Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hitoshi has spent enough hours staring at himself in the mirror to recognize an asshole when he sees one, and he had Monoma Neito clocked from the moment the blonde smiled that slow, lazy smile and smoothly arched an eyebrow in the short seconds before his face went blank under the influence of Hitoshi’s quirk. The shit that comes out of Monoma’s mouth now is only bonus confirmation for something Hitoshi already knew to be true.

“I’m here to put those 1-A stuck-ups in their place, so let’s get this over with quickly, shall we?” the asshole drawls over Present Mic’s introductions. He smiles, all mock benevolence, like Hitoshi should be grateful for getting to fight him at all. If he were more expressive, Hitoshi would sneer, and the temptation to do so deliberately is high, but he keeps his face bored and disinterested, gratified to see Monoma’s fake smile distort slightly with the tightening at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, you’re not in 1-A?” Hitoshi asks flatly as the match is called to a start. “Sorry, I couldn’t tell. You hero students all look the same to me, being stuck-up and all.” As he speaks, Hitoshi strafes to the side, attempting to maintain distance between them without putting himself too close to the boundary lines.

“You know, I’ll admit that I’ve been looking forward to this fight, even though you’re only in gen-ed.”

“There’s that famous hero arrogance.”

As if Hitoshi hadn’t spoken, Monoma continues, “I’ve been curious since the cavalry battle. Made quite the fool of me, puppeting me around like that–”

“I doubt you need any help to make a fool of yourself.”

“–but I’m hardly going to withdraw because of that. No, I’d much rather return the favor.”

“And how are you planning to do that?” Hitoshi asks. He is already slightly out of breath from trying to prevent Monoma from getting in close range, and he hasn’t even been particularly successful in those attempts. Monoma keeps moving to intercept whatever path Hitoshi sets, leaving Hitoshi feeling frustratingly like a herded sheep, bleating at a brick wall.

Hitoshi’s quirk is response based. Hell if he knows how it works, but there is something about call and answer that gives him backdoor access into a person’s head, a connection that starts verbally, with the faintest snippet of conversation, and extends mentally. But Monoma, the self-important, aggrandized asshole apparently doesn’t deign Hitoshi worth speaking to. No, he talks to himself, monologuing like his thoughts are a gift to the world, and leaving Hitoshi scrambling without purchase against the smooth cage of Monoma’s skull, looking for a way in.

With a flurry of movement, Monoma gets in close. Hitoshi flinches to the side, a senseless, instinctual attempt to dodge whatever attack the other is planning. Regaining his feet after a moment of clumsy stumbling, Hitoshi brings his arms up in what might be some kind of guard – he’s pretty sure that’s a thing in martial arts, isn’t it? Monoma smirks. He is no longer advancing, standing a few feet away. His stance seems casual at first glance, but while Hitoshi takes advantage of the breathing room, he sees the firm way Monoma’s feet are planted, the way his hands hover by his hips, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

“Man, think of all the things you could do with this one,” he says, rolling his head back but keeping careful eyes on Hitoshi while he does. “What? Nothing to say?”

There is a gleam in Monoma’s eyes as Hitoshi’s lips part, and there is a disoriented moment where Hitoshi very nearly blurts something out – maybe a “what the hell are you on about?” or a “do you ever shut the fuck up?” – and then he snaps his teeth down, catching the tip of his tongue between them. The shadowy thing Monoma did in the last round, but has shown no sign of doing again; “returning the favor;” Present Mic had even said it, hadn’t he? Copy cat.

It’s a goddamned copy quirk.

Okay, so it’s a copy quirk. To be on the safe side, assume Asshole has Hitoshi’s quirk, and he knows how it works, and he plans to catch Hitoshi in the same net Hitoshi used against him for the cavalry battle, as some sort of poetic justice or something. Or maybe Monoma’s just an asshole who gets his rocks off by turning people’s abilities against them. Honestly, Hitoshi can’t blame him, because he would probably do the same thing in Monoma’s situation, except wait – Hitoshi can totally blame him, even if it’s hypocritical, because Hitoshi is an asshole, too. So, really, fuck Monoma, and what the fuck is Hitoshi meant to do now?

“You should see your face,” Monoma says, apparently too dignified to snicker but just as mocking. “Who’s the fool, now?”

