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By December, Hitoshi is rapidly brainwashing his way through the UA faculty. Which, what the hell even is his life?
(His life is: callouses forming over the bloody red lines on his palms, thick skin that doesn’t split so easily when the carbon fiber constricts around his hand. His life is: commiserating in the common area of the 1-C dorms until curfew, study group sprawled between the sofas, asking him Are you sure you want to have another class next year? His life is: tailing Aizawa on his mentor’s occasional night patrols, forbidden from fighting, just getting used to the swish of the capture cloth snapping between buildings, the wind whipping through his hair as he plummets toward streetlights and swings back toward the stars.
His life is: he’s never been surer of anything.)
And right now, his life is also brainwashing pro heroes left, right, and center on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
When Aizawa had first brought Present Mic to training, Hitoshi had kind of assumed it was a one, maybe two-time thing. He still isn’t sure how Aizawa has the time or the energy to train with him, and while Present Mic never seems short on energy, he finds it hard to believe that the man is abounding in free time. He has three jobs. He is extensively involved in planning school events, from organization to security. Hitoshi doesn’t even want to know how long it takes him to do his hair every morning. He wonders if Mic has time blocked out for that in his calendar app.
Even so, Present Mic had joined them for training once, then twice—and then he’d kept coming back. Again and again, and again when Aizawa was watching over Eri in the hospital. He wasn’t even there to help with Hitoshi’s quirk training all the time. He was just there to help.
When they resumed their regular schedule at the start of November, Aizawa began bringing additional ‘guest stars’ to their meetings (Mic’s term, not Hitoshi’s, and certainly not Aizawa’s). It’s time we started testing the limits of your quirk, he’d said, to which Hitoshi had replied Is it, though? and subsequently had to run three additional laps.
Nowadays, it’s not entirely uncommon for him to show up and find Aizawa waiting with the day’s chosen pros—Present Mic, usually. Midnight or Vlad King, sometimes. Ectoplasm, on occasion. He’d even walked into the gym one day to find UA’s Big Three doing warm-up stretches.
No big deal. Just Hero Course things. Hitoshi has a copy of his acceptance letter pinned above his desk to prove it.
As daunting as it is to have an audience for quirk training, he can’t deny that they’ve gotten results. He’s raised the number of people he can control at once from four to eight. He’s slowly increasing the complexity of the commands he can give, first to one person, then to two or three together. He'd even attempted to overcome the limit on how many people he can brainwash simultaneously—key word being ‘attempted.’
(He doesn’t actually remember much of The Incident. One minute, he was doing his level best to split his own quirk in half and brainwash two of his teachers at once, and the next, he was waking up on the floor of Gym Gamma with Aizawa hovering over him, Midnight wiping blood off his face, and Present Mic checking to see if Recovery Girl was still in her office.
The good news is, Hitoshi can now definitively say that he has lived through the most embarrassing day of his life. It’s all gotta be uphill from here.)
Today, there’s an obstacle course occupying the majority of the gym. It’s been here all week—a maze of climbing walls, nets, narrow planks, and steel bars over thick, spongy mats that don’t exactly make the concrete floor soft, but definitely don’t hurt to have around in the event you take a headlong spill off a balance beam. Hitoshi knows this from experience, having run through the course during every training session this week.
Fortunately, he’s done his obstacle course for the day, which means it’s Present Mic’s turn. The hero in question is standing at the start of the track, twisting back and forth at the waist like he didn’t just spend the past ten minutes stretching, while Aizawa slouches next to Hitoshi with a stopwatch in hand. Mic’s surplus of and apparent distaste for his own free time has meant that Aizawa has yet to be puppeted through the course this week. Technically, there’s nothing stopping him from being the guinea pig for this exercise, other than the fact that 1) Present Mic is, well, present and 2) making him do it is way funnier.
“Let’s try to spare the hair this time,” Mic says, rolling his wrists once more. “I’m trying to get the max out of that max hold hairspray, ya dig?”
“You’re a pro hero, and it’s part of your costume,” Hitoshi points out. “Shouldn’t whatever product you use be strong enough to withstand an obstacle course made for first years?”
