get his power until he was a teenager."
The explosive teen nodded. "Like Midoriya."
"They have a similar Quirk," Denki agreed, which was one way of putting it, Mina thought. "Using it without being strong enough, it isn't good, and you need to hit a certain threshold."
"Then you can go super-saiyan? Awesome!" Kirishima grinned.
Izuku, meanwhile, frowned. "You didn't, did you? But you used it anyways."
Slowly, the blond man nodded. "Part of it. The other is that Quirks leave… traces. Hereditary traces. All Might's Quirk has them stronger than most. All-For-One was going to kill him, and I could feel them, and… let them take over. Dropped my Defenses, and then they did what I could not," he stated, and Mina stiffened, because that was the one thing he'd told her to never do and that meant…
That meant Sparky was a lot worse off than she thought.
"And now," he continued. "Now if I try and use it…"
"You almost die," Jiro completed, causing him to pause, confused, and slowly nod. The rocker held up a an earlobe, "We've been listening in. They didn't know what was wrong, only, suddenly healing Quirks started working on you, when they didn't before, and they didn't know why."
Mina had thought it was some kind of lingering damage from whatever had been done to him while he was gone, but… but, in the end, it didn't matter, she'd be there for him no matter what.
"Ah. Yes. That," Sparky agreed, tone flat, almost seeming disinterested, but, feeling his grip on her hand, Mina knew he was anything but. "So those powers are burnt. Maybe for a while. Maybe forever. But, well," he dully waved at the muted television, which was showing All Might talking to press. "It was that or let him die, and be left to All-for-One's tender mercies."
"And while he's gone, his people ain't," Bakugo nodded in understanding.
"I… yes?" Denki replied, confused.
"Jiro heard what you said to the police," Mina explained.
YaoMomo finally spoke, adding, "To think an officer of the law would act that way! Either of them! They should be reporte-"
"No."
Sparky commanded, for a moment there, before he hunched over, coughed up blood, started shaking, and Mina held onto him, trying to be there for him, unable to do anything more, everyone else going completely silent.
It took a couple minutes for him to stop, and she helped him wipe away the blood, the others watching him carefully as he recollected himself.
"I… sorry. That… yes," the injured man stated, clearly barely able to keep going, but pushing himself, and she wasn't sure if she should try to get him to stop or not. "As I was saying, Momo, I appreciate your commitment to proper procedure, but the system has been corrupted, and, as you are, you are not ready for the shitstorm that you will call down on your head. Because Villains don't play fair, so you need to be that much stronger to survive their counter, and take them down. And you aren't strong enough. None of us are."
Bakugo frowned, "So, what, let shitstains like that go free?"
"For now, yes," Sparky replied, nodding. "As far as I can tell, UA is safe, but All-for-One is hundreds of years old, and ruled Japan until All Might beat his face in the first time, thinking he'd killed him. He's had a long time to work, and, until we're at that level, we can't take on that kind of fight."
Kirishima scoffed, still smiling, like that dork always did nowadays, but still skeptical as he asked, "You think we could all get as good as All Might?"
Sparky nodded, then paused, trying to put the words together. "At his prime, I don't know. But in the same ballpark he was at USJ, absolutely. Even through physical training alone, if there is a limit to the people in this world, I don't know what it is."
"In this world?" Midoriya echoed, and Mina could feel Sparky tense, not having meant to say that.
"As opposed to, like, before Quirks, right?" she prompted, and her lover nodded, shooting her the barest smile, squeezing her hand in thanks.
"Back then, we couldn't've done anything against a problem this big. A hundred of us couldn't," he stated. "A thousand couldn't. But with Quirks, well, one man brought peace to all of Japan, and possibly affected all of the world. And then there's the fact that Quirks… aren't what you think they are."
Todoroki frowned, "What do you mean?"
"My original Quirk was electricity generation, right? I can only create it, and then it flows as it wants to?" the blond questioned, getting a slow nod from the two-toned boy.
Holding an arm up, Sparky concentrated, an arc of electricity forming above his palm, and, with a grunt of pain, he snapped his hand closed, fist shaking, as the arc froze, then grew, into a solid blade of lightning, before the weapon, with a loud Crack, lost cohesion and flowed back into his hand.
Breathing hard, he laid his shaking limb on his bed. "That wasn't what my Quirk is 'supposed' to be able to do. Quirks have themes, yes, but what they can do is much, much broader than you think. In this, Midoriya is, by far, in a better position than the rest of you."
Said boy, froze, as everyone looked at him. "Me?"
Sparky nodded, "Because your Quirk didn't come in until recently, you don't have years of being told by others what it 'has to be', and can handle it with a fresh perspective and years of experience looking at how other Heroes function. It's how you were able to figure out that Hagakure's Quirk wasn't Invisibility but Photokinesis, which is a… sizeable difference. It would be like if Todoroki thought he could only make fire and ice armor, instead of being able to glacier people on command. Or how Ochaco discovered she didn't need to physically touch something to use her Quirk on it, she could use a grappling hook, which opens her options considerably."