Hitoshi is panicking. He’s panicking, and obviously that’s not great for his thought process, but it feels a little bit like his senses have been dialed up to eleven, and he can see the exact moment Monoma decides that Hitoshi is just one pathetic joke, the moment where he stops taking Hitoshi even remotely seriously. Monoma’s shoulders go slack, his weight shifts over one of his legs, his arms cross dismissively in front of him.

And Hitoshi, still panicking, throws himself forward and punches Monoma in the face. Something crunches. Definitely Monoma’s nose; maybe Hitoshi’s hand.

“Fuck!” Monoma curses loudly, staggering back a few steps. Blood drips into his palm as he brings a hand to his face, hissing. Hitoshi stares, dazed. His hand aches, fingers trembling as he tries to extend them. There’s a cut on his pinky – probably from Monoma’s teeth, he realizes. It’s shallow, more of a scrape really, but he can’t even feel the sting of it through the burn of his knuckles, like his bones have been replaced by live coals.

“You should see your face,” Hitoshi says, words welling up without conscious thought. Monoma does look ridiculous, though, if in a slightly gory kind of way – eyes wide, pale face contrasting with the vibrant red smeared over the lower half of his features. Hitoshi probably doesn’t look much better, eyes just as wide, face just as pale, shadows beneath his eyes like smudged charcoal, cradling his fist against his chest like he can’t believe what just happened.

“You fucker,” Monoma spits. His condescending smile is gone, replaced by a scowl that peels his lips away from blood-stained teeth. “You broke my goddamned nose!” With his sinuses clogged with blood, the words come out muffled, and Hitoshi bites his cheek to keep himself from laughing.

Monoma pulls his hand away from his face, little droplets of blood flying from his fingertips to splatter against the dirt. He lunges forward, movement abrupt and coordinated enough that it catches Hitoshi off guard. Monoma grabs him by the collar of his jacket, hauling Hitoshi in close.

“Remember, you’re the one who chose to do this the painful way.”

Hitoshi scratches at Monoma’s wrist with his good hand as the asshole winds his other arm back. Sunlight glints off the peaks of Monoma’s knuckles, suddenly white-silver and blinding. Hitoshi cringes away, eyes clenching shut and head turning to the side as his shoulders hunch up to guard his ears. The punch hits him like a battering ram, a direct blow to the ridge of his cheekbone, setting off a burst of color behind his closed eyelids, a ringing in his ears. Hitoshi is not conscious of falling, but he knows when he lands on his injured hand, his weight pressing it into the ground, igniting the hot-coal pain, fire licking up his wrist.  

“Shinsou,” Midnight calls from the sidelines after a dizzy moment of recalibration, “can you continue?” His vision clears like ink bleeding color back into the world. He struggles back up onto his hands and knees, carefully keeping his weight off his bad hand.

Monoma huffs a stuffy sigh above him. “You did well to make it this far,” the asshole says, voice once again controlled and patronizing. “But you’re just not cut out to go farther. Any final words?”

Vitriolic words on the tip of his tongue, Hitoshi opens his mouth. Monoma’s eyes glint. Copy quirk, right. He still has Brainwashing. So be it. Hitoshi rocks forward, placing the brunt of his weight on his injured hand, where the bones shift and grate and grind together beneath his skin like a collection of molten knives.

“I’m not done yet,” he says, voice strained.

“Oh yes, you are,” Monoma responds with a predatory smirk.

And for half a second, Hitoshi can feel it, like a thick fog that tries to close around him from the inside out. But it is lit red-hot by the constant shifting pressure he has on his broken hand, and he clings to that feeling until the sharpness of it slices clean through the tether Monoma attempted to create between them.

At the same time, Hitoshi reaches out from within himself, seizing a grip on the light that flared to life in the back of his mind with Monoma’s last words, turning the tables in an instant. He grabs control and tells the connection very firmly that it will not break.

“Repeat after me, loudly” Hitoshi instructs, gritting his teeth as his head throbs. “I give up.”

“I give up.”

Hitoshi drops the connection immediately, reveling in the aghast look that spreads over Monoma’s face as Midnight snaps her flog. This time, Hitoshi does not bother to stifle his laugh, but it is quiet under the cheer of the crowd.

