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“You ready, Toshi-kun? Did you get enough sleep? Oh, did you take your lunch with you? We made your favorites, hope that’s okay…” Hitoshi’s mother frets, adjusting his tie with cold fingers before giving him a smile. “Maybe I should have made more if you wanted to share?”
“It’s fine, Mom. You don’t need to make more,” Hitoshi replies, pulling away.
He hates the way his mother’s face falls. She’s so kind and outgoing — she’s never managed to understand how or why her son didn’t have friends.
Not that she blames him, of course, but the sad look that crosses her face every time something reminds her that they’re the only ones who support him hurts Hitoshi’s heart nonetheless.
“And I’m ready,” he tells her. He doesn’t mention how he slept, because that’s always been a bit of a lost cause, and instead hitches his bag up on his shoulder. “I’ll make you proud.”
His mother smiles and sniffles as she ruffles his hair. “You already do, kiddo. Now, off you go — I’ll try to catch the Festival on the radio at work, but whatever happens, we’ll celebrate tonight, okay? Your Ma made sure she’d finish early so she could join us too.”
“That’ll be nice,” Hitoshi replies through the sudden tight knot in his throat. He shuffles his feet and takes a deep breath, putting his hand on the doorknob. “Bye, Mom. Have a nice day.”
“Have a great day too, kiddo,” his mother replies, and Hitoshi exhales as he pulls the door open.
Today, he knows, is his one chance to shine and show the world who he is.
After all, there’s a free spot in the hero course, since that weird kid dropped out after the USJ debacle, and it’s got Hitoshi’s name on it.
Hitoshi lines up with the rest of his class for the first event of the festival, scowling and looking down at the ground. It’s a race, which puts him up against everyone else, but that’s fine, that’s cool.
Hitoshi knew he’d be going up against them anyway.
He’s ready for this.
And then the canon goes and the race starts, and it’s complete pandemonium.
Someone shoots up ahead and nearly freezes everyone else to the ground, and then it’s all Hitoshi can do not to get trampled on as he starts running.
But his goal is getting further and further away — how many people are in front of him now? Forty? Fifty? A hundred?
More?
Too many, that’s for sure, and Hitoshi’s heart freezes with panic.
And then… It’s like his mind goes blank. He barely realizes he’s calling out for people — other kids he’s seen run faster or avoid obstacles well — and when they answer, the line from them to him goes bright with shining light.
Get me across the finish line, he orders them, and he’s too panicked to feel sick at what he’s doing.
And then he’s across that line and in the group moving up to the next round, and it’s easy to slip away from the students suddenly free from his control, wondering how they got there.
“Breathe,” Hitoshi whispers to himself, shoving his hands into his pockets to hide their shaking. “Just breathe. One down, only two more to go.”
The second event will be a cavalry battle, Midnight announces, and Hitoshi’s heart falls to the bottom of his stomach.
Only a few students from Gen Ed have even gotten this far, and none of them would help Hitoshi win — that is, if they’d even agree to help him.
He eyes the field with a bitter taste in his mouth.
If he can’t team up with students he knows, that really only leaves him with one choice — hero students.
And Hitoshi can’t take the chance that they’ll say no.
It’s okay, he tells himself as he snags hero student after hero student in his quirk, if I win, they’ll get to advance too.
It only barely makes him feel better, but Hitoshi can’t turn back on. He’s come too far, his dream is too close.
He needs to win this round, and then the next — and then, finally, UA will see that he deserves to be a hero too.
When Midnight announces the third round will be one-on-one fights, Hitoshi’s heart dances anxiously in his chest. On the one hand, he has better chances than he could have hoped for — just get his opponent to answer and he’s basically home free — but on the other… He’s got to face four different hero students.
(Well, hopefully.)
That’s four students with more training than he does.
His first opponent is Monoma Neito, from class 1-A, a smug blond whose group placed third in the cavalry battle.
He embodies everything Hitoshi doesn’t like about the hero students — who think they’re better than the rest of them because they’re hero students — and Hitoshi’s scowling before he even sets foot on the arena and lays eyes on his opponent.
“Shinsou, was it?” Monoma starts to say, rolling his shoulders lazily as Midnight counts down to the start of the duel. “I’d congratulate you for making it this far coming from General Education, but I’m afraid your journey will have to stop here.” His smirk widens into something so fakely apologetic that Hitoshi’s chest burns with rage.
“You’re just not on the same —”
“AND START!” Midnight shouts, cracking her whip.
Monoma’s hands start sparking with small explosions as he rushes forward, and he laughs. “Like it?” he asks smugly when Hitoshi just barely dodges out of the way. “I copied it from a classmate — that’s my quirk, see, Copy. I can —”
“Do you ever shut up?” Hitoshi interrupts, gritting his teeth in exasperation. He still has spots in his vision from that first explosion, but it’s nothing compared to what he’d seen the 1-A kid this quirk really belongs to do during the Cavalry Battle.
“Hey!” Monoma retorts, offended. “I was —”
But that Hey was all Hitoshi needed to take control, and he heaves a relieved sigh, rolling his shoulders as he stares down his opponent.
“Walk out of bounds,” he orders, and of course, Monoma does.
Midnight’s whip cracks again as Monoma steps out of the circled area they’ve delimited for their fight, and Hitoshi lets the thread leading to Monoma’s mind snap just as Midnight calls his name for the winner.
There is silence from the stands, and then, applause.
Midnight offers him a proud grin as she waves him back to the waiting areas, and Hitoshi goes, his heart pounding in his chest.
One down, three to go.
Because the world hates Hitoshi, his second opponent is Todoroki.
Todoroki, who had buried his last opponent in a glacier two seconds into the match — not even leaving that guy a chance to say anything.
