Lightning Serenade

Chapter 95: Ground Zero I

"So, there we were," Spinner said, spinning the tale for Denki's soulmates to catch them up, "out of our goddamn minds! Uretori and I are ducking because we're the only two who can see the giant-ass eagle flying above everyone's heads—" Hitoshi and Neito are howling at this point, tears escaping their eyes beyond their control. "And don't get me started on Twice."

"I already apologized a million times! I'm not sorry! I can't go back to prison, Spinner!" Twice interjected, thoroughly exasperated that Spinner has not let up on how easily he had offered him up.

"And then Uretori had the absolute audacity to suggest that she leave!" Spinner continued, ignoring Twice completely. "That she's a danger to us, which, fair, I guess, but we handled that shit like bosses, if I do say so myself!"

"No one died," Dabi said. "No one even was injured. She tried telling everyone that Isozan fits in so well here, so he should stay, and she'll find somewhere to go where she won't cause any more issues for him. Isozan threw a bitch fit—"

"She was inconsolable!" Isozan argued.

"I didn't say it wasn't a justified bitch fit," Dabi said.

Isozan opened his mouth to retort, closed it again and sat there in thought for a few seconds before shrugging and nodding his agreement.

"So, to stop the nightmares to put Uretori more at ease, we're just going to dismantle the Omotos, so she doesn't have to worry about shit anymore," Dabi finished. "You want in?"

"Uh, yeah!" Neito answered, filled to the brim with attitude, like he was offended that Dabi even had to ask instead of knowing that they would want to play their parts.

That's how Neito ended up copying Hitoshi's quirk and holding it at the ready as Isozan activated Full Throttle to see how it would affect Brainwashing. Everyone braced themselves as Isozan reached out and touched Hitoshi's arm.

Hitoshi looked around and was about to open his mouth to ask a question, thinking that maybe his quirk just made it easier or made complex commands more effortless, but then he realized that there was a constant buzzing murmuring in his ears. When he focused on it, he could bring up different, separate ones. If he tried to focus on more than a few at a time, it became a little overwhelming. Neito had asked him a question at that point, but instead of answering, knowing that his own quirk was primed and ready to go, Hitoshi waved him off, indicating that he was fine and just trying to get his bearings.

Hitoshi looked at Shigaraki, whose gaze flickered around the room, always keeping his eye on everything, taking on the burden of leadership.

I'm going to miss this. I wonder if it'll hurt when he takes over. I wonder how long it'll take for anyone to notice. I wonder if he'll try playing along with the romance aspect or distance himself from Keigo and Touya right away. I wonder which will hurt more. Will he be a better leader than me? Will this all be worth it in the end?

He looked at Denki who was looking right back at him.

—wonder if he's okay. Maybe we should—no. I'm sure it's fine. He would say if he wasn't fine. He wouldn't leave us behind by doing something so stupid as to let this continue on if it wasn't something he could handle. I just have to have trust in him, just like I always do. Deep breaths, Denki. If you can handle seeing him peel his own face off, you can handle this.

For a second, Hitoshi thought he might be able to read minds, which was fucking crazy! But then he heard something about peeling his face off and thought maybe not.

Denki's eyes wandered over to Neito's form.

Neito can handle it if anything goes wrong. He always does. God, he's so cool. How did I get so damn lucky? Even when they were peeling their faces off and coming at me with bloody fingers to do the same, I wanted to jump their bones. Oh, that's so weird. I still need to talk to them about that. Is that weird? Would they have flirted with the hallucination version of me if put into the same situation I was in? I would like to hope so. I would hope that my hallucination would be as cool and as hot as theirs were, and—