“If I was running it myself, sure,” Mic says pointedly. “Fewer head injuries that way.”
Hitoshi thinks it should be noted that Mic has sustained exactly zero head injuries this week, thanks in small part to Hitoshi himself and in much, much larger part to those spongy floor mats. He doesn’t even bother hiding his grin when he reaches out with his quirk. “What, you don’t trust me?”
Mic’s answering glare is equal parts obligatory and knowing.
“No,” he grumbles, and Hitoshi pulls the thread between them taut.
The first obstacle in the sequence are hurdles of alternating heights. Mic makes it to the second-to-last of these before his trademark swoop takes a blow, mostly by accident.
“Oops,” Hitoshi says.
Aizawa barely glances up from the stopwatch. “You’d better be ready to run when you let him go,” he says. “Maybe he can do your laps with you. Being chased by a pissed off pro hero might be good motivation.”
“You probably shouldn’t let me into the Hero Course if I can’t outrun a man in leather pants,” Hitoshi shoots back. A gleeful little sliver of his brain, the same part that could recite that letter above his desk from memory if need be, whispers, Too late!
Aizawa shakes his head. “When will you learn?”
Maybe next April. In the Hero Course.
Present Mic has just reached the narrowest plank he’ll need to cross for the third time today when Hitoshi hears the gym door open, and a moment later—
“Aizawa!” A familiar voice booms. “And young Shinsou, what a pleasant surprise!”
“All Might,” Aizawa greets. Hitoshi turns just enough to acknowledge the former number one hero, half of his attention still on the task at hand. This beam was a bit of a challenge on Wednesday because of the raised strips along the way. It turns out that brainwashed people suck at taking small, precise, super-rapid steps on a plank barely wide enough to stand heel-to-toe on. Present Mic had gotten very familiar with those gym mats, but in his defense, so had Hitoshi.
All Might’s footsteps echo in the open space of the gym as he comes to stand next to Hitoshi and Aizawa. “And—Present Mic?”
No response, obviously. “He can’t hear you right now,” Hitoshi explains, leaving Mic somewhere relatively stable to look All Might’s way. “Quirk training.”
All Might’s face lights up. He’s holding a book with a lot of dense black text on the back cover, which he passes to Aizawa without taking his eyes off the obstacle course. Aizawa accepts his offering with a disdainful look at the All Might-branded page tabs sticking out along the side.
“This setup doesn’t look too far off from the course I had 1-A running a few weeks ago,” All Might says, smiling. “Aizawa had better be careful, or you’ll be doing second year exercises before your first year is over.”
Aizawa somehow manages to shrug while simultaneously tucking the borrowed book under his arm. “He still has a lot of catching up to do.”
It’s not a disagreement, just an objective fact. Hitoshi is still trailing behind even the least-formidable of Aizawa’s hero students (who he knows by name, now. Who say hi to him in the hallways sometimes, which is still pretty weird. They even say hi back when Hitoshi says it first, which is even weirder).
It’s also an objective fact that he has come a lot farther than they have in a lot less time.
His scores on the fitness test during the first week of school had been abysmal, well below even the lowest grade in 1-A. Two weeks ago, racing through the concrete and steel maze of Ground Gamma, he still hadn’t quite been able to keep up.
But he was closer.
He was so, so much closer—closer than he’s ever been in his life to a dream he’s had ever since he can remember. Making up ground so fast that some days he feels like he can see it racing by beneath his feet, blurring like asphalt and the roofs of cars in the heartbeat before the capture cloth catches him, and he changes trajectory, and then—stars.
What the hell is his life?
Aizawa nods toward the obstacle course and says, “Why don’t you tell All Might what you’re working on.”
This is a familiar element of Aizawa’s methodology—having Hitoshi explain what he’s doing to make sure he understands the assignment, or sometimes to make sure he hasn’t forgotten his objective while he was busy tangling with another person’s brain. Which is probably a good thing, because Hitoshi can’t think of many worse times to lose focus than when you’re holding some incredibly trusting pro hero’s mental puppet strings.
