From the Shadows || Katsuki Bakugou x OC

Chapter Eighty-six

A.N. - Not updating in a while? Couldn't be me. (that's a lie). My reasons for this: My grandfathers house burned down, my dad got evicted from his place (I live with him), and my mom literally sliced her leg open by falling down stairs. Life's just been busy.

Anyway, just thought I'd let y'all know that after this chapter this book will be wrapping up with three more chapters!

Eventually word got out to people like Tamaki Amajiki, as in former students who had work studies, and students from Shiketsu high school. That led to sidekicks and pro-heroes hearing about what happened to Kiri. This drastically affected our donations, especially when FatGum heard.

He practically sees Kiri as a son, so as soon as he found out about Kiri's condition he gathered up everyone in his agency and asked them all if they could give anything for Kiri. Everyone at his agency loves Kiri, so within two days he raised $10,000 for us.

Other pros like Hawks, Gunhead, Gang Orca, and even the Wild Wild Pussycats all donated. Within a week and a half of us asking for financial support for Kiri, we raised $97,482. About $17,000 more than we needed. And now that we have the money, we need to tell Mr. and Mrs. Kirishima and give them the money. That task has been assigned to Mina and I.

I met up with Mina in the dorms common room and we walked to the train station. It's a weekend and only nine in the morning, but it's going to be a two-hour train ride.

It would've been Katsuki and I going, since we were the ones Kiri's parents first came to, but since Katsuki is going to be in the hospital for another week he couldn't. Instead Mina is coming with me. She needed to make a run down here anyway to get some things from her house, so it's a convenient and gives us a place to eat lunch.

Tenya gave me the information to access the account and transfer the money over to Kiri's parents this morning. It shouldn't take longer than five or ten minutes to get everything settled, but they'll probably want to have us stay and talk for a while.

"Hey Keiko?" Mina asked, leaning her head on my shoulder.

"Yeah? What's up?"

"Do you think he'll get better?"

I paused for a second, I mean, there's always the possibility of something going wrong, but... "Of course he will. He's a fighter, you know that. And with how good the doctors that would work on him are-"

"Yeah, but I don't mean if the surgeries will work or not."

I looked at her quizzically, "Then what do you mean?"

She lifted her head off of me and looked me in the eyes, "I mean will he be the same?"

"The same? What do you mean by 'the same'?"

"I mean, will he be as cheerful as he was?" She looked away and twirled her hair around her fingers. "Is he even going to be able to do hero work anymore? I mean, you've visited him in the hospital, right?"

"Yeah, I have..."

Mina turned her head away from me but I could still see her eyes getting glossy. "He's wasting away in there Keiko... he's losing muscle mass."

"I... I did notice that a little, but, it's only been like two weeks? It can't be that bad, can it?"

"I just visited on Friday... it's worse than you would think. It's not as bad as it could be... yet."

"Yet? How much worse could it get? He'll get the surgeries soon, he'll be fine."

"I wish I could be that optimistic right now... but I talked to the doctors. He's been losing two to four percent of his muscle a day, which is typical for someone in that kind of condition." She paused, as if that previous part was rehearsed. Word for word from the doctors. "But think about it Keiko, a week and a half, plus however long it'll take to get him the surgeries, plus how long he takes to wake up, and then how long it takes for him to recover."

"I didn't know just how quickly his muscles were going, I thought I would be so much slower..."

Mina scoffed and playfully shoved me, "And you're the one with two siblings going in to the medical field." She looked at the floor and sighed. "Keiko... I'm scared for him. He- he might not be able to be a hero anymore. Ever since I met him in middle school, all he's ever wanted to do was be a hero. And that possibility seemed so close. Hell, we're supposed to graduate this year. But... what is he supposed to do if he can't be a hero?"

I leaned back in my seat, "I don't know Mina... I really don't." I put my arms around her and pulled her into a hug, pressing my face into her shoulder and holding her tight, "But we're gonna help him figure it out, okay?" My throat tightened, and I could feel myself start to cry, "We're still young, we have plenty of time." I could barely convince myself of my next words. "And even if he can't be a hero in the typical sense, he can still find ways to be a hero. You got it?"

She wrapped her arms around me, hiccupping through her tears, "Yeah... I got it..."

Neither of us let go or stopped crying for at least twenty minutes.