Lightning Serenade

Chapter 30: League of Villains I

The next thing Denki knew, he and Bakugou were being shoved down into metal chairs and chained up with metal chains. Bakugou had the extra torment of his hands being restrained in a metal box as to not be able to utilize his quirk. Denki immediately knew that his quirk would be sufficient, but without the ability to aim and avoid including Bakugou in the aftermath, it wasn't a valid option.

Denki looked over at Bakugou, hoping that the strategic genius might have a battle plan already that he could somehow communicate to Denki, but Bakugou wasn't acting right. Instead of squirming, fighting back, swearing, or any other typical behaviors, he sat still and calmly as the villains worked quickly to secure him.

"Bakugou? Are you okay?" Denki whisper-yelled, despite the fact that all of the villains were in earshot and could definitely hear him.

Bakugou slid his eyes in Denki's direction before looking back down again, and Denki just knew that something wasn't right. It wasn't just Bakugou's behavior, either, but he couldn't quite figure out what made him think that. He started struggling against the chains, trying to get to Bakugou to see what the hell was wrong and if there was anything he could do to fix it.

Everyone had seen how Bakugou had reacted at the sports festival when he was tied up, and that was by staff of UA. He should be fighting even harder against villains.

"Not much of a fighter. Maybe you chose wrong, boss," a deep voice from behind him said.

Denki tried to strain his neck to see behind him, but he could not get a visual on the person who had spoken.

"Maybe he just knows he's in good company," the red-eyed, blue-haired villain, who the students knew as Shigaraki Tomura, had responded, though he did not sound confident. He was probably also fully expecting Bakugou to fight with everything he had.

Denki recognized Shigaraki from the USJ incident, and his breath caught in his throat. It was terrifying enough to be in his presence among the chaos of the USJ invasion, but to be one of two UA students, stranded in the middle of the League of Villains' hideout, was another thing completely.

"Something's wrong," Twice stated, grabbing at his hair under his mask, "everything's fine."

Everything had seemingly gone of without a hitch, so why was Twice so unnerved? Maybe it was that little blond nuisance who, for some reason, seemed to have sought him out, tagged him on the exposed skin of his neck where his mask had ridden up in a previous tussle, and darted away laughing maniacally, like it was some kind of game. That kid was nuts, surely, even more so than Twice. So why did that incident keep replaying in Twice's mind? He didn't quite understand what he was missing and would have put it down as just his craziness getting the best of him, as it often did, if it wasn't for the others who quickly figured out just what was wrong.

From behind Bakugou, a scarred hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of his blond hair, pulling back so that Bakugou was forced to look up.

Denki realized it right away, being close friends with Bakugou, but it took the villains a few extra seconds before they had realized what had happened. Denki realized, then, what he had noticed before was the shade of red of his eyes was not quite the same. It was too dark and muddy instead of the bright, clear scarlet that he was used to.

"That little, crazy bastard!" Toga had screamed, as she realized the same, plunging a knife directly into Bakugou's chest.

The class had quickly gone into recovery mode, despite the dreadful feeling of failure when it mattered most. An unfortunate part of heroics was failure; no one could win every time. They had broken off in pairs to gather any stragglers to head to the academic building to debrief and get medical attention for anyone who was hurt, including anyone who had breathed in the poisonous gas from one of the villains.