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When she hit the ground, Yanagi’s adrenaline thrummed under her skin, like burrowing insects biting her veins. Settling in the back of her mind was a chorus of ‘We failed, we failed.’ Her personal chant overshadowed: ‘I failed. I failed.’
Yanagi scrambled across the grass, ducking around the swathes of bright blue flames. They’d had one chance and she’d failed. She’d failed her classmates. She failed the heroes.
Most importantly, she’d failed Kaminari.
“Emily, can you stay with him?” Yaoyorozu asked.
The peak of adrenaline was still so high that Yanagi thought she was imagining Yaoyorozu framed by the firelight. She looked like an apparition and was as pale as one too.
“Can you stay with him?” Yaoyorozu repeated with a trembling voice. “I’m going for help. Can you stay?”
Yanagi gave her a nod. Yaoyorozu sprinted away, presumably to check on the other members of their group. and Yanagi wondered how much of her speed was driven by a subconscious desire to remove herself from the situation.
Maybe Yaoyorozu wanted escape the noise Kaminari was making. The wrenching, droning, vibrating, abominable noise rattling out of his throat. It was the only sign he was alive aside from the crimson blood soaking the ground.
“Kaminari?” Yanagi said, resisting the urge to shake him. “Kaminari, it’s Yanagi. I’m so sorry! Are you okay?!”
The one-note tone didn’t release, but between pained breaths, she thought she heard something that sounded a little like ‘lap’ and ‘pillow.’ Then it faded back into the drone and panic speared through Yanagi.
With a volume she didn’t know she could reach, she shouted, “Yaoyorozu! Someone?!”
But no one came.
Fear swelled over Yanagi like a force of nature. She loved things that made her heart race. She loved movies that made her jolt awake from nightmares and paranormal legends about haunted abodes and heart-pounding ghosts. The fear she felt in the moment, with Kaminari bleeding on her, wasn’t like that. It was too indescribable and uncontrolled, tearing apart the forest with all the extraordinary strength of Gigantomachia.
For the first time, Yanagi wondered if she wanted to be a hero if she had to watch someone die right in front of her.
Her scream, like her fear, could only sustain itself for so long. When no one came, she forced a calm over her, and lay Kaminari flat on the ground.
“Kaminari,” she said. “Kaminari!”
Kaminari did two sharp intakes, and then he vomited.
Yanagi rolled him over onto his side, holding his hair out of his face. He was clammy.
“No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “Kaminari—please try not to do that.”
He didn’t—couldn’t—respond, just gasped, and went quiet.
If there was one thing Yanagi was good at, it was pretending she was calm in the face of calamity. She pressed her fingers against Kaminari’s neck and found a rapid pulse.
Okay. Stay calm. She was calm. Zen, even. She still looked around for a much-needed adult, only to realize that she was the only near-adult in the vicinity. With the sounds of the battle rampaging away from their position, she wasn’t confident in a swift rescue. How many people were dead or dying out there? If this could happen to Kaminari, who was supposed to be safe, what was it like for the people on the front lines?
At some point, he’d lost his glasses, or they’d fractured. The gash in his head bled freely through his tangled blond hair. Yanagi ripped fabric from the hem of her costume and pressed it against the wound.
Kaminari groaned.
“Kaminari, are you okay?” Yanagi asked.
“He hit me,” Kaminari said, voice slurred. “He hit me!”
“Try not to move.”
“He wasn’t—it wasn’t—he wasn’t supposed to hit me. He wasn’t supposed to hit me.”
“It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”
“What’s…What’s happening, I don’t…”
“You have a severe concussion.”
“What…?”
“Your head got hit. Hold still, I’m trying to stop the bleeding.”
“…Where’s my arm…”
“It’s attached to your body.”
“I need to…” Kaminari propped his arm under his body and tried to lift, but he couldn’t raise off the forest floor. “I need to go to class…”
“I don’t think we’re being graded on this, so just try to relax,” said Yanagi. She didn’t need to hold him down to force him still—Kaminari wasn’t capable of moving on his own. With a sinking sensation, she saw uneven pupils blinking up at her like two different sized coins twinkling at the bottom of a fountain.
“He wasn’t supposed to hit me,” said Kaminari. “Need help.”
“Yes, we’ll get you help.”
“No, no, no, they need—it was my job and if I messed it up—”
“You did everything that you could, please, Kaminari…”
“Fuck, I need to…what’s going on, I need to…It’s all…”
“Kaminari, you’re injured. You need to stay here.”
Kaminari hadn’t been trying to get up despite the escalating tension in his voice, building up like an orchestra reaching a crescendo.
“I feel like, I think I’m dying, I think I might be…” Kaminari said.
“You’re not dying.”
“Please don’t go.”
She stopped before she could even will herself to get up and go running for an adult. Kaminari fumbled blindly for her hand, and she gave it to him, though his grip was weak.
It felt weird. She didn’t know Kaminari all that well, aside from his reputation back at UA, but the act of holding his hand and talking to him and keeping him safe felt so natural. She didn’t know how much of that was a natural condition of being a hero and how much of that was just that Kaminari had been so nice to her in the short time they’d had close contact. Not everyone was.
“I won’t leave until you’re safe,” Yanagi promised him.
“Is everyone else okay?” Kaminari asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Is…it’s my fault, right? I should’ve…”
“No, it isn’t. You got hit with a rock. Do you remember that?”
