Lightning Serenade

Chapter 23: Junk Yard Therapy I

Denki had tried surrendering, even if it would mean a tongue-lashing from Bakugou later. Afterall, his best friend's safety was more important than winning a training, even if they were supposed to be enemies in that moment. He tried to surrender and get Neito to stop building up charge, but Neito just kept going higher and higher, the manic smile growing and his laughter getting louder. He didn't realize the danger he was in; he was just high on the newfound power that Denki had been steadily growing. While everyone else took cover, Denki had rushed forward, right through the electricity that zapped and sizzled across his skin. Denki had managed to catch Neito before he fell to the ground or hit his head on a nearby piece of pipe that was sticking out of the wall.

The training ground was unsafe and disorganized, which was good for training heroes to be prepared for anything, but bad for heroes who just wanted to help their friend who took on a quirk that had grown more powerful than he had realized.

Denki didn't even realize that he was hurt until he woke up in Recovery Girl's office.

Denki had a truly heroic experience where his legs moved before his mind had even decided what to do. When the static charge around Neito got too big and started to burst, others recoiled, which was the right thing to do. Denki rushed forward, and the only reason he was mostly unharmed was because it was his quirk that had been stolen, so his body was well-equipped to handle the electricity. Denki didn't care either way. He would do it again. And again. And again, given the opportunity.

Denki had crashed against the wall with the broken pipe sticking out of it, and it had easily slashed through his costume and the skin on his back, but he didn't even feel it because he was too concerned about his best friend who was finally in his arms once again, and he wasn't about to get distracted by pain and mess anything up.

Denki immediately gathered the charge that was still raging though Neito and pulled it into his own body instead. As he continued pulling the electricity from Neito, he started to discharge it into the ground below them and the building at his back, anywhere that would take the charge and dissipate it instead of continuing to be a risk to Neito. Denki couldn't remember it later, but he was screaming at someone to go fetch Hitoshi, knowing that Neito would want to see his soulmate when he finally came around again.

Denki did all this so automatically and quickly that he short-circuited his own brain, but he was so high on adrenaline that it didn't catch up with him until after he was sure that Neito was in the clear.

The electricity roared and crackled in Denki's ears, but he could still hear his louder classmate yelling at him to back off of Neito and let him face the consequences of his own actions. Denki ignored Bakugou, not caring if he would be lectured later as long as he knew that Neito wouldn't go through the same thing he always did when he went all-out, but it looked like it was too late for that.

Still, he could make it better, and he would.

When the excess electricity was away from Neito, though still haphazardly striking off of Denki's skin, Neito started to stir. Denki had hoped that Hitoshi would have arrived quickly but knew that probably wouldn't have happened quickly enough based on how far away the training ground is from the school building. Denki hoped that any familiar face and voice were good enough to help Neito through waking up disoriented, even if it wasn't his soulmate that was there to comfort him. Denki grit his teeth, hoping that experience under Hitoshi's quirk would make him feel more familiar and at ease as he came around.

"You're okay, you're fine," Denki started, looking around for Hitoshi, but not seeing him arrive yet. "You're at school. It's a training exercise. You took my quirk and short-circuited. You're just waking up. You're going to be fine. You're at school, outside. It's a training exercise. You took my quirk and short-circuited. You're just coming around now. No big deal! You're fine."