He gestures back to where Mic is standing, motionless, on the platform. “Right now, telling Present Mic to run the obstacle course isn’t a clear enough command. There are too many precise movements involved. So I’m walking him through it step by step, seeing how those steps work on my end, and slowly building up the complexity of the commands I can give him at once.”
He doesn’t mention that on Monday, he’d basically had to tell Mic how to climb and breathe at the same time on the climbing wall, where today he’d gotten his teacher to the top in nine seconds flat.
“Impressive!” All Might beams, and while his face might not be as full as it was and his hair is wilder and more brittle, his smile is exactly the same. Hitoshi has to fight down the urge to grin back, because he just knows he will look unbearably smug.
But, come on. Impressive. From All Might.
He glances back at Present Mic standing motionless at one end of the plank and asks, “Would you like a demonstration?”
At All Might’s encouraging nod, he turns back to the obstacle course. “Cross the balance beam as fast as you can without falling. Step over any obstacles,” he adds, mostly for All Might’s benefit. He doesn’t actually need to verbalize commands anymore, not when he’s only controlling one person, and especially not if he’s brainwashed them before. It gets easier and easier, the more time he spends in someone’s head—like he’s chipping a bigger and bigger foothold in their brain every time he takes control.
Which. Isn’t his favorite analogy, now that he thinks about it.
Mic crosses the beam surprisingly quickly, with only a little nudging on Hitoshi’s part. Distantly, he can hear All Might saying something and Aizawa responding, but he’s too focused on making sure Present Mic doesn’t faceplant to catch most of it. He tunes back in as Mic reaches the opposite platform to All Might saying, “—never would have known he was under the influence of a quirk!”
He can’t quite hide his smirk this time as he turns back to the pros. Even Aizawa looks pleased. He’s not smiling, obviously, but that doesn’t fool Hitoshi anymore.
“Well done, Shinsou!” All Might says brightly. “Present Mic is more agile under your control than I am without it!”
Hitoshi had thought he was getting used to the whole Hero Course thing—training with pros, working on his quirk multiple times a week, a queue of people willing to help. None of them tensing up, either, after he’d brainwashed them during training. He still asks Midnight questions in class, and she’s never once hesitated to reply.
But this? All Might’s blatant excitement, a flicker of pride he’s hoping he’s not imagining in Aizawa’s gaze. Even Mic will be impressed, he thinks, when he sees his shortest time for the course today. He’ll make a fuss about his hair, sure, but it’s always easy to tell when he’s joking.
He feels like he’s glowing. Maybe it’s for this reason that he decides to ruin everything immediately.
He’s kidding, for the record. Even in his moment of surreal hubris he knows there’s no reality in which the answer is yes. But he also knows he’s always been a little toneless, and he knows people have trouble telling whether or not he’s serious, so he doesn’t know why the next thing he says is, “Why, do you want a turn?”
He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. All Might grimaces, his face such a mask of discomfort that Hitoshi almost shrinks away from him. Instantly, he’s ten years old again—eight, six, four—looking up at every person who’s ever found out what he can do, except it’s so much worse because it’s the Symbol of Peace and he has to watch that switch flip from up close and personal.
“No,” All Might says, and the vehemence in the word knocks the wind out of him.
His throat closes. He barely registers that this is, technically, an answer to his question. He couldn’t brainwash All Might if he wanted to. It’s not a conscious decision to let Mic go, but a moment later, he sputters, “Wha—All Might?” from somewhere behind him.
All Might doesn’t acknowledge him. He’s too busy looking at Hitoshi, who feels approximately two inches tall. Like All Might is crushing him under the weight of his horrified gaze alone. Like he’s sitting still and silent between his parents in the principal’s office in middle school, listening to the man gently explain that Hitoshi would be excused from future quirk counseling with his class ‘out of an abundance of caution,’ that other parents had expressed ‘concerns’ about his involvement.
Like nothing’s changed.
There’s a tiny, dense weight in his chest, growing heavier. It pulls all his pride toward it like a black hole.
“It was a joke.” His voice comes out humiliatingly small. “I wasn’t going to—I’m sorry. It was a joke.”
All Might is just looking at him, sunken eyes almost panicked, with something guarded lurking beneath the fear. And why wouldn’t there be? He doesn’t know Hitoshi. Even if he did, why would he ever let Hitoshi brainwash him?
