Lightning Serenade

Chapter 42: Conspiracy King

A/N: (._%.) on AO3 asked when the next update would be because the cliffhanger was killing them, so I thought I'd post this chapter a day early! Enjoy!

Trigger Warning: stabbing (nothing major and not who you think it is – document your guesses now and see if you're right by the end of the chapter!)

Denki spared a quick glance behind him, hoping that the hallucination had taken the hint and disappeared. He jumped, startled, when he saw the hallucination still standing there, looking fucking concerned of all things. His own fucking hallucination, of himself no less, was looking at him like he was fucking crazy.

"Fucking hell," Denki cursed under his breath, turning back around, and slamming his head right onto his open math book. "Why me? Why now?"

The thoughts of everything that this change in his mental status meant came crashing down upon him.

He had had years to orient himself with the singing voices in his head, and eventually even felt lucky that his schizophrenia wasn't worse. Some people had voices telling them to do bad things. Some people not only heard things but saw things as well. Denki figured he had gotten off easy until he had turned around only to find himself standing in his room. He guessed that maybe the added stress of everything that went down with the League of Villains and Shigaraki's currently unknown status had advanced his disease and now he was worse off than ever before.

He didn't dare blame Hitoshi's quirk for his misfortune, not even in his head where no one else would ever know. Hitoshi's quirk was a comfort to him, and he wouldn't allow anyone to know about this new development, already planning potential excuses he could use to drop out of the hero course. Briefly, he wondered if there was any coming back from this or if his visual hallucinations would be there to stay. He wondered if his chances at becoming a hero were thoroughly squashed.

"I thought you'd be happier to see me, to be honest," he heard himself insist quietly from across the room.

Denki only groaned in response, not lifting his head from his book. He jumped when he felt hands come down on his shoulders, spinning around and looking at the hallucination incredulously. Not only was this hallucination invading his personal space, but it was also touching him in a way that he could feel. Was this also a tactile hallucination? It was just getting worse and worse.

"I didn't know about the hallucinations," the hallucination defended itself gently. "If I did, I would have gone about this a different way. I swear."

Denki didn't bother responding, hoping that ignoring it might make it go away. He was already crazy enough to hear voices, and now see visual hallucinations, he didn't want to downgrade to actually talking to his hallucinations, too. He fisted his hands in his hair, trying to completely ignore the hallucination, which was harder than he thought it might be considering the fact that he could feel the hallucination touching him.

The hallucination grabbed onto Denki's hands and gently unfurled his fingers, pulling his hands away from his head and holding them instead.

"What is it going to take to get you to go away?" Denki snarled quietly, hoping that no one was passing by his door to hear him talking to himself.

"I'm really sorry, Denki," the hallucination said, a worried look across its face. "I'd change back into me to prove to you that I'm not a hallucination, but I didn't bring any extra clothes..."

Denki paused. That sounded absolutely insane with no connection to anything, just a random jumble of thoughts. Or, it would have, if he had never had the pleasure of meeting—

"Toga?" Denki whispered hopefully, looking up at his own face, silently praying to a god he didn't believe in for it to be true.

"Ye—" Toga was cut off by Denki slamming into her, pulling her into a tight hug, and sobbing against her shoulder.