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hawnks · 2 years

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To Kingdom Come Pt. 1

shinsou hitoshi x reader

r18 (mdni)

wc: 6,800

[childhood friends to enemies to lovers (yes ALL of the tropes), life stories, oranges as a love language, reader has a quirk, reader has what is essentially a necromancy quirk, explicit descriptions of death, description of injuries, a little bit of grinding]

summary: it was never going to be easy. but maybe, with a lot of effort, with a lot of luck, it can be yours.

or: monsters, the pair of you. Isn’t that special?

...

You are eight years old and quirkless. A martyr in your primary school, a model of “perseverance and alternative strengths.” Whatever that means.

You don’t really see yourself as different than your peers, but everyone coddles you, parents, teachers. You attend quirk parties for late-blooming classmates, and their moms place a sympathetic hand on your shoulder as you watch the others play, dangerous and fast. Late quirk presentation runs in their families; your parents were both born with theirs.

Outside, your friends tug you along after them, hands clasped like a leash as you run through quiet city blocks. Someone is always responsible for you. They call your name with a downward cadence any time you run off, almost a warning, almost a sigh of relief. Still here. Not lost.

Anytime you make it anywhere it’s a miracle. You’re praised for simply surviving.

It seems like everyone is holding their breath around you. They think you’re as fragile as glass, but you don’t feel different. Although you’re not really sure what quirkless feels like, only that you collect scrapes and bruises with the same tenacity as the other kids, only that when you fall asleep at night you don’t dream about futures filled with powers, about being stronger, or finding a missing piece. You feel already whole.

Shinsou Hitoshi, strangely, is the only one who gets it.

On the playground he watches you stumble, fall onto the cement and scrape both your hands. He grabs you by the elbows, hauls you back up, silent as you brush off your clothes.

You know him, but not well. He doesn’t get along with the rest of your class — not because he’s mean or can’t keep up. He’s just slow to smile, slow to laugh. It’s unsettling, puts people off.

You meet his untroubled gaze. “Aren’t you gonna tell the teacher?”

“Why would I?” he asks.

“Everyone always tells the teacher when I get hurt.”

He looks you up and down, a perfunctory inspection. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you tell him.

“Then why would I?”

He becomes your favorite person with an immediacy that stuns and offends your other friends.

He’s scary, they insist. He goes into people's brains.

You know that, of course— it’s not a secret. He’ll tell anyone what his quirk is, if they ask. You know logically that his power could be used for the wrong reasons—but this is Hitoshi, the boy who tolerates your presence to a shocking degree and once cried because he couldn’t solve a puzzle in Ocarina of Time. You chase after him and he lets you. You’re not afraid of him.

The other kids stop playing with you. That’s fine. You’re Hitoshi’s responsibility now, and he bears it with grace. When he calls your name, it’s not to make sure you haven’t gone too far afield. It’s to show you a cool bug, or because he’s bored. To have you hold your hands cupped against your belly as he peels the orange he brought from home, placing soft segments into your palms as you laugh.

...

Summer comes and with it a modest tide of misfortune. Crime spikes in your neighborhood. Your family home is broken into twice, each time your father standing between you and your mother and armed robbers, his quirk settling over the room like a fog, Let’s everybody calm down, now, he’d say. And they would. They always did.

Your mother is run ragged at the hospital. A small band of anarchists have been trolling the streets, attacking seemingly at random, leaving people battered and broken. The past few weeks your mother has been dispatched to deal with punctured lungs and cracked skulls, bodies twisted into such bad shape it’s hard to believe they’re alive at all. It’s hard to keep them that way.

She overuses her healing quirk. The consequences are reaped on her own body. She comes home in the dead of night, shoulders slumped, face sunken. Her wrists have gotten so thin you’re afraid to take hold of her, afraid she’ll snap like a matchstick under your fingers.

You always know when the worst has occurred with a patient. You can sense it in the air, like a dog scenting a coming storm. Even from your room, your tiny twin bed tucked into the corner, you know.

Sometimes you sneak downstairs trying to locate the source. Trying to understand it. The days are longer and your parents spend the extra hours slumped against each other on the couch, holding one another up.

Sometimes they catch sight of you. You always expect them to scold you for being out of bed, but they just stare, faces steeped in tepid fear. The world is such a dangerous place; you are such a fragile creature.