He’d gotten too comfortable. At UA. In training. A year ago—hell, less than that—he never would have had the nerve to say something so beyond messed up. Joking about brainwashing the former number one hero. What was he thinking?
“I—” All Might says, and breaks off. Hitoshi has never wished more fervently for Present Mic to start talking, but he’s gone strangely silent, and Hitoshi actually checks to see if his quirk’s connection is still broken. It is. Mic’s silence is all his own.
All Might shoots a helpless look over Hitoshi’s shoulder, and he follows his gaze to Aizawa, finds him watching the exchange with narrowed eyes.
That’s—not good. Hitoshi’s heart sinks further.
All Might clears his throat. Hitoshi doesn’t—can’t—look him in the eye, so he looks at his shoulder instead. Even now, the hero towers over him, so he doesn’t have to drop his head much to do it.
“It has—my apprehension has nothing to do with your quirk, Shinsou.” All Might’s voice is gentle. He sounds sincere. But then, he’s also the most famous person in Japan. If you added up every hour of television interviews he’s done, they would probably amount to something like Hitoshi’s entire lifetime. He has a lot of practice putting on a public face. “I know you would never use your ability to do something bad.”
Hitoshi nods mutely. That first, split-second grimace replays on loop in his mind, growing more and more dramatic with every rerun until All Might’s features become almost unrecognizable. He can still feel Aizawa’s eyes on them. Stupidly, irrationally, and for no reason at all, he feels like crying. He will blame it on being emotionally body slammed from cloud eleven or so to the unyielding gym floor, sans safety mats.
He seriously needs to learn to quit while he’s ahead, but he’s been fighting to keep up his entire life. It’s a hard habit to break.
“From what I’ve observed, you are making excellent progress with both your combat and quirk training,” All Might continues. “You’ll make a fine hero someday. But I’m—not in the shape I used to be.” The twist of his mouth turns wry. “In more ways than one. My health… sometimes interferes with things I would otherwise wish to do.”
It’s an excuse if Hitoshi’s ever heard one. He repeats, robotically, “I’m sorry, sir. It was a joke.”
“Even if it hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have done anything wrong by asking,” All Might says. He’s still holding a verbal conversation with Hitoshi. Maybe he’s afraid he’s going to go postal or something if he stops responding. He doesn’t have to be. Aizawa is right there, the ultimate anti-mind control kryptonite. If Hitoshi is being realistic, Aizawa is probably eighty-to-ninety percent of the reason everyone else has felt so comfortable training with him, anyway.
Well, except for Present Mic, who had helped him with quirk training even when Aizawa wasn’t around. Maybe he has the same contempt for his self-preservation as he does for his free time.
All Might is clearly expecting an answer, so Hitoshi says, “Okay,” and stomps down on the impulse to apologize again. All Might looks stricken.
It is at this moment that Present Mic finally decides to make use of the ‘hero’ third of his job title.
“Wait, this kid told a joke,” he says shrilly, “and I missed it? That’s not fair! C’mon, listener, I’ve got seniority over All Might-y in this little training club, when do I get a front-row seat to the stand-up routine?”
Had this been any other situation, Hitoshi might have fired back some snarky quip along the lines of exactly what he thinks is a joke, but the black hole at the center of his chest has polished off his pride and moved on to his ability to speak, or to look anywhere other than just past All Might’s shoulder, like those were the next most-appealing dishes on a buffet table. Maybe it can consume his short-term memory next and he can forget any of this ever happened.
“Thank you,” Aizawa says suddenly, “for the book. We still have some time left with the gym, and we’d like to make the most of it before the next person who’s reserved it shows up and kicks us out.”
“Of course,” All Might says. He doesn’t move.
“That means you can go.”
“Right.” Hitoshi risks another glance at the hero’s face, and All Might shoots him one last flimsy smile. They’ve definitely been progressively deteriorating. “I meant what I said, Shinsou. Maybe one day you’ll be using your quirk to improve volunteers’ knitting skills, and I can be of more assistance then.”
