Work Text:
Kamui took a deep, cleansing breath of the forest air. He had only been walking down the path for a few minutes, but just being surrounded by forest, seeing trees instead of the familiar skyline of his precinct, was soothing. Another half-mile in, and he would be out of cell service, and away from the reach of the world. He could already feel the weight of the past weeks lifting from his shoulders.
Until his phone began to buzz.
He almost ignored it. The responsibilities of his new ranking and unstable times made stints in the wild more and more difficult to justify, more and more irresponsible. Because of that, the time he spent reconnecting with the forest that had been his only real home for so long had been whittled down to once a week, and then once a month, and currently was sitting at ‘the rare moments when nothing was in the process of collapsing and nothing was threatening to’. This was a rare escape.
But it might be Edgeshot. He was a man of few words, but when he had something to say, it was usually important. And despite their team-up, Kamui couldn’t shake the lingering feeling he had failed Edgeshot- failed everyone, really- when he had let the League of Villains slip through his lacquered prison.
He pulled out his phone, and was met by a familiar incandescent smile plastered across his screen. Mt. Lady had set her own contact image- insisted on it- when they had teamed up, so he had to endure her marketing whenever she called him. Which was often.
He almost ignored it, on principle, but he couldn’t quite ignore the lingering tweek of his conscience.
“Mt. La-”
“Holy shit, are you watching the news?” No honorifics, no ‘senpai’, no small talk. Alarm bells started to go off in Kamui’s head.
“No- didn’t I tell you I was-”
“Turn it, right now.” The shaky note in Mt. Lady’s voice froze him in his tracks. He’d never heard her so serious before, not even after Kamino. He turned back towards the edges of the forest and started walking. Mt. Lady could be excitable, self-centered, and vain, but she was no coward.
As he walked, he heard Mt. Lady make a little exclamation of horror on the other side of the phone. “What is it? What’s happening?” he asked, fumbling with the news app on his phone. Even after years of living in civilization, he still had a bit of trouble with technology.
“Those… those Nomu things… from Kamino,” Mt. Lady said, her voice hushed. “The ones… he… was making…”
“What?” The dark seed of the fears that had taken root in Kamui’s chest that night in Kamino reared their its head again. All for One. In one fell swoop, their society had lost its greatest hero, and Kamui’s convictions about himself and his place in society had been shaken to the core. Unable to do anything but watch the League of Villains slip from his grasp, unable to secure the kid’s safety, unable to come in time to save Mt. Lady and Jeanist and the others from harm, and helpless in front of the sheer horror of power that was All for One.
“Endeavor… and Hawks…” Mt. Lady said, but the news stream had finally loaded. Kamui stared in horror as a creature, far more twisted and strange than the horrors they had dredged from All for One’s laboratory, dragged their number one hero through a building.
Suddenly, the woods around him did nothing for his peace of mind.
Mt. Lady’s hands curled around the phone, well-manicured nails scraping against the service as she stared at the television.
It had been shaping up to be an uneventful day, with Kamui out communing with nature and Edgeshot doing… whatever Edgeshot did when he wasn’t on duty. Alone in their hero office, without any pressing matters on hand, Mt. Lady had been planning to put her feet up, order a pizza, and watch tv until someone called for her.
But as she soon as she flipped on the tv, she was met with a maelstrom of fire and debris. And two familiar figures in the middle of it, looking much smaller than they had ever seemed in real life.
Instantly, the destruction, and the strange, twisted Nomu wrecking it brought her back to Kamino, lying dazed in the aftermath of the blast that could have killed her. Would have killed her, if it hadn’t been for Jeanist’s reflexes.
She stared, glued to the television as the two heroes fought the monstrosity. For a few heart-pounding moments, she might as well have been back in Kamino, with how her chest tightened and the same blinding, crushing dread crashed down on her, pinning her to the couch and rendering her unable to move- again- as the horror unfolded before her eyes.
And then she’d pried herself out of her own ass, checked Endeavor and Hawks’ location- too far away to be of any immediate use- and called Kamui.
“That creature,” he breathed. “It’s far beyond the capabilities of the Nomus you and the others captured in Kamino.”
The sound of her teammate’s voice, even if he was just as perturbed as her, calmed Mt. Lady a little. Forced her to gather herself. It would be no good to fall apart in front of Kamui; he would tease her ruthlessly for it the next time their rivalry came up. She pursed her lips. “Yeah. Well, I mean, the ones we captured were, like… deactivated? Or something. I don’t know. They were gross, but not any threat.” A sick feeling crawled up into her throat as she watched the creature fly across the television screen, its flesh rippling strangely with every beat of its arm-like wings, before it opened and poured more, pale, writhing Nomus onto the streets below. Hawks was a tiny, almost frail figure, darting among them, like a raptor among elephants. One blow would be all it took.
Kamui exhaled. “I had hoped this was over.”
“We knew it wasn’t,” Mt. Lady snapped. “We hardly won, last time. Don’t tell me you forgot just because you didn’t end up in the hospital.”
