Chapter Text
And everyone secretly wants to collaborate with the enemy, to construct a truer version of the self. -Richard Siken, "Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light"
They’d gotten engaged on this trail. Nemuri had been the mastermind of the whole thing; once he and Shouta had both gone to her separately with their plans to propose, her devious mind had kicked into overdrive. She’d been so ardently starry-eyed about the idea of a secluded, romantic proposal in the woods that Hizashi had fallen in love with the idea without a second thought. He and Shouta had both gotten down on one knee practically in unison and spent several minutes bickering, red-faced but laughing, about who had first dibs. They finally just sat down on the ground across from one another and exchanged rings at the same time. Their mutual wingman had been so proud of her handiwork that she’d had her slightly smeary cell phone photo of them retouched and framed and gave them each a copy as an engagement present. It was the only non-practical possession he’d taken with him when he left. Sentimentality had always been his worst habit, Hizashi thought as he refolded the picture and stuffed it back into his pocket.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder and half-spun him around. “Are you coming or what?” Toga asked, her voice full of the self-assured exasperation of a teenager addressing someone below them.
Which, Hizashi thought as he waved her on ahead, he probably was at this point. The League had loved him as a well-poised spy with an insider connection; with no chance at gaining current information and a Quirk that didn’t offer the kind of off-the-cuff firepower their other members on the ground harnessed, however, he’d been swiftly knocked off the A-list. Relegated to babysitting duty, Hizashi found his days filled with tagging along behind impulsive hotheaded teenagers and making sure they didn’t do anything lethally stupid. It was like teaching at UA, but with none of the job satisfaction. Toga was loudly complaining at Shigaraki for walking too fast and getting ahead. Shigaraki appeared to be retaliating by using his long, gangly stride to get even farther away from her. Hizashi resisted the instinct to call out to him to slow down and stay with the group. This wasn’t some school excursion nature hike, he reminded himself; if the temperamental brat wanted to charge ahead and accidentally pitch himself into a ravine it was his own accord.
He could have been at home right now, teasing Shouta about his dark circles and making them both syrupy, over-caffeinated coffee before they had to take the early train to work. He could have been writing the third years a pop quiz on idioms or grading grammatically disastrous essays from the first years. He could have been trading potshots with Nemuri and commiserating over problem students when they caught a free minute out of earshot. He could have been living that comfortable life rather than just reminiscing about what it had felt like.
“What is it you think I’m doing wrong here, Hizashi? You know as well as I do the system isn’t going to be kind to most of these kids, I’m trying to make them see that so they learn how to survive!”
“You don’t rewrite a broken system by showing them how fit into it, Shouta!”
“So it's better to dump them in the middle of a minefield before they have any hope of getting through it?”
“At least the minefield isn’t going to lie to their face about the comfortable life they’ll be living after they do.”
Swing and a miss, Yamada, Hizashi thought with a bitter frown. He’d been naive to ever think the League was a viable route to building a new system away from the blind hero worship and Quirk hierarchies. All it had taken was his knowledge well running dry for their true colors to come out: a reckless, bullheaded conglomeration of petty criminals and children, headed by a monster who was only interested in ripping people apart and picking out the bits he wanted. That was the reality of what Hizashi had chosen; that was the hill he was being forced to die on.
Unless…
Hizashi’s hand clenched around the photo in his pocket. There would be no way to rebuild any of the bridges he’d burned when he left, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t ford the river on foot.
He slowed his pace just a little to allow the others to get farther in front of him. He’d only have one chance at this, so if he was going to do it he’d have to get it right. He knew at the top of the trail they were on there was a fork; going straight took you deeper into the trees, but off to the left the path looped sharply back around towards the road into town. Hizashi wished he’d thought to wear more practical shoes; heeled boots under skinny jeans was a great look and the adherence to aesthetic was on point, but they weren’t really conducive to running for his life. If he made it out of this alive he’d have to ask Nemuri how she managed spike heels and hero work at the same time. Well, he amended with a guilty sinking in his stomach, if he made it out of this alive and she wanted anything to do with him anymore. Hizashi shook himself. The other Pro Heroes, his (former?) friends, Shouta...those were all problems for later-him to face down. Present-him just needed to focus on the future full of nothing stretching out in front of him and how he wanted no part of it. They crested the hill and the fork in the trail came into view. Hizashi took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and took off down the other path at a sprint.
Almost immediately Hizashi knew there hadn’t been a big enough lead between him and the other two. He heard Toga screech “Hey!”, followed by running footsteps gaining on him rapidly. He knew she was a quick draw with her knives but he hadn’t accounted for her being just as fast on her feet. He slowed his pace just slightly to avoid wiping out on a downhill patch of loose gravel, and Toga took the opportunity to tackle him. Both of them went careening into the brush in a tangle of flailing limbs. Something sharp and whip-fast buried itself into his side, retreated, and stung him again slightly higher up. Hizashi threw out an elbow, hoping to connect with Toga but meeting empty air. Toga giggled as she dodged away.