“Guess you’re just not cut out to go farther,” he says with false sympathy. The blood over Monoma’s face mostly conceals the extent of his embarrassed anger, but the red flush of the tips of his ears is unmistakable. Without a word, he spins, storming off the field with his neck stiff and head held defiantly high.

Hitoshi sits in the dirt, unsure for the moment if his legs will support him and unwilling to take the gamble. Above Midnight’s stage, the bracket comes back on screen, and Hitoshi’s line glows a brilliant gold as he advances to the next round. Hitoshi has made it to the semi-finals.

And so has Midoriya Izuku.

By the time the day is over, everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival.

People don’t even need to have watched the festival to know what happens during it. Certainly, many of them see it for themselves. Those lucky enough to have tickets see it as part of the massive cheering stadium crowd. Others watch live over a screen from the comfort of their couch or bed. Still more drag themselves home after a long day’s work and pull up recordings as they unwind. The remainder may choose not to watch the festival at all, but for weeks the news of what happened will be everywhere.

Here what they will all say, here is what everyone will know:

They will know that Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito, swinging the match in his favor at the last second. They will know that Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu, grabbing her by the tongue and flinging her out of bounds. They will know Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya, using Iida’s speed against him to chase him over the line.

And if, for some reason, someone doesn’t know these things, the confusion is easily remedied. A quick internet search will immediately answer any questions, settle any debates.

There is nothing to doubt. It’s objective reality.

Except – everyone experiences reality just a little bit differently, don’t they?

Yes, everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival. But they won’t all know it the same exact way. Afterall, there are a million sides to every story – written and unwritten, read and unread, treasured and burned. If there is such a thing as an objective reality, no one lives in it.

Everyone will know that Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito.

But only Aizawa Shouta and Yamada Hizashi know that Shouta leans forward in his seat when Shinsou enters the field, and Shouta doesn’t even know that his husband knows, because Hizashi is kind enough not to tease about the display of interest, just this once. Only Todoroki Shouto and Midoriya Izuku know about the conversation they have while the match plays on a screen in the corner of the room, and both boys know different things about this conversation – Izuku speaking truths he has bled to learn and Shouto hearing hopeful absurdities, the sort he hasn’t entertained in a decade. Only Shinsou Toshiyuki knows that he is watching clips of the festival between appointments, and only he knows the duality of his own feelings, the hope for success – Hitoshi would be so much happier – the hope for failure – it would be so much easier – and the doubtful shame that wells inside him for being conflicted on the matter at all.

Everyone will know that Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu.

But only Asui Tsuyu knows that she doesn’t mind losing, that she is happy with how far she has come, and that any disappointment she might have felt is tempered by the certainty that, back home, see has made her younger siblings proud. Only the Asui household knows the way the children, Samidare and Satsuki, kept home from school for the special event, shake each other by the arms in their excitement, shouting as their mother scolds them to keep their voices down, but only half-heartedly. Only Shoji Shika knows that tears well in her eyes as she lets the cheers for her son’s victory wash over her, overwhelmed with relief-gratitude-joy, because people can be so cruel, but her baby – her kind, gentle baby – is carving a place for himself in the world and helping to make it a better place as he does.

Everyone will know that Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya.

But only Bakugou Katsuki knows that the victory makes his arms itch because it feels meaningless to him, because he is very suddenly not sure what he is fighting for, because things are different, knowing what he knows now – knowing that maybe, all this time, he hasn’t known half as much as he thought. Only Bakugou Masaru and Bakugou Mitsuki know that their son is going to come home a different person, for better or worse, finally at a tipping point that they both know they probably should have pushed him to sooner. Only Iida Tenya knows that the entire fight was a charade, a joke, a waste of time, because while he was playing hero, trying his hardest to live up to his brother, Tensei was getting struck down, and now he might not live at all.

Everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival. Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito. Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu. Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya.

And that’s all anyone will ever say.

When Hitoshi went to the infirmary to have Recovery Girl patch him up, he resolutely ignored Midoriya. Midoriya, sitting placidly on one of the cots, occasionally chatting idly with Recovery Girl, seemed content to do the same. Now, Hitoshi can’t avoid looking at Midoriya. Across the field, Midoriya looks back, intense enough that Hitoshi stares at the bridge of his nose rather than meeting his eyes.