Hitoshi walks with you to and from school now. He holds your hand, but not because he’s afraid to lose you on the way. His fingers are sticky and damp in yours, the dense summer air blanketing you both. His grim face gives away nothing.

“I think something bad is gonna happen,” you tell him after another long night, on another humid walk.

His grip tightens, sweat pooling between your palms. “We’ll be okay.”

...

September comes; your grandmother passes away. It’s expected, but it still tears you up.

This is your first real experience with death, and your parents explain it to you in measured tones, seated beside you on the couch. You mostly aren’t listening. You know all this, somehow. You’ve always known.

Still, the sight of your grandmother laid out all pale ruffles and closed eyes in the casket sends something raging through you. It feels like pure cliff side drop, the tummy sinking sensation of falling falling falling. All you can think is you wish she were here to hug you, to pet your hair with her soft, rose scented hands.

You lean in, little chubby fingers reaching for her cold cheek. Someone is yelling at you, telling you to stop. But it’s too late, you’re already touching her, wishing she was back, and then—

She’s sitting up.

There’s a chorus of gasps you don’t hear, too focused on the fact that she’s reaching out for you, grabbing you just the way you wanted, but not. Her hold is infirm. There’s no warmth to it.

It’s not real.

Without thinking you push her away, and she falls hard. The casket rattles on its stand, almost tipping it over. Her eyes are open and filmy, her body is stone-still.

Dead. Still dead. Dead again.

There are murmurs all around you. You don’t hear any of it. Your mother is grabbing you by the hand, gently pulling you away. “Come on, sweet pea. It’s time to go.”

A swarm of faces watch you go, a rainbow of emotions reflected in their eyes. Shock and fear and anger. Pity.

You don’t have time to parse any of it, too focused on the feelings simmering in your own chest. Why your hand shakes in your mother’s grasp. Why your lungs feel weighed down with gravel.

So maybe you’re not fragile like glass, but like dynamite.

...

Spectacularly, not much changes. Your quirk is kept quiet. It’s an unspoken but unanimous decision. No one knows but your mom and dad and your doctor, who answers your parents questions with an insouciant smile.

“It’s quite likely it’s been with her since birth, it just never had the chance to manifest.”

Your parents seem uncomfortable with the thought, both of them so soft in nature, their quirks only supplementing their docility. You’re less put off by the notion. Any other train of thought is pointless to pursue. This is, irrevocably, irreparably, who you are—

Just a little bit terrifying.

And yet, the thought of this getting out makes you feel slightly vulnerable. Slightly nauseous. Everyone, even Hitoshi, goes on thinking that you are quirkless, and you let them.

Years pass without much incident. You and Hitoshi navigate middle school as an army of two. You get into fights constantly in his defense, raging at the people who whisper under their breath as he passes by. You even throw a punch, once.

It’s that asshole who sits in front of you, chattering at his friends as they pack up for the day.

You perk up at the mention of Hitoshi’s name, peering at them as they laugh, their insults childish and pointless. Somehow that makes it even harder to listen to. You snap.

It’s not the worst thing anyone has said about him—or you, for that matter. But you’re exhausted, everything convening to one knife point, and your body moves before you know what you’re doing.

It’s a dirty hit, to the back of his head. There’s not much power to it, but the boy looks about ready to toss you out the window, absolutely incensed, when he turns to see who did it.

Your fists are shaking as you raise them, ready to defend yourself as the three boys close in on you. You say you’re not afraid, you’ll do it again, and the boys egg you on, mocking you. The one lifts a hand to retaliate. You brace yourself, and—

You’re being hauled back by the collar of your shirt, and again, further, when the boys continue to leer after you, grabbing for you.

“Touch her and I’ll break your arms,” Hitoshi snaps.

They continue to call after you both as he drags you out of the classroom and down a vacant hallway. You’re breathing hard, rage still boiling in you. Hitoshi doesn’t release you once you’ve stopped, holding you by the elbow instead, keeping you at arms length. He peers down into your grimacing face.

You feel like you have to defend yourself. “I wasn’t—“

“You were.” His lanky form casts a long shadow over you. When did he get tall enough to loom? “You don’t have to keep doing this,” he tells you.

You peer up into his weary face. He doesn’t sleep well, anymore. He listens to sad, quiet music. He accepts everything that happens to him with a sigh and a shrug. “Yeah,” you return. “I do.”

His grip on you slips lower. Until he’s holding you by the wrist, middle finger bushing the center of your palm. “Listen,” he says. “I’m going to UA.”