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” she said sweetly. She grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him before putting a knee in his chest to pin him down. Hizashi put up an arm to catch the slash she aimed at his throat. With the other hand he reached up and grabbed one of her buns at the roots, twisting it as hard as he could. Toga bent sideways in the direction he pulled, yowling like a cat in a bathtub. It unbalanced her just enough for Hizashi to get ahold of her knife hand and use her own momentum to send her toppling into the weeds. Panting, Hizashi staggered back to his feet and moved to run.
A long-fingered, unpleasantly strong hand dug into his shoulder before he could even take a step. At once his entire left arm went numb, wrapped in a white-hot web of agony as his flesh began to break apart. Hizashi let out a howl between clenched teeth as his knees dropped out from under him. He gasped for air between his teeth, willing his brain to stop fogging over as the pain radiated up his neck and down his chest. Shigaraki’s other hand closed around his throat in a four-fingered threat of what came next.
“Are you going to scream?” Shigaraki asked. The glee in the question was unmistakable even beneath his petulant monotone.
Fury at the question, at the implication of it, buoyed Hizashi up out of the blackness engulfing his vision. With the scattered bits of coordination he could scrape together, Hizashi reached up his right hand to clench around the wrist of the hand holding his shoulder in a vice-grip. In one motion Hizashi ripped himself free and wrenched Shigaraki’s arm as hard as he could. There was a sharp, hollow popping sound like someone using too much force to open a jar. Shigaraki was the one to scream instead, a howling caterwaul of shock as he clutched at his dislocated elbow. Adrenaline grabbed Hizashi by the scruff of the neck and dragged him upright. He aimed a kick at Toga as she came at him again, unsure and uncaring if it actually connected, and ran.
Hizashi could only imagine the kind of scene he was causing pelting helter-skelter down a city sidewalk, covered in his own blood and looking like he’d been dragged backward through a hedge. He didn’t have time to worry about it, he reminded himself. If he stopped long enough to think he ran the risk of some well-meaning hero on patrol trying to call him an ambulance--or worse, the police. He just had to get home, then he could stop and regroup and put his head back together. Home, home, home, home, he chanted silently to himself as he ran. Home, where there was at least a scant chance of him figuring out what came next. Home, where he could stitch up his wounds and recuperate in the safety his own space. Home, where Shouta was. Shouta, where home was.
Hizashi rounded the last corner and saw their complex less than a block away now. Never in his life had he been so glad they’d gone with the lazier, stairs-free option of a ground-floor condo. His eyes saw nothing but their front door, too scratched to look new but not worn enough to merit the effort of repainting. The small step in front with Hizashi’s sickly potted sunflowers still doing their best to bloom even though neither of them remembered to water them often enough. The little window beside the door that they'd put a blackout curtain over when they'd first moved in and had to sleep in the living room, then never bothered to uncover. Home .
Hizashi staggered up to the door, legs weak from exhaustion and relief. He leaned against the door frame and lifted his fist to pound on the door. “Shouta!” he called, voice cracking upward in his dry throat. “Shouta! You home? Shou--”
The door was wrenched open from under his hand. Hizashi couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he saw Shouta standing there. Shouta looked like a man who had forgotten what sleep and sobriety were, unshaven and unshowered and bundled into one of the comforters from their bed. He dropped the wine bottle he’d been holding, the empty clunk of it gouging a hole in the shocked silence. Hizashi felt tears welling up in his eyes.
“Hey,” he choked out, beaming in spite of everything.
And then the world pitched violently sideways out from under him.
Hizashi stumbled half a step forward, fire blooming in his chest as he tried to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him. He could feel something thin and sharp grate against bone as he moved. Twisting to find the source, he could just barely see the matte black handle of a switchblade caught against his shoulder blade, the rest of the knife stuck in his back. Shit . He attempted to grab onto Shouta and steady himself, the dregs of his adrenaline burst proving too weak to keep him up. Every breath felt shallower than the last, a fist of pain crumpling his lungs like a paper bag.
He wasn’t sure when he had ended up on the ground, but all he could see was Shouta above him. Shouta had gone white, his eyes wide and dark and scared. He dragged the blanket from around his own shoulders and pressed it to the wound in Hizashi’s. He was saying something in a low rapid gasp but Hizashi couldn’t make it out over the shrill ringing in his ears. Hizashi could feel shocks of numbing cold spreading from his chest out through his limbs as his final kick of panic ebbed and shock set in. Shouta was shouting now, half into his phone and half to Hizashi. He was gripping Hizashi’s hand so tightly that Hizashi could still feel it a little as everything else vanished in an ungraceful cascade out from under him.
For just a minute, Hizashi thought ruefully, it had really seemed like he might have a chance.