Physically, neither of them are in great shape. All of Hitoshi’s bones are back where they’re meant to be, but his hand still throbs slightly when he bends his fingers, and Recovery Girl has given him firm orders to be gentle with it or risk undoing all her work. His face is in worse shape, healed to a mottled purple and blue bruise that spreads from below his left eye all the way down to his jaw, protesting at every touch, but the concussion he received from Monoma’s steel-plated fist has been dealt with. Midoriya’s arms are marbled with burns, shiny and wet under the sun, skin bubbling up along his fingers and the corners of his mouth, looking raw and exposed. He’s worse off than Hitoshi is, Hitoshi would guess, except for the fact that Midoriya seems completely unaffected by his lingering injuries, while Hitoshi feels all kinds of uncomfortable with his own.

As if he needed another disadvantage in this fight.

Just for fun, let’s count the number of ways Midoriya has a leg up on Hitoshi:

1. If he’s been paying any attention at all to the matches so far, he has an idea of what Hitoshi’s quirk is and how it works. Probably a good one, at that.
2. He seems stupidly stoic. He never did the other times Hitoshi ran into him, but now? Smooth as glass, Hitoshi can’t get a read on him, which will make it that much harder to get a response out of him.
3. He killed his father.
   1. Which is horrifying and has had Hitoshi psyched out ever since his dumb ass overheard it to begin with.
   2. He has the skill and experience to kill someone. Skills and experience that Hitoshi can’t even imagine because what the fuck?
   3. Possibly evil??? He cried a lot about it for someone evil, but also, well – murder. So, there’s that.

Of course, there’s the chance that the third issue could actually be used to Hitoshi’s advantage. In fact, it’s probably the best chance he has. He needs bait good enough that even someone like Midoriya – stoic, already knowing the mechanics of Hitoshi’s quirk – will take it. And given the way Midoriya sobbed uncontrollably while he told Bakugou – what he told him, it seems like the topic evokes a certain undeniable response.

Hitoshi imagines it. Hey, he could say. What was it like to kill your father? He wonders if hysterical sobbing would fulfill Brainwashing’s activation requirements.

He feels a little sick, just thinking about it.

A lot of people would be surprised to learn that Hitoshi isn’t really prone to moral dilemmas. With a quirk like his everyone always expects him to be up to no good – and if he’s not up to no good, then certainly he must be considering it, at least. Come on, they all say, you can tell me. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever used it for? Have you ever thought about doing this? And Hitoshi will smile and laugh awkwardly and then disengage as quickly as possible, because the answer is almost always no – he never thought about it until they asked. He never wanted to think about it. And why would he? He knew the difference between right and wrong, and wrong didn’t become right just because he could get away with it.

See, Hitoshi likes to think he’s a good person. No, not a nice one, he’d never claim that. He doesn’t like people much, and the feeling is mutual. He’s spiteful, contrary, and petty. An asshole among assholes. But you don’t need to be nice to be good. Hitoshi wants to help people not hurt anymore, he wants to stop hurting along the way, and as for all the people who’ve caused him that hurt? Being allowed to live the life he wants would be more than enough retribution for him. If he gets to rub it in their faces a little, that would be a bonus, but he’ll settle for being left alone. He thinks that makes him a good person. Or at least, not a bad one.

Hitoshi runs his tongue over the back of his teeth as he stares at Midoriya. What was it like to kill your father? Even silent, the words taste like bile.

Once, Hitoshi’s father had sighed and told him, “Spite and a contrary disposition won’t get you far in life.”

And Hitoshi had sneered and replied, “Just wait and see.”

Seems like he’s finally found the limit. Even Hitoshi isn’t spiteful or contrary enough to weaponize tragedy, trauma. Hitoshi has dreamed of being a hero his entire life. But he refuses to become a bad person in order to do it.

Hitoshi takes a deep, shaky breath. Later, he will probably hang out in the alley next to his apartment with all the stray cats and cry about this. Now, he will at least go down fighting.

Midoriya moves as soon as the match begins. He’s fast, so Hitoshi has to talk faster.

“Where did you even come from?” he asks, voice raising on a yelp as Midoriya enters his personal space almost immediately. “Woah, jesus christ, you’re fast.”