He sighed, closing his eyes for a long moment, and, for a moment, was Sparky once again.
"Train as hard as Bakugo does, as inventively as Midoriya does, and as diligently as Momo does!" he commanded, looking around at them. "Learn combat, but more than that, learn stealth and caution from Aizawa, so that, when All-for-One makes his next move, and he will, you can handle it, and be the Heroes you are supposed to be. Because for people like him, in the end, you either bow to the Demon King, or are removed from his domain. Understood?"
The others just stared, taken aback.
"I said am I understood!?" Denki demanded, his voice a whip-crack of authority.
"Yes!" Midoriya replied, standing at attention, Bakugo cockily adding, "Like I wasn't gonna do that already!", the others chiming in with their agreement, Sparky, after looking around, gave them all a serious nod, and then the energy seemed to drain out of him, and he slumped back against the raised hospital bed.
"Good. Good. If you guys do that… you should survive," he muttered, causing Jiro, who was looking confused, to open her eyes in understanding.
Before Bakugo's not-really-but-totally girlfriend could say anything, and seeing how bad off Denki was, Mina turned to the others. "Can I have a couple minutes with Sparky? And, uh, Jiro, can you not listen, honey?"
The rocker turned bright red, some of the others blushing too, especially YaoMomo, which was adorbs, Mina's distraction working, but her lover wasn't looking good, and the others told him they'd see him later, which caused him to look pained, something that Midoriya totes noticed, even though he didn't say anything, which was good, because she wasn't sure how she'd explain this.
Once the door closed, she turned to her lover, who was clearly trying to regather himself, but, before he could say anything, she informed him, "I'm coming!"
Sparky stared, confused, "I, what?"
Pointing at the swirling portal, she declared, "You're leaving. I'm coming with you. Don't think I didn't notice how you told everybody what they needed to do, instead of what we needed to do. So, wherever you're going, I'm coming!"
"I, but, I, I'm not coming back, Mina," he stated helplessly. "Even before, before all of this, I couldn't hold a candle to All-for-One, and now… I need to go, before I make things worse for everyone else."
"Oh Sparky," the Heroine couldn't help but sigh, leaning over to hold him tightly, feeling as he tried to not move, tried to stay strong, before he finally broke down, crying as he weakly held onto her. The didn't say anything for several long minutes, until he was done.
"Sorry-" he started to say, but she was having none of it.
"You've got nothing to be sorry about, Sp-Denki," she told him, not letting go. "You're more hurt than you're letting on, aren't ya?"
He didn't say anything, which, for him, meant it was really bad, and just nodded.
"Then you def need me, and I'd be a pretty shitty girlfriend to leave you like this, wouldn't I?" she informed him, trying not to cry herself over how bad he was, getting a laugh from her lover, who just held onto her harder for a moment, before pulling back, and she let him.
"You won't be seeing your friends, your family, for a while, Mina," he warned. "Years, maybe. And, when we get back, I don't know what things will be like."
She frowned, knowing he wanted her to be there for him, but Sparky got… weird when it came to the things that he wanted, like he felt guilty for even having wants in the first place, which was just silly, but that just meant he really needed her to help! "But you're gonna be finding things that can help, right?"
The blond slowly nodded. "Yeah, plan is Star Wars. I, well, I was gonna go there because no one would blink if you were with me, because they'd just think you were an alien, ironically. And the local power system gives a whole bunch of stuff. Precognition, minor telekinesis, enhanced physical abilities, it should all stack with my Quirks, assuming they heal, and even without them, the powers there aren't Quirks, so they should throw All-for-One for a loop. Also, they've got hypertech that makes Support items look quaint."
"Great!" Mina nodded. "Let's go!" She paused, as a thought occurred to her. "Uh, can we go Friday instead? I kinda want to pack, and leave a note."
"I… Sure. Uh, what day is it?" her lover asked.
"Wednesday!"
He nodded, "Then… then we'll meet, where we used to for dates, and see where things take us. Uh… thanks, Mina."
Rolling her eyes, she teased, "Let me guess, you were gonna give a big speech about 'I'd like you to go, Mina, but you don't have to if you don't want to,' right, Sparky?" Looking a bit chagrined, he nodded. "Well, you don't need to, because where you go, I go, and you can't stop me! Got that, bucko?"
With a small smile, her lover told her, "Wouldn't have it any other way."
MHA
Two days later I was feeling… better, but still not good.
That stretched feeling had faded, a little, though most of that had come when I talked with Mina, and a little with my- no, Denki's parents, who were concerned for me, but that just firmed my belief to leave, because, the longer I spent around them, no matter how nice it was, the higher the chance that AfO would send someone else to visit them.