And now, without All Might… She cut the thought off. That was defeatist talk, not the sort of thing that got a hero into the top ten. Or even twenty-third place. All Might was the older generation; she and Kamui were the newbies, smashing onto the scene, undefeatable. The only people who could get in their way were each other.
… At least, that was how it had been before Kamino.
They were quiet for a few heartbeats, watching the fight unfold. Watching the press of civilians fleeing the scene, terror written across their features. It was a far cry from the cheerful spectators of villains fights just a few months back.
“It’s chaos,” Kamui breathed.
“I’m not sure they can win,” Mt. Lady said.
“If they can’t…” before Kamui could finish the thought, Mt. Lady heard a beep on his end. “One moment. Edgeshot’s calling. I’m adding him to the call.”
‘Sensei!” Mt. Lady’s voice burst through the phone.
“Edgeshot-sensei.” Kamui’s voice followed a moment later, more restrained, but fearful all the same. “I trust you’ve been following the news.”
Edgeshot leaned back against the rickety hospital chair, exchanging a look with Jeanist. Honestly, much like Kamui, on his days off he preferred solitude, and to be as cut off from the outside world as possible; it was one of the reasons he guarded his civilian identity so closely. Even now, visiting another hero who he trusted and considered a friend, he was wrapped from head to toe in concealing garments. If he hadn’t been paying a visit to Best Jeanist, who probably found it physically painful to not have his hand on the pulse of the country, he might not have heard the news nearly so fast.
“Of course,” he said, switching the phone to speaker so Jeanist could hear his team as well. The two of them turned back to the television in the far wall, watching the Nomu wreck havoc on Hawk’s city.
“There’s no way we could help them? No one has a quirk that could get us there?” Mt. Lady said.
“None I can think of,” Edgeshot said, exchanging a look with Jeanist. Recovery Girl had done her best- without her, Jeanist would have almost certainly have died- but after three months convalescence, Edgeshot’s friend was still far from mended from the injuries he had sustained at Kamino. It would be a while yet before he would be fit to step back onto the stage.
Jeanist’s eyes narrowed, his long fingers clenching into frustrated fists over the hospital sheets. Edgeshot sympathized; having to sit on the sidelines and watch the cracks in the foundations of their society spread, effectively helpless, couldn’t have been easy.
Well, now they were both in that position. Again. The spector of All Might’s fight with All for One rose in Edgeshot’s mind.
On the screen, a maelstrom of fire exploded from Endeavor. For a moment, hope leapt into Edgeshot’s throat as the Nomu’s flesh was incinerated in the blast.
“Yes, Endeavor!” Mt. Lady called, laughing with relief.
Her laughter died a moment later, when the little dark mass of flesh that had fallen from the Nomu’s form writhed and spread, regenerating into.. Into.. the creature itself, unescathed.
A moment later, blood sprayed outwards as the Nomu struck, and Endeavor fell.
Edgeshot swore.
Jeanist sat up straighter, leaning forward as if to try to confirm what he was seeing. After a moment, the news cut away, to more shots of the frantic crowd, fleeing the wreckage.
“The fabric of society is unravelling,” Jeanist said, quietly, leaning back against the headboard of the bed. His face had gone several shades paler than the unhealthy shade it had already been.
Edgeshot couldn’t disagree.
“Uhm…” Mt. Lady’s voice crackled through the phone again. “If Endeavor and Hawks bite it, will that make Edgeshot-sensei number one?”
Edgeshot sat up, eyes widening. He hadn’t even thought about it; he’d been too horrified by the fight to think beyond it. He didn’t want to think about it. But… Endeavor was down, and if the Nomu got Hawks, too…
“No, because Best Jeanist is still number three,” Kamui answered. “I know you don’t like him, but-”
“I like Jeanist!” Mt. Lady protested. “He saved my life! I thanked him, and everything!”
Faintly, Edgeshot realized he’d not made any mention of where he was, who he was with, or the fact he’d put his teammates on speakerphone. Luckily, Best Jeanist seemed too absorbed by the scene to have any other reaction other than looking grimly amused.
Her tone grew serious. “But… he’s not in any condition to fill All Might’s shoes.”
“Neither is Endeavor, apparently.”
“Quiet,” Edgeshot snapped, and instantly his teammates shut up.
“They’re right,” Jeanist said softly, still staring at the wreckage onscreen. “If we loose Endeavor and Hawks so soon after Kamino…” He shook his head. “I don’t think either of us could pick up the slack, not even if I was in fighting trim.”
Edgeshot wanted to argue, but he couldn’t find the words. Jeanist was right. They had all felt it, that day in Kamino; their absolute uselessness against a force stronger than anything they had ever imagined. It had stripped away all their notions of the safety they brought Japan.
Endeavor had been the only man who had even tried to come close to Allmight, and he was lying bleeding out on in the wreckage miles and miles away.
“Look!” Jeanist said suddenly, sitting up and pointing. “There!”
A flash of fire on the screen. Edgeshot heard Mt. Lady and Kamui gasp in unison.
“Endeavor!”
He rose like flaming beacon in the sky, aloft on Hawks’ wings. Burning.