Midoriya closes his fist around the collar of Hitoshi’s jacket, the same way Monoma did, the same way Midoriya did to Todoroki. Collars are safety hazards – Hitoshi will remember that if he ever gets to design a hero costume, though that’s looking less likely by the second. A harsh yank sends him stumbling, and Midoriya tows him around as if Hitoshi isn’t a half foot taller than him.

“Watch it! If you’re going to manhandle me like this, you could at least introduce yourself. No? Not even a hello? Were you raised in a barn or something?”

Midoriya doesn’t respond, doesn’t acknowledge Hitoshi’s words in any way, not even a twitch of his mouth or eyes. Resolutely, he drags Hitoshi towards the boundary line, and all Hitoshi’s attempts to dig his heels in only serve to wear out the soles of his shoes.

Savagely, he digs his nails into the blisters on Midoriya’s wrists and twists, ignoring the nauseating fluid that wells beneath his fingertips, warm and slippery, as the blisters pop. Midoriya hisses, grip loosening enough that Hitoshi manages to grab the jacket’s zipper, tearing it down in one sharp movement, spinning as he jerks his arms out of his sleeves, graceless but fast and effective. Instinct tells him to backpedal, to get the hell away, but Midoriya will close any distance Hitoshi manages to put between them in an instant.

Last time he panicked, Hitoshi punched Monoma in the face, and that actually worked out quite well for him. At the very least, it was satisfying. Channeling the same frantic non-strategy, Hitoshi grabs the bottom of his jacket, still in Midoriya’s hand, and pulls it over Midoriya’s head.

And then – he holds on. Honestly, he didn’t think much on next steps, and he’s not quite sure what to do next, but Midoriya grunts, his head and one arm tangled in the jacket, and this time Hitoshi didn’t even break his hand in the process, which counts as some kind of success in his books.

“You’re looking a little tied up,” Hitoshi pants, throwing all his weight into keeping Midoriya restrained. “I’d get it if you wanted to call it quits. No hard feelings, promise.”

Hitoshi’s jacket bursts into flames.

Midoriya stumbles forward as Hitoshi stumbles back, falling to the ground as the zipper flashes like a scorching whip across his arm. Ash and embers and tattered fabric drift around them. Small sparks of flame eat at the tips of Midoriya’s hair, but as Hitoshi watches, they float away like fireflies, joining the swirl of fire that surrounds Midoriya.

“It was nice while it lasted,” Hitoshi says faintly. “Damn it. Fuck.”

Midoriya looks at him, the most acknowledgement he has given so far to anything Hitoshi has said. Hitoshi laughs, and Midoriya gives him the moment, not attacking. Burns have spread across his face, a new blister rising on his cheek, freckles standing out oddly against the redness of his skin. His eyebrows are singed and asymmetrical, the tail of one burnt off.

“I’m jealous,” Hitoshi admits, apropos of nothing. Maybe it’s a last-ditch effort, maybe it’s just something that needs to be said. Who knows. “Everyone has always told me that I have a villain’s quirk. They say it with so much certainty that it’s like they want me to become one. Like it doesn’t matter that all I want is to be a hero. And you – you literally have a hero’s quirk. Endeavor is the number two! All he does is make fire; you can actually control it. It’s just – that’s so fucking ironic.”

Hitoshi, with his villain’s quirk, striving to be a hero. Midoriya, with his hero’s quirk, possibly a villain.

“It would almost be funny, if we weren’t the butt of the joke.”

Hitoshi blinks. It is the same higher-pitched-than-expected voice that surprised him when he first ran into Midoriya in the hallway last week, an even more surprising sound now, when Midoriya is fierce and flaming and so stubbornly silent. But that was definitely Midoriya’s voice, and the connection blossoms at the back of Hitoshi’s head waiting for him to grab hold and complete it. He does, of course he does, and Midoriya’s eyes, already so disconcertingly blank, fog over. Hitoshi holds on tight to his command, feels as the tether strains slightly on Midoriya’s end, but it doesn’t give.

Hitoshi doesn’t know what changed. Maybe with Hitoshi prone on the ground, Midoriya thought he was defenseless. Maybe Midoriya’s stunt with a face full of fire has somehow messed up his head. Maybe Hitoshi’s glancing implication to Midoriya’s villain background had unbalanced him enough to trick him into responding. Hitoshi doesn’t know, and he can’t bring himself to care.