Hitoshi tries to say Yeah or Maybe, but his voice still isn’t cooperating with him. He manages a stiff nod while making eye contact with All Might’s chin. It’ll have to do.
All Might leaves Hitoshi to resume his training. His specialized, supplementary quirk training, outside of class, because for one reason or another Hitoshi can never seem to do anything the normal way. The right way.
Maybe nothing has changed. And no matter how far he goes, or how fast he runs, or how close he comes to catching up, nothing will.
The thought simmers behind his ribs for the rest of training. He’s distracted—Mic ends up taking a mortal blow to the hair on the last net obstacle, not to mention an awkward landing on one knee that Hitoshi just knows is going to hurt. By the time he lets him go, he can feel himself hunching his shoulders, curing his hands into fists, but he can’t seem to stop it. He wishes not for the first time that he could brainwash himself into calming down.
The best he can do is storm over to where he’d left his schoolbag in a heap and retrieve his water bottle without even waiting to hear his final time for the course from Aizawa. It’s not his best, and even his best time today feels small and insignificant in the face of the mire of anger and guilt that is currently trapping him like quicksand—the more he tries to fight it, the deeper he sinks. He replays the moment in his head—question, grimace, flinch—as he twists the cap off his water bottle like he’s trying to snap it in half.
In his peripheral vision, Present Mic stretches the leg Hitoshi had dropped him on as subtly as possible. The guilt gains a decisive upper hand.
Aizawa meanders over at his usual pace, which gives Hitoshi plenty of time to attempt to drown himself so he’ll never have to face All Might, or anyone else for that matter, ever again. His mentor waits until after this unsurprisingly unsuccessful venture to say, “Slow down. You’ll make yourself sick, and you still have laps to run.”
Hitoshi closes the bottle a fraction less violently than he’d opened it. Aizawa raises one eyebrow so diminutively that his expression barely changes.
“What?” Hitoshi snaps, without really meaning to. Present Mic likes to say that there are no stupid questions, but he’s pretty sure that rule only applies when they’re in class. He thinks he’d make an exception for this one, anyway. Aizawa knows what’s wrong, obviously. Hitoshi knows Aizawa knows, obviously. And they’re going to talk about it, obviously. This is another unfortunate element of Aizawa’s teaching methodology.
“He wasn’t lying,” Aizawa says. “Well, he was lying about his health being the reason he didn’t want you to brainwash him. But he wasn’t lying when he said it had nothing to do with you.”
“How do you know?” Hitoshi says. The words are too sharp again, and his guilt flips them around and wields them like a knife. This isn’t Aizawa’s fault. It’s not even All Might’s.
Aizawa is unmoved by his attitude. “I can tell.”
“Sure. Because you know All Might so well.”
He shrugs. “Maybe I’m just a good judge of character.”
“You picked me as your personal protégé.”
“Exactly.”
His next retort dies in his throat. It takes the rest of his anger with it. This is always how it goes, for Hitoshi—hurt, then anger, then all too quickly back around to hurt again. At least it’s usually accompanied by a dash of spite, the second time. Spite he can use. His temper, on the other hand, burns out too fast to be of much help. Mostly it just leaves him feeling cold.
And—off-kilter. Not panicked. He has no right to be panicked when he’s the one with the scary quirk. He’s the one with the quirk even All Might is afraid of.
All Might had been at the joint training exercise with the hero classes. He wonders if he’d been a part of the panel reviewing Hitoshi’s transfer. If he’d been in favor, or—
“Think about it,” Aizawa says, like Hitoshi has done anything but. “If he was worried about your quirk, would he have been so enthusiastic about your training?”
“Maybe he wasn’t,” Hitoshi points out. “Maybe he’s just a good actor.”
“But not good enough to act like the world’s most predictable question didn’t bother him?”
“Hey. It wasn’t that predictable.”
Aizawa ignores him. “If he was worried about your quirk,” he continues, deliberately slowly, “don’t you think he would have told Midoriya to stay away from you by now?”
