Villainous [Hitoshi Shinso X Reader]

[Chapter 13]: Three Weeks

"Ready?!"
I watched with fervour as Hitoshi and Izuku stood off against each other. It appeared that Bedhead was speaking—trying to provoke the reckless Broccoli?
     A war of the ages, truly a sight to behold all in order to decide one thing—who has the messiest hair? It occurred to me then that my internal dialogue needed a coffee of its own.
Toshi's expression turned menacing and Izuku grit his teeth. Clearly the words that were being exchanged were not some form of friendly banter.
"Start!"
     No, I realized. He's trying to get Izuku to respond.
Before anyone could even start to cheer, Izuku, who had been charging forward in a spur of rage, froze in place a few feet away from Hitoshi. He took the bait.
It was fascinating to watch. Izuku was completely rigid, expression unsettling and blank while Hitoshi just stared as he contemplated his next move. I could almost hear the incoherent muttering that must have been filling the poor freckled boy's head at this moment.
"What's he doing?!" Ochaco cried. "He's not even blinking!"
"It's that Shinsou guy's quirk," Ojiro muttered. "Damn. I told him not to say anything!"
Momo moved forward with a look of apprehension. "His quirk? So he can control people?"
"It's mind control," Aoyama supplied.
"With a quirk that powerful..." Jiro started.
"How isn't he in the Hero Course?" Kiri finished
I smiled secretively. The pride that filled me upon hearing my friends' words was unstoppable. Hitoshi was being recognized. Not only that, but people were discussing him in tones of hushed wonder and evident respect.
It was finally the kind of recognition that he's been working for.
"He's not in the Hero Course because the entrance exams are faulty," I laughed.
Mina turned to me with her usual bubbly excitement. "Oh, yeah! Aren't you friends with him, (Y/N/N)?"
I nodded firmly. "Stubborn asshole wouldn't leave me alone."
The gaping mouths of my classmates were the only answers I received. Laughing joyously, I turned back to continue watching the match.
Izuku was currently marching out of the ring, Hitoshi's command already taking hold. I noticed with a morbid fascination that the green-haired boy's aura was drastically dulled whilst in his zombie-like state, the usual electric blue that surrounded him becoming more of a harsh grey. Even more interesting was the alluring purple that became entwined with it—stretching all the way from Hitoshi's body to Izuku as he imposed his will upon him.
It was breathtaking.
     Then something drastic happened. Izuku stopped.
I shot up from my seat. "What?!"
Not only had he stopped, but he had stopped directly in front of the boundary line. Hitoshi's control over him... It had snapped.
My lips parted in awe as Izuku's aura exploded into an array of colours around him, reaching into the sky like fireworks at a festival. There were so many hues—reds, blues, greens, yellows—!
Is this even possible? I chewed my lip. All those colours, they can't possibly all belong to one aura. No. They're more of a mix. A bunch of souls all smashed into one... But how?
Subsequently, Toshi's own aura reeled back to him with the speed of a whip. It nearly knocked him off his feet, but he barely seemed to notice.
The crowd fell silent in wonder. Even Izuku, himself, seemed shocked, staring at his hand where two broken fingers now lay throbbing. His aura subsided back into its usual electric blue hue. All traces of the other souls had vanished entirely.
He was turning back around now and Hitoshi was becoming desperate. He shouted and cursed, giving it everything he had in an attempt to make his green-haired opponent respond. But it was no use. Izuku knew what he was up against now and there was no way he was going to lose.
I watched with a lump in my throat as Izuku grabbed hold of the insomniac's shoulders. A blaze lit up in those purple eyes of his and I knew right then that he wasn't going to go down without a fight. Hitoshi then promptly punched Izuku in the nose. I cringed slightly as the blood dripped out.
Before I could even shout my friend's name, Izuku was flipping Hitoshi over his shoulder and out of the ring. His back hit the mat with a finalizing thud and then it was over... He had lost.
The crowd erupted into applause, whoops and cheers from my classmates dominating majority of the noise. I stood numbly by the rails, watching as Hitoshi lifted himself from the ground and brushed off the dust with no emotion. His shoulders were squared, but his face was turned down as he began walking away from the ring.
Izuku called out to him then. He stopped, hands in pockets and eyes blank, yet somehow just as stubborn as always. Rather than look back, Hitoshi stared straight ahead. Izuku wasn't so easily dissuaded, however, and continued to say what he had set out to say anyways. I wished that I could hear their conversation.
I didn't stick around long enough to see what happened—I was already bolting down the stairs of the stadium and racing to the waiting area. With a quick farewell to my friends, I was gone.
I have to get back to Hitoshi. I thought. I gotta make sure he's alright.
Breathlessly, I slid around the corner and beelined my way into the waiting room I knew Hitoshi would be in. Upon entering the space, I keeled over and wheezed.
"Remind me to never do that again," I croaked. "God, I hate cardio."
"How do you expect to become a Pro if you can't even manage running for more than five minutes?"
My head snapped up at the snarky voice that I had become so accustomed to. "That was rhetorical," I groaned. "I didn't think that you were in here yet."
"Judging by the state you're in, I'd bet that I probably could've taken a nice leisurely walk around campus before coming back here and I still would've made better time than you did."
"Well aren't you just a little ray of sunshine. Just because I hate cardio doesn't mean that I can't do cardio, thank you very much."