“Walk out of bounds,” he says.

Midoriya does.

Hitoshi laughs to himself. A finalist. He’s moving on to the final round. Somehow, he managed to come out of his fight with Midoriya less injured than he did his match with Monoma, and now he’s a finalist.

Here’s to spite and a contrary disposition, he thinks, a giddy toast in his head. They haven’t failed him yet.

Everyone will know exactly what happens during the sports festival. Ask anyone and they’ll agree. Shinsou Hitoshi beats Monoma Neito. Shoji Mezo beats Asui Tsuyu. Bakugou Katsuki beats Iida Tenya.

Shinsou Hitoshi beats Midoriya Izuku.

That’s all anyone will ever say.

Except there are a million sides to every story. Doesn’t it seem a shame to leave so many untold?

Everyone will know that Shinsou Hitoshi beats Midoriya Izuku.

But only Shinsou Hitoshi knows that he didn’t even have to use his trump card, that he won without resorting to the nuclear option, that he moved that one step closer to fulfilling his dreams without compromising his own idea of what it means to be a good person. Only Aizawa Shouta knows that he was rooting for Shinsou in the back of his head, because he has a soft spot for underdogs – secret or not so secret depending on who you ask – and as much as Izuku needs help and support to build confidence, his capability has never been under question. Only Bakugou Katsuki knows that the festival might as well have ended right there with that match, because none of it matters anymore, not with Deku out of the running, because he was the only challenge on the bracket, the only one who has ever made Katsuki feel weak and without fighting Deku at the end, without beating him, there’s no way Katsuki can show everyone how strong he really is. Only Shigaraki Tomura knows that it’s all a sham, because the boy standing on screen used to stand by his side and Izuku could destroy each and every one of them – could and would, leave others to clean up the throats he slits – and Tomura knows that there’s no such thing as heroes and villains, not really, all just people who hurt other people, violence bred from violence until death is the only language everyone can understand.

And only Midoriya Izuku knows that there was never a way for him to win, not really, because there's no black and white in his world, and when everything is shades of grey, sometimes even a victory can look like a loss.

Shinsou Hitoshi is surprising.

That’s what Izuku thinks as he claws at the fabric covering his face with his free hand – his other, still fisted in the collar of the jacket that is now restraining him, is caught next to his ear, and his shoulder strains uncomfortably if he tries to free it. This is a resourcefulness that Izuku wasn’t expecting, though it’s nice to see, since it adds some depth to Shinsou’s skillset, that seems otherwise one-dimensional. So far, he’d been relying solely on his quirk, and this display of adaptability implies he has more potential than Izuku had begun to suspect.

Izuku still hesitates to call Shinsou clever or particularly strategic. He pulls the jacket tight to Izuku’s face, yanking back against it as Izuku struggles to free himself, but he lacks follow-up. Restraining Izuku like this is ultimately useless on its own, only the first of what should be several essential steps if Shinsou actually plans to win.

“You’re looking a little tied up,” Shinsou says, voice close to Izuku’s ear but muffled by fabric and his own breathlessness. “I’d get it if you wanted to call it quits. No hard feelings, promise.”

He’s trying, Izuku will give him that much, but he’s using the same old tricks that have already proven ineffective. It’s a weak attempt to garner a response – trivial words, like un-baited hooks. Izuku feels no compulsion to banter with someone in the middle of a fight, especially when he knows the consequences of doing so. Did Shinsou manage to catch Aoyama and Monoma with so little effort?

Another sharp pull on the jacket cranes Izuku’s neck into an uncomfortable angle, and he lets himself go slightly limp to relieve the stress. This is getting them nowhere. He sighs, clicks it in the back of his throat, lets his breath come out hot and suffocating. There is a moment, before fabric gives way as fibers disintegrate into ash, where Izuku feels like he is boiling, and then he stumbles forward, unbound. The air, heated into wavering lines by the flames dancing around him, feels blessedly cool against his flame-tender face. Behind him, Shinsou makes a bitten off sound of pain, falling to the ground with a thud that reverberates up Izuku’s ankles. Izuku pulls his new fire into unruly organization, gathering the sparks flitting through the air into a continuous stream that circles around him.

