Lightning Serenade

Chapter 56: Internship II

Unsurprisingly, Neito and Hitoshi were decidedly cool about Toga having already been to Denki's dorm once before. And they understood it wasn't like he was trying to hide it; he introduced them point blank at the waterpark for fucks' sake. It just slipped his mind, which was understandable amongst all of the other crazy shit that he had already told them about.

Plus, Toga was actually kind of cool, and they both felt more in the loop now that they had stumbled upon her trying to infiltrate Denki's dorm room and heard what she had to say. They knew a little more about the League as explained to them in different terms and dialect than from just Denki alone. This should have scared them, that they might have just implicated themselves further if they were to ever be found out, but that's not how they felt then, or any time after that, either. The more tight knit they are, the harder it would be for them to ever be caught in the first place. And what would they be caught doing? Being supported in their endeavor to become heroes by villains? Sketchy, maybe, but there was no precedent for this type of situation, and it would seem counter-productive to try to make it illegal, because how and when would it ever happen again? How did it even happen that time? And what details would be included in the laws? They wouldn't have the faintest idea.

The boys were exhausted. All of the students were exhausted. Between their academic work, tactical training, and internships, the second-year hero course students were dead on their feet, moving automatically throughout their days as their minds reviewed invaluable information they learned from their experiences during their internships, and yes, even the tactical trainings, even though they were much less intimidating and stressful after having gotten some real-world experiences under their belts.

Everything had been going well for Hitoshi. He was finally interning underground with Aizawa, now that he was competent with his capture weapon enough to keep up with the hero, using their capture weapons to catapult themselves across the tops of buildings. Nothing risky like going undercover, of course, but night patrols were something completely different than the daytime patrols with Ms. Joke.

Hitoshi had taken up singing during these patrols, much to Aizawa's chagrin. He figured that he wouldn't bother Neito with his singing if it was midnight and Neito was dead asleep after a grueling day fulfilling his own internship duties.

"You're going to scare all of the criminals away with your singing," Aizawa grumbled quietly.

Despite the cold night air, they were both warm as they came to a stop on top of one of their normal lookout points. Swinging and jumping from building to building was a full-body workout after all. With a sad sort of amusement, Hitoshi thought about how Touya would have been so pleased that Hitoshi had gotten to the point where he could do something as intensive as this without being nearly as tired as he would have been previously. Planks had nothing on Aizawa's preferred form of transportation, that was for sure.

"Good," Hitoshi replied easily. "The best heroes prevent instead of just react and respond. They take initiative and are proactive."

"Or maybe they'll target us because you sang a song they didn't like," Aizawa tried next.

"Who doesn't like the popular TikTok songs?" Hitoshi asked, inserting an extreme amount of disbelief into his voice to sound dramatically flabbergasted.

Hitoshi had a theory he wanted to test out, and it was better to do it on his own. He didn't want to get anyone's hopes up on a hunch, after all. So, unless Aizawa was going to shut him up forcibly, which Hitoshi knew he would never do, knowing his past history with muzzles, he was going to continue to sing his songs until he determined if they had any effect or not.

Besides, Hitoshi knew that Aizawa had a soft spot for him. Why else would he take him into his home? Why else would he and Yamada sit Hitoshi down and ask him if it would be okay if they were to proceed with his adoption? Why else would all three cry hysterically when Hitoshi said yes, and Yamada blubbered about being a family?