“No…Is…everyone’s okay?”
“Yes.”
“I need to make sure they’re okay. I’ve never had friends before.”
Yanagi blinked. “I find that hard to believe. You have lots of friends at UA.”
“It’s my first time.”
“I’m sure you must’ve had one friend.”
“I’m—I’m not allowed—but—but I can’t lose it. I can’t, what would I do if I don’t have friends, so they can’t be hurt. I need them to be okay and…and I let them down.”
“You didn’t let anyone down.”
Kaminari didn’t answer. Her chest cinched tight like she was being strangled.
“Kaminari, did you hear me? You didn’t let anyone down.”
He let out an affirmative grunt.
“I need you to stay awake. Please keep talking.”
“Is…is everyone else okay?”
“I really think you should be worried about yourself.”
“Can you help the others?”
“Don’t be self-sacrificing. I need to help you.”
“I…I feel like I’m dying—am I dying?”
She surveyed the blood and the blunted fear behind Kaminari’s eyes, like he knew he should be afraid but wasn’t. Yanagi tightened the fabric over the general area the blood was coming from, then clutched both hands on either side of his head.
“Wh…What are you doing?” He asked.
“I’m holding your head in case you hurt your neck,” said Yanagi.
“Did I hurt my neck?”
“I don’t know yet. Just try to stay calm.”
Kaminari’s chest was rising and falling rapidly, and she couldn’t tell how much of it was an injury she couldn’t see and how much of it was raw panic.
“Are they okay?” Kaminari asked. “I need them to be okay.”
“Everyone else is fine,” said Yanagi. “Tell me about your friends.”
“…Huh?”
“Your friends. Tell me about them.”
“You’ve…you met them…I…”
“Not very well.”
“You should hang out with us. They’re so cool. Kacchan gives a big bad impression, but he’s a cool guy.”
“Who’s Kacchan…?”
“And Kirishima’s cool, and Midoriya’s cool, and Momo’s cool cuz she helps with my homework. Do you know how bad I am at homework? I suck. But I’m passing cuz everyone helps me, and…and I would’ve gotten kicked out if it wasn’t for them. My grades started going down and everyone offered to help. No one would’ve helped me at…I need you to know that…that Monoma’s wrong about us. We’re not trying to be better than everyone. They are so cool. You tell Monoma to shut the front door on his way out.”
“Um…sure,” said Yanagi. “If it helps, nobody listens to Monoma.”
“Kirishima’s pretty cool too. He’s so tough. I wish I was as tough as he was.”
“Tetsutetsu has had nothing but good things to say about him.”
“Damn straight he should! I’d be mad if anyone said a bad thing.” He looked up into Yanagi’s eyes like she was something special. “I just want them to be okay and I let them down…I’m gonna let everyone down. It’s all gonna go wrong. I’ll let them down.”
Kaminari’s hand wrung around Yanagi’s like he was afraid he might lose her. He looked senseless, his words blending together in a slurry of head-trauma-induced emotion.
“Emily, can you keep a secret?” he whispered. “I’m gonna ruin everything.”
“No, you won’t.”
“No, no, no!” His head lulled back and forth, trying to shake away her words. Yanagi steadied his neck. “I’m gonna ruin it all someday.” She’d never seen anyone look so afraid. “Then you’re gonna hate me. Everyone’s gonna hate me. Man, that’s gonna suck so hard.”
“No, you listen to me. You didn’t let anyone down. No one’s going to hate you. Your friends are very proud of you. You were very brave, and it’s not your fault you got hurt. You didn’t ruin anything.”
Kaminari’s eyes closed. “You’re so cool.”
“Oh, um…thanks?”
“Like you put the…there’s a thing…on my head? Did you do that?”
“Yes. You’re bleeding.”
“Is anyone else bleeding? Is everyone’s okay?”
“Everyone’s okay.”
“I don’t—I don’t see them…”
Then he gasped, and fell unconscious.
Yanagi stayed with Kaminari all the way to the hospital, holding his hand until the moment his eyes opened. There was no moment where he drifted in and out of consciousness, no transition between comatose and awake. Suddenly she looked up and he was chalk white, fixated on the ceiling and squeezing her hand until her fingers tingled with numbness.
“Everything’s okay,” said Yanagi. “You’re in the hospital. You hit your head.”
Kaminari’s eyes were haunting and unblinking. She’d expected a joke to be the first thing out of his mouth, but his pale lips were pressed together in a tight, unmoving line.
“Emily?” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Yanagi.
“My head...”
“You got hit with debris during the battle.”
“What battle? Is anyone else hurt?”
“Everyone else is fine.” It was a lie, but now wasn’t the time to recount the story.
“Okay. Okay. That’s good. That’s enough, I guess.”
Yanagi pulled away, but Kaminari caught her hand and wrenched it close to his chest like a madman seizing the last vestiges of his sanity, and she was the one earthly comfort within reach. Yanagi’s heart plunged into her stomach. Kaminari studied her with fearful eyes. They were an overflowing cup filled with disbelief and a touch of inward-directed anger, and Only then did she see the shadow crawl over his hardening features, casting a sudden shadow like the sun did at the peak of twilight.
Kaminari had a dark look in his eyes, one she’d only seen at the end of horror movies, when the survivors looked back at the terror they’d endured and realized they would never be the same. The realization that they were unlucky to have survived at all.
A look that, against all odds, scared the hell out of her.