“It was nice while it lasted,” Shinsou says, seemingly to himself. His voice, soft and faint, grows frustrated as he adds, “Damn it. Fuck.”

Izuku turns back to face him. Shinsou sits on the ground, long legs sprawled in front of him, propped up on one hand. The other, the one Recovery Girl tutted over when he visited the infirmary after his match with Monoma, hovers limply in front of his abdomen. A lividly red welt stands out against his skin, starting near his wrist and curving back around his arm, nearly to his elbow. He laughs, strange and strained.

“I’m jealous,” Shinsou says, a sharp-edged confession. “Everyone has always told me that I have a villain’s quirk. They say it with so much certainty that it’s like they want me to become one. Like it doesn’t matter that all I want is to be a hero.”

Shinsou looks tired. Angry, too, but the anger is like a faded, threadbare thing – an old blanket that is too worn away to keep him warm anymore. The tiredness, that’s more like stone – heavy and lasting, changed only in the tiny, unnoticeable increments of erosion. His eyes spark and dim, challenge and resignation in turns.

And Izuku remembers Aizawa Shouta.

It feels like a lifetime since Izuku has thought of Aizawa Shouta, even though it’s only been a couple of weeks since he first learned the name. So much has changed since then, and now Izuku thinks more of Eraserhead than the boy who became the hero. But it was Aizawa Shouta who brought Izuku here, Aizawa Shouta who made himself a hero when the world didn’t want him to be one, who fought and defied and preserved.

Shinsou Hitoshi is a bit like Aizawa Shouta. He’s not as skilled – at least, not yet – and he relies far too much on his quirk, where Aizawa Shouta always knew that his greatest strength was skill. But even beaten down, Shinsou is fighting back. Writing his own story.

Shinsou is more like Aizawa Shouta than Izuku could ever hope to be.

“And you,” Shinsou continues, swallowing bitterly around the words, “you literally have a hero’s quirk. Endeavor is the number two! All he does is make fire; you can actually control it. It’s just,” he laughs without humor, “that’s so fucking ironic.”

A hero’s quirk. If only Shinsou knew, Izuku thinks wryly.

There is nothing heroic about him, especially not the Frankenstein amalgamation of stolen quirks that he is using to put on a show. Izuku has fooled them all so well – the audience members who are cheering for him from the stands, Aoyama and Tokoyami who want to eat lunch with him, Eraser and Mic who let him sleep down the hall, Shinsou who doesn’t know the half of it.

Irony – a state of affairs opposite to what one would expect. Why should Izuku get a second chance when Shinsou Hitoshi hasn’t even gotten his first? Izuku is trying to be good, isn’t he? If he wins here, he’ll be adding Shinsou’s future onto the long list of things he has stolen. Nothing good about that.

“It would almost be funny,” Izuku says, because irony is meant to be amusing, even if it’s not this time, “if we weren’t the butt of the joke.”

The surprise in Shinsou’s eyes is blatant, but he doesn’t hesitate. He has Izuku under his control in less than a second.

Brainwashing is a fuzzy grey space. It is a fog so dense that it cradles Izuku, supporting his limbs, filling his eyes and nose and ears. It is even better than the emotional suppression quirk. Nothing to do, no responsibilities. Just a hazy-warm embrace, like falling asleep in the backseat of a car on a long drive, knowing your destination will come to you. Izuku can see why people hate it so much, after the fact. Some must find it terrible, to have your agency taken away from you between one moment and the next, and then to find the violation of your will comforting. Izuku doesn’t mind it.

He presses back against the fog around him, and as soft as it was, it resists the pressure, solidifying around him. Curiosity satisfied, Izuku relaxes, allows himself to drift in this welcoming non-space.

“Walk out of bounds,” Shinsou says, and Izuku is vaguely aware that he does.

He comes to on the other side of the boundary line, with the crowd cheering around him. Not cheering for him this time. Shinsou sits on the ground still, eyes shining, shoulders shaking with a laugh that Izuku can’t hear. It’s a nice moment – Izuku will remember it fondly, as soon as proper fondness is something he is capable of. For now, he nods to Midnight and makes his way to exit the stadium, leaving Shinsou to revel in his victory, the surreal joy of seeing dreams come true.

Shinsou deserves it.