Kiri(Baku?)Kami I probably won't finish

Chapter Fourteen

Once everyone had left but me and Denki, because we were still bedridden, I leaned back against my mattress.

"You sure you're alright?" I asked just to be positive. "Nightmares really—"

"I'm okay, Ei, really," he smiled at me. "It's not like any of it was real."

I nodded, but spoke anyway. "It felt like it was, though, didn't it? That's why they're so bad, because you can't tell while you're having them," I said.

"I guess," he sighed. "It's just that... I was remembering this morning. But it was different. I couldn't make it into the school on time and I collapsed, right?" I nodded. "Well, this time 'round, I got there just the same, but by the time I got there, you were..." he paused, swallowing. "And I fell backwards with you on top of me, and the teachers didn't get to us before the villains did and I couldn't move because the daggers had gone right through me cuz I fell on them and—" he broke off again, breathing a bit heavy but not crying. "And it felt so real," Denki whispered.

He wasn't meeting my eyes. So I just sat back again, staring forwards for a moment. He didn't say anything else.

I inhaled and finally spoke, a little uncertainly. "I'm not gonna die anytime soon," I said, looking back over to him. I waited for him to at least nod in reply. He was covering his face, looking away from me. "Denks, are you okay?"

"I—" I'm not sure what he was starting to say, but just then, the door burst open again with more of our friends. I guess Bakusquad had only left to tell everyone else we were awake. I appreciated that they wanted us all to be together, but not right now. Still, Denki grinned widely.

I wondered how often it was that he did that. Last night he hadn't bothered to hide anything from me (that had only been last night, huh?). Now he looked like "himself" again, the always-present grin on his lips that I loved.

"Hey, guys!" he said cheerfully.

"Thank goodness you're okay," Momo breathed in relief.

"Yeah, you had us worried, dumbass," Jiro ruffled his hair. "Don't pull shit like that again."

"Sorry, sorry," he laughed. It looked so natural. So easy. I couldn't tell if it was real or not, he'd been so close to tears just a moment ago. But the look in his eye made me feel a familiar warmth. I think he's just like this, I contemplated. "Well, no use in yelling at me. Anything interesting happen up there besides me and Ei getting stabbed? I'll assume you all captured the villains alright."

"Yep! Most of us didn't even have to do anything," Midoriya replied, equally bubbly.

"How come?" Denki tilted his head.

"Well, there was only one of her, and we had the pissed remnants of the Bakusquad. She went down pretty fast," Hagakure joined in.

"Which one was scarier?" I asked, genuinely wanting to know. I looked at Bakugo and Sero, who were standing next to each other between Mido and Mina.

"Honest to goodness, couldn't tell you," Uraraka admitted.

"Huh."

"There's another thing we didn't tell you guys earlier, about what happened to Mina when she was gone," Sero said solemnly. It was strange seeing him so... serious. The mood in the room dampened.

"I, uh... I lost my quirk. They shot me with one of those bullets," she continued sadly. My eyes widened.

"No way! Like the kind Mirio was shot with way back when we fought Overhaul? That was ages ago! How'd they get their hands on one of those?"

"The must've managed to hold onto one when they were briefly teamed up. They can't make any more of them because we've got Eri safe now, so that's the only possibility," Aizawa explained. Understanding but not quite believing, I just nodded. The rest of the class seemed to be in the same sort of shock, too.

"I wanted to tell you guys altogether, so I wouldn't have to explain it too many times. And I didn't wanna wait too long either. I know it's not exactly the party we were hoping for for my welcome back," she laughed, but the smile died quickly. "I don't know if I can stay in the hero course without my quirk, I rely on it too much," she continued, talking just to Aizawa now. There were tears brimming on her eyes.

He sighed, thinking for a moment. "I'll talk about it with Nezu, but you're probably right," he admitted. "We're not going to take you out of UA, but the most likely course of action will be moving you down to General Studies. However," he said as he noticed us all starting to get more and more, well, sad. "There's no rule saying you can't spend as much time outside of classes as you want to. I'll definitely be missing you in the classroom, and I'm sure that feeling is mutual throughout us all."

"I hope she gets replaced with an even hotter babe..." M*neta mumbled dreamily. We all glared at him, even Kaminari, who generally got along pretty well with him.

"Ah. Right. That brings up another point I hadn't wanted to talk about yet for fear of being insensitive, but we've had a replacement for awhile now. I'm sure you all remember Shinso Hitoshi?" Aizawa said while strangling the grape with his scarf. We all nodded; that purple carbon-copy of our teacher was bound to fit right in. I hoped no one would have any ill will against him, or thought of him as just an attempt to replace our friend. "I had hoped to kick M*neta out awhile ago and replace him with Shinso. Unfortunately, this happened first."

"You can't just say that, Sensei," M*neta whined, but we all ignored him.

"Anyway, technically speaking, Shinso will be put into this class to replace Mina. I should hope that all of you treat him well because he deserves to be here just as much as... most of you." Probably coincidentally, M*neta let out a strangled sound. "We aren't replacing Mina's presence, just her place in class." We all nodded in understanding. "For now, I need to sort these things out with the principal to make it official. You'll probably have off of school this coming week due to the attack, so you can take it easy. Especially you three," he pointed at Mina, then at Denki and I. The three of us nodded again.

Once everyone was gone again, I tried to remember to stay positive. This wasn't the end of our friendship, and Mina wasn't leaving forever. We'd still hang out just as much as we'd used to, and we had the whole week to throw her a proper party, both for her return and for her parting. Oh, and we had to have one for Shinso, too...

I sighed, looking back at Denki. His smile was gone.