The new fall term at UA had been delayed, for… obvious reasons, as, even a week later, all of Japan was reeling over what had happened in Tokyo, and how the peace everyone was used to had been shattered, All Might retiring, and their future peaceful existence were now in doubt.
Welcome to the club.
Still, I felt… antsy, my emotions still oddly muted, not coming naturally, but… it was something I'd deal with. Somehow. I was absolutely looking over my shoulder, trying to see the tail that AfO had put on me.
Assuming, of course, that he had at all, and I wasn't just being paranoid.
"Sparky!" I heard, and turned, the fingers of my right hand reflexively turning into electric claws, but, no, it was just Mina, and I took a deep breath, that sense of fear, of waiting for the next unexpected blow, having gotten worse and worse the longer I'd stayed in this place.
My lover ran up to me, towing a suitcase, and, for a fraction of a second, I had a moment of doubt, wondering if this wasn't Mina, but Toga, but, no, she'd called me by the right name, and, while I could tell she saw my hesitation, my pink-haired girl didn't care, throwing herself at me in a flying hug that saw me catch her easily, spinning her about for a moment, and, not caring about decorum, kissing her soundly.
For a moment, my world narrowed, focusing only on her, taking comfort in her, drinking in her presence, but… not yet.
Pulling away, we were simultaneously getting disapproving looks from others walking by for the PDA, but, at the same time, rendering us socially invisible, which wasn't what I meant to do, but I could work with that.
"Ready?" I questioned, nervous, worried that she'd tell me that she'd thought better of it, and she wasn-
"Ready!" she agreed. "Left a note. It won't be found 'till Monday."
"I set up an email to be sent the same day," I replied, less for, for Denki's parents, than they were for AfO's people that would be watching them, and watching my online accounts. Taking her hand in mine, I led her to a side alley, and, with my phone, clicked the prompt, and, using the aiming reticle that appeared, placed a portal halfway down it, against a wall.
Together, we walked up to it, and, taking a deep breath, I looked to Mina, who was nervous too, and we stepped through it.
Into another world.
For an infinitesimal moment, all was light and sound, as if everything was turned up to eleven, before, with a stumble, we both landed on the other side, in a large, concrete room, stairs set in the far wall, an observation platform overlooking the space.
Turning around, I saw… whatever the evolved version of a Stargate was, not a single stone ring with thirteen symbols around it, but a dozen such rings, every ring with more symbols than the last, and each arcane-seeming sigil was made of a different material.
The gate itself was wide, wider than I thought, coruscating prismatic energy in the large circle of the gate's opening, surrounding the smaller opaque portal, the one I'd seen from the other side, which had… possibilities.
And, while it was likely entirely in my own head, it just felt… easier to breathe.
"Uh, I kinda expected more?" Mina questioned beside me.
"You ever see Stargate?" I questioned, and she shook her head. "We'll need to have some movie-nights. This room's based on it. This way," I directed, heading up the stairs, both of us passing through an empty security checkpoint, going higher and higher until we entered a very, very nice house, done in a modernistic style, kind of like Tony Stark's from the movies.
Mina's eyes went wide, as she let go of her case and moved to the wide windows taking up one wall, looking out over onto the nearby beach, small ocean waves artfully lapping at its pristine edge.
"Ohmygod!" my lover cheered, turning around, and rushing to the other side of the house, as I trailed after her, showing our 'yard' to be a large expanse of grass, a lush deciduous forest on the other side, reminding me of New England, not like the one which had haunted my dreams last night, as I ran through its blood-smeared trees without end, always trying to make it there in time, fearing that, if I stopped for even a moment, I wouldn't.
Where was 'there'? No idea. But that was dreams for you.
"Sparky!" the girl grinned, looking all around. "We're in another world!"
"That we are, Mina," I smiled, watching her enjoy herself, feeling a slight bit of warmth in my otherwise cold chest at her joy, "that we are." Looking on my phone, I got a map of my new Sweet Home, and told her, "It looks like it comes with a number of bedrooms, so pick which one you want-"
I was cut off as my lover was suddenly in front of me, hands on her hips. "Sparky, if we're gonna be doing this we're gonna be sleeping together! And, you know, sleeping together. But, like all the time."
"I, which one?" I questioned, confused.
"Both," she informed me, blushing fuchsia but staring at me determinedly, which… okay.
Feeling myself smile, not having done either with her since before Camp started, which was only a couple weeks, but, at the same time, that felt like over a year ago, I nodded. "Okay, then I'll drop your case off in the master bedroom. And then… it's time to go to somewhere a long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away."
Music:
Wouldn't have it any other way - 01 Avant Title - MY HERO ACADEMIA 2nd OST
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away – Force theme shortened
AN: And thus we start the next leg of our journey, after three and a half years. But things are never easy, are they? If you wish to see how this goes, the next four chapters are up on and Subscribestar!