And that’s… actually a really good point. Hitoshi knows that All Might is maybe some kind of mentor, to Midoriya, the same way Aizawa is to him. He’s also definitely some kind of idol. If All Might told him to steer clear of Hitoshi, to stop talking to him, stop giving Hitoshi opportunities to learn things about him he could use the next time they fought—
Midoriya probably would have. Might have. Could have?
But judging by the fact that he has, on occasion, doubled back out of 1-A’s homeroom to wave to Hitoshi down the hall, All Might might as well have told him to do the exact opposite.
The thing is, it’s always about Hitoshi’s quirk. It’s been about his quirk since he’d gotten a quirk, since he’d first asked a question and been met with blank, staring eyes instead of an answer. Since someone had shuddered back to awareness, their face contorted by fear. Question, grimace, flinch.
But the other thing is that it’s maybe, possibly, not about Hitoshi’s quirk here. At UA. In training. Saying hi to the hero students in the hallway. Midnight’s perfectly mundane answers in class. Guest stars.
It’s not enough to convince Hitoshi that Aizawa is right about All Might.
But.
It’s enough for him to allow that there is a possibility that Aizawa is right about All Might. He was right about Hitoshi, after all.
Mic rejoins them and loops his arm around Hitoshi’s shoulders. “Yeah, kid, cut All Might some slack. Eraser has some pretty cool friends.”
The response is automatic. Comfortable.
“I guess Midnight is pretty cool,” Hitoshi says with feigned thoughtfulness.
“Ectoplasm,” Aizawa adds.
“Vlad King.”
Aizawa makes a noncommittal noise. Mic glares.
“Actually, I changed my mind. Aizawa’s friends suck, and I’m not one of them.”
Aizawa shrugs as if this is no great loss.
Hitoshi tries for a smile, but his heart really isn’t in it. He can’t stop thinking about All Might’s reaction to the mere idea of being subjected to his quirk. Even if Aizawa is right, and the literal actual Symbol of Peace doesn’t hold anything against Hitoshi personally, it’s just been so long since someone had looked at him like that. Relatively, that is. He’d gone from sitting in that stupid office, from suspicious glares, whispering, snickers behind his back every day in middle school, to total normalcy at UA. Even if there are students who are wary of his quirk here, Hitoshi doesn’t cross paths with them often. And he’s never met a UA teacher who showed any discomfort with his power, enough that he’s wondered if putting on a brave face in front of students with inherently scary quirks is part of their job training.
Mic gives him a little shake with the arm still wrapped around his shoulders. “Hellooo? Earth to Shinsou? You still tuned in, listener?”
He realizes Mic and Aizawa had still been talking, maybe to him. “Sorry, what?”
“Well I was gonna ask if you felt up to taking another crack at the obstacle course, but now I’m kinda curious about what you were stewing about,” Mic says.
Hitoshi glances between him and Aizawa and shrugs. “It’s nothing. I was just.” He shrugs again. “Why do you think he—you know.”
He hopes they know. He really doesn’t think he can ask Why do you think All Might is afraid of me out loud.
Aizawa and Mic are quiet for long enough that Hitoshi almost tells them to forget it. Then Mic says, “I dunno. He’s kinda weird.”
It startles Hitoshi so much that he actually laughs. “You just said to cut him some slack.”
“Yeah! Cut Weird Might some slack! Who among us is not a least a little weird?”
Hitoshi can’t argue there. He turns to Aizawa for confirmation, and his mentor shrugs. “Maybe he was afraid you really would make him run the obstacle course.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t about his health.”
“Trust me, you don’t need to be unhealthy to be embarrassingly uncoordinated.”
Hitoshi supposes that’s true, especially if you, like All Might, have recently undergone a significant physical transformation, like a growth spurt in reverse. And mostly sideways.
“Or maybe,” Mic’s arm around his shoulders gets marginally tighter. Threateningly so. “He was afraid you’d make him mess up his hair when he has somewhere to be after this.”
It’s always easy to tell when Mic is joking, which means it’s also easy to tell when he really, really isn’t.
“Yeah,” Hitoshi agrees, “maybe.” Then he ducks and pivots the way Aizawa taught him, twisting out of Mic’s hold and bolting across the gym. He can hear Mic literally right behind him, and hey, Aizawa was right. It is great motivation.