Lightning Serenade

Chapter 13: Fields XI

Denki's arms were steady as he stared straight ahead, this time into Hitoshi's eyes instead of Touya's sharp blue ones, losing himself in the white pupils surrounded by deep purple irises. Instead of swimming in the ocean, Denki imagined himself ice skating on a perfectly circular patch of ice surrounded by wisteria trees. The sun beating down would provide warmth despite the chill of the frosty, white ice and make the purple of the blooming flowers pop.

The examiner watched closely, monitoring the others just as much as he monitored Denki to make sure that Denki would not be pushed past his limit by force. When he voiced his concerns, however, Neito reminded him that Denki can break the hold of the quirk on him easily, and Hitoshi can feel if he were to start fighting back and can drop it even faster. The examiner had never been put in a position like that before, and he was hoping that he would not get fired if anyone were to question the safety and motives behind the experiments that quickly took on a life of their own. He had to admit, though, that these were good ideas and would get results much faster than the traditional experimental procedures.

Denki focused his eyes on Hitoshi's, cutting through the haze just enough to gauge how his friend was holding up. Denki felt the examiner's eyes on him but questioned if anyone was thinking about how this might be harder on Hitoshi than anyone else. Hitoshi amazed Denki. Who else had the physical and mental fortitude to hold the plank position while also keeping someone under his quirk?

Except for maybe Neito, who happened to be giving off strong hints that he wanted to see if he could keep Denki under the brainwashing quirk while being under physical pressure as well. Okay, they were less like hints and more like loud, obnoxious, unending taunting that he would be able to do that, too, and wiggling his eyebrows at Touya as he suggested that he copy Hitoshi's quirk and put Touya under right then and there. Touya rolled his eyes good-naturedly, threatening to give tougher commands if Neito still had the energy to whine even while the sweat was pouring off of all of them as they maintained the steady plank position, too stubborn to even waver or sway, staying as still as statues... if statues could sweat and swear and whine, that was.

When Denki sliced through the haze just enough to visually check in on Hitoshi, who seemed to be multitasking without much effort, Hitoshi's eyes darted to meet Denki's, feeling his control starting to slip just a little bit. After he determined that the change came from Denki and it wasn't because he was losing control due to the multitasking, Hitoshi tried to gauge Denki's intentions. Denki didn't back off and allow the quirk full control again right away, but he didn't thin the quirk out even more until it burst either.

Neito noticed that Hitoshi was looking intently at Denki and was not really surprised to see Denki's eyes focused on Hitoshi instead of staring off into space, dazed and unfocused even as the sweat poured off of his body from the physical effort.

At first, Hitoshi was worried that Denki was in pain from the exercise, but maybe it just wasn't enough pain to snap him out of the quirk. Hitoshi quickly disregarded that possibility and realized that Denki was just checking in on him. Hitoshi couldn't help the smile that spread across his face, even as he grimaced from the effort of holding the position Touya had commanded them into, using nothing but the friendly authority of his unofficial title as their trainer.

Hitoshi managed to give a small nod toward Denki, and rasped out, "I'm doing okay. Are you?"

Denki's eyes lost their focus and Hitoshi's quirk was no longer stretched as thinly, coming back in full force over Denki's mind.

"I'll take that as a yes," Hitoshi rasped out, managing to bark out a short laugh before his arms finally gave in and he fell to the floor, groaning at being the first one out.