"Your laboured breathing says otherwise," he smirked.
I flipped him the bird ever so gracefully as I straightened up and fixed my outfit. Clearing my throat, I sat down on the bench and patted the spot next to me. Hitoshi quirked a brow, but sat down nonetheless.
"So," I stated bluntly. "You lost."
"Good to know that your keen observation skills are still intact." He said dryly.
"Even better to know that your everlasting sass is still kicking it." I shot right back.
A fleeting smile graced his lips and I smirked victoriously.
"Anyways," I trailed off. "You did really well. That punch you landed on Izuku at the end was awesome, even though it kind of hurt to watch." I chanced him a glance. "You're both my friends, y'know?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
"You totally would've won too," I continued quickly in hopes of lifting his spirits. "Against any other opponent, nobody would've stood a chance. Izuku is tricky, he never gives up. You really gave him a run for his money though! I've never seen anything like it."
     Hitoshi slanted his gaze towards me.
     "And the colours," I breathed. "Your auras were... incredible. Izuku's was so strange, it was  like looking through a kaleidoscope! Don't even get me started on the way yours moved, oh my god, I didn't even know that sort of thing was possible—!"
     A chaste, gentle pressure on my cheek stunned me into silence.
     I whirled to stare at Hitoshi with eyes like saucers, my hand hovering above the area where the fleeting touch had been. He merely shrugged.
     "You were rambling again." He stated nonchalantly.
     His attitude was calm, but his aura was positively rambunctious. It had brightened in colour and was jumping sporadically all over the place. My heart thumped rapidly in my chest for reasons that I couldn't quite identify.
     Suddenly, the door slammed open. It was Aizawa, sheathed in his cloak of bandages. His eyes were sharp.
     "I thought I might find you in here." He muffled.
     Colour rushed to my cheeks as I quickly shuffled away from Toshi's side. "Is something wrong?"
     Even though I couldn't see his expression, I knew it was bad the moment he had walked through those doors. I didn't need to see his face to read the tension in his body.
     "Come on. We have to talk."
     I swallowed the lump that had risen in my throat. "Okay."
     Turning to my lavender-haired friend with confusion still muddling my brain and emotions I didn't understand clenching my stomach, I offered a tiny smile. "See you later?"
     He simply nodded, seeming perplexed.
     With that, Aizawa and I took our leave and walked the entire way to the staff room at U.A. in suffocating silence. By the time we finally got in and shut the door securely behind us, I was itching for answers. Had I done something wrong? Was there a problem with my grades? Did I—?
     "He found you."
     Silence. My heartbeat was loud in my ears, the only sound in the room. I was positive Aizawa could hear it too.
     It was an eerie kind of quiet, one that I had become intimate with at a very young age. Back then the silence was my only company, waiting in that windowless room for my punishments with bated breath. Silence and agonizing fear.
     It was the kind of quiet that you could choke on—it was the kind that could break you if you didn't break it first.
     "How?" I choked.
     Aizawa regarded me with carefully guarded eyes. "I'm not sure. Principal Nezu received a call from an untraceable number a few minutes ago." He sat heavily in the chair to his right. "The caller ID was blocked and the person on the other end was using a voice alteration quirk. All they said was 'we'll see you soon.'"
     My fists were trembling. The true weight of his words hadn't fully sunken in yet—I was completely numb.
   "That doesn't mean that he's found me," I argued frantically. "That could mean anything. It might not even be the League."
     I had told Aizawa long ago about my father's chosen predecessor, Tomura Shigaraki, and his practices. When the new group called the 'League of Villains' started popping up, it didn't take a genius to figure out who the leader of it was—or who the puppet was. 
     "There's one more thing they said," he added, sounding extremely tired. "They said to 'give (Y/N) my best.' Then they hung up. That was it."
     Aizawa ran a hand down his face. He was a man of few emotions, but the ones he did possess he felt deeply. I could see the strain in his shoulders, the despair in the way he bowed his unkempt head.
     Finally, I was hit with the onslaught of emotions that had been building up inside me.
     Fear seized me in its fiery grip first, but it didn't take long for hysteria to follow. I was laughing, cackling like a maniac until tears began streaming down my face. My insanity broke off into a sob.
     "This—" I croaked. "This isn't happening."
     I sank to my knees, cradled my head in my hands.
     "This can't be happening. After all this time, why now?"
     A wave of nausea had me doubled over and pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes.
Oh, no.
A gentle grip at the nape of my neck had me tumbling forward into the secure embrace of the man I had chosen to acknowledge as my father. Aizawa.
He didn't speak, simply held my quivering form and let me work through my disorganized thoughts in silence.
Oh, no.
     "My sister's death date is coming up." I stated. "He's using the anniversary of my sister's death to get to me. He wants to find me—take me away from everything I've grown to love—on the day that hosts the singular most painful memory I have."
     Searing, white-hot pain rippled through my body. I was shaking. My nails were creating crescent shaped grooves in my temples, but I endured because I knew what would happen if I didn't.
Thousands of desperate souls were already tugging at my focus, straining to be released. They were seeping through my pores, dozens of colourful auras swirling about the room and creating a distinct sense of dread. Soon enough, I'd implode.
Aizawa held me tighter.
     "He's coming." I blanched. "He's coming in three weeks."