Walking up to the arena this time is even more nerve-wracking, but what choice does Hitoshi even have?
He wants this so badly he can taste it, and he can’t turn back now.
He doesn’t want to, even if the thought of facing Todoroki makes him want to die, just a little.
But when Hitoshi gets to the arena, all he can think is that Todoroki looks… sad.
Disdain curls sourly in Hitoshi’s stomach as he clenches his fists by his sides. What does Todoroki even have to be sorry about? He’s a hero student with the perfect offensive quirk, his father — the number two hero — is in the stands, watching him, and he just eliminated his last opponents in two seconds flat with a glacier.
Meanwhile, Hitoshi’s had to fight every inch of the way to even get to this arena. He’s stuck in general studies, with a quirk that doesn’t help him until someone answers him, and his mothers…
Well, his mothers are working, because they can’t afford to take the day off, even if they support his and his dreams with all of their hearts.
So yeah, Todoroki’s attitude pisses him off.
Mignight’s whip snaps again, and Todoroki’s right foot shifts — and with it, a sheet of ice is sent careening toward Hitoshi, who only barely manages to jump out of the way.
“Shit,” he mumbles, wincing at the palms he’s scrapped catching himself on the ground.
He doesn’t have the time to say anything to Todoroki before the boy sends another wave of ice towards him, his eyes still flat and dead.
The cold burns as Hitoshi once again just barely managed to avoid it.
Closer. I need to get closer, Hitoshi thinks, but that’s easier said than done.
But the third wave of ice comes after a longer pause, and then, nothing — Todoroki just stands there, shivering.
Disgust curls in Hitoshi’s stomach again as he struggles to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry,” Todoroki says, his mouth a thin line, “but I need to show my father I can win without his power.” He looks down at his left hand, clenches it into a fist. “You have been a… better opponent than I would have thought.”
Hitoshi’s lips curl into a snarl. “So this is what this is about?” he asks, hurrying forward carefully — closer is where he wants to be, but the last thing Hitoshi wants is to get caught in Todoroki’s next attack because he’s not cautious enough to catch it. “Impressing your Daddy?”
Come on, he thinks, say something!
And finally, Hitoshi gets an answer.
“What?” Todoroki says, faltering, and just like that, Hitoshi has him.
He grins, savage and wild, and orders Todoroki to walk out of bounds.
Even with as much ice as Shouto’s brought to the field, he can still feel the heat of Endeavor’s flames burning at his back.
“Cease this childish behavior, Shouto! Use my fire!”
His father’s voice echoes in his head. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see his father scowl, the flames burning brighter.
Maybe that’s why he speaks to the Gen Ed student facing him. He’s providing a better fight than Shouto could have hoped for, really, but now it’s time to end it.
(He’s so cold, though — he can’t keep this up forever.
… Just a little longer, he tells himself, shoving the sweet burning heat of his left side back under the sharpness of the ice. Just a little longer.)
And then the Gen Ed kids says something, and Shouto
is
gone.
(“Use my fire, Shouto.”)
(“Use my fire!”)
(“USE IT!”)
(“USE MY FIRE!”)
And then there is heat and flames and the world snaps back into sharp focus.
Shouto’s left foot is poised over the line marking the end of the dueling zone and he stumbles backward.
The arena is so silent, suddenly — only no, it’s not, Shouto’s ears are ringing.
Someone’s screaming, and it isn’t him.
Swallowing, Shouto turns around. If he isn’t the one screaming, that really only leaves one other option.
He feels sick, laying eyes on the boy he’d been fighting. He’s burned — badly — and he’s stopped screaming.
The silence feels worse, somehow, and Shouto’s knees finally jerk him forward.
“Oh god,” he hears himself say, “I’m so sorry.”
Hands catch him and pull him away. “Hey, kid, it’s okay — he’ll be fine. Burns always look worse than they are, and Recovery Girl will take care of him in a jiffy, you’ll see.”
Midnight’s voice feels so far away though, like Shouto’s hearing it from underwater.
She shepherds him out of sight quickly, and Shouto focuses on breathing and on forgetting what those screams had sounded like.
She says something he doesn’t hear, but Shouto follows mechanically until he’s sitting on a bed. It’s soft (softer than he deserves), and Midnight-sensei’s back with a glass of cold water for him to hold before he even realizes she’d been gone.
Shouto blinks and the water is warm, and Midnight-sensei is gone. Distantly, Shouto realizes this must mean they’ve resumed to matches, and his throat closes up with panic.
His father —
If Shouto doesn’t win…
The thought escapes him, and he loses time again.
When he comes back to himself, his father’s shouting again. This, at least, feels familiar.
“ — and your dismal performance was shameful, Shouto, I can’t believe you —”
“That student,” Shouto interrupts, gaze still riveted to his hands. “That student,” he repeats, the words thick and unwieldy in his mouth, “is he okay?”
“What? Yes, I’m sure he’s fine — but Shouto, surely you must see, this is why you need me to train your fire! You —”
With practiced ease, Shouto tunes out his father. Relief rings in his ears anyway, and it feels like he can finally breathe.
Those screams… For a moment, Shouto had thought…
He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter. If anything, this has only sharpened his resolve, only strengthened his promise.
“No,” he says out loud.
His father snorts, his fire burning hotter. “No?” he repeats threateningly.
At last, Shouto looks up at him. “No. I will not use your fire and I will not train it with you.” You saw what it did! he wants to scream. You saw what I did!
But screaming back has never helped him against Endeavor, and Shouto can’t figure it would start doing any good now.
So instead, Shouto does what he does best — he stays quiet, and lets his father rage.