Your fingers close around his, holding on. “Oh?”

You can’t be sure, you want to respond. What if you don’t get in?

But he will. Of course he will.

He’s talked about it in passing, dodging discussion of any real feelings. It’s easy to see through him though — he wants to be a hero. He’s always wanted it. Only now he’s brave enough to admit it. And it makes sense. Even “scary” quirks have their uses. His power has ridiculous potential. He could decimate, out in the field.

The thought makes you incredibly lonely.

“I’m okay,” he says. “You don’t have to do this.”

He’s asked you, a few times, about your own future plans. What you want to be when you grow up, where, why. Your answers are vague and ever changing. When he asked if you’d ever consider going to a hero school, you’d snorted.

Now you wish you’d approached the subject with a bit more sincerity.

There’s no way you’d get in, though. Even for the general studies department, having no quirk would have been a mark against you. Then after you found out your latent ability, all you wanted was to keep it hidden.

When you had to fill out your own career aptitude test, your answers were mild, unexciting. What do you want to be when you grow up? Something useful and harmless. Something good.

Whatever you have to be.

Hitoshi knows you’re not pleased by the news. He shakes his hand, wiggling your own, wrapped around him. He says, “C’mon. Let’s get udon.”

The last leg of middle school passes without incident. Bullies are less keen to tease Hitoshi when they know you’re willing to attack people for it. The two of you are quiet, keep to yourselves.

When school is out you spend hours on each other’s floor, talking about everything, nothing. You swap homework answers and Final Fantasy cheat codes. You complain about your well meaning parents, how they love you but don’t understand. Sometimes he rests his head in your lap, catching up on all the sleep he’s been missing. Sometimes either one of you spaces out, staring at the other, swamped in a new awareness, a delicate curiosity.

You notice the way his front teeth overlap a little and how his shoulders are starting to dwarf yours. He takes stock of the shape of your hands, the color of your inner lips. Neither of you do anything about it, content to go on in the quiet refuge of friendship together. The two of you, an island. Nothing more, nothing less.

He doesn’t hold your hand on the way to school anymore.

But he wants to.

...

Your high school is one of the top thirty in the country. It’s no UA, but it’s something. You miss Hitoshi, but he’s doing what he needs to. He makes time for you when he can.

You make new friends in the meanwhile. Other quiet people, who understand the need for space. For secrets.

A whole year goes by without much fanfare. Hitoshi moves general studies to the hero department. Your family moves house.

You and Hitoshi make plans, for when you’re done with all of this. He’ll go on and sidekick at someone’s agency, earn his stripes while you go off to college. It will be hard, the both of you too busy to meet up, even as often as you’re able to now with his limited free time. But when it’s over, he’ll take you with him, wherever he goes.

The notion keeps you going, helps you slog through. The promise of someday, glittering and safe.

But today is a wrench in your perfect life plan.

Your home economics teacher is lecturing the class about quirk practicality, uses outside of hero-ing, or even jobs that necessitate quirks. “I’m sure you can all find different ways to make use of your abilities,” he's saying. You’re barely listening. It’s the class just before lunch break, and you’re ready to be done. “Sometimes it requires thinking outside the box, but there is no such thing as a useless quirk. Anything and everything has its uses. Isn’t that right?”

It takes a moment to realize he’s speaking to you.

“Sure,” you say, mildly unsettled. In middle school, quirks were need-to-know. But in highschool, after it’s assumed everyone’s powers have already manifested, teachers were all given rosters with them listed.

One of your friends turns to you. “I didn’t know you have a quirk?”

You don’t even get the chance to deny it.

“Necromancy quirks are always an interesting challenge,” your teacher says. “I’m surprised someone hasn’t reached out to you about public service, with a quirk like that. But there are other, more home-based applications, I’m sure. Does anyone have any ideas?”

A loaded silence falls. Seconds tick by, fraught with the unasked question.

Finally, someone blurts, “You can bring people back to life?”

You wish the floor would swallow you whole. You wish you could just run away.

“No,” you answer, voice small, heart in throat.

“So you just use them,” someone else says. “That’s fucked up.”

A chorus of agreement strikes up. One person, then two. Then the whole class chiming in, asking you horrible questions, making horrible assumptions.

Your teacher seems to realize his mistake, and demands silence. He quickly moves the lesson forward, but the damage is done.

Instantly your world shrinks. It doesn’t matter that your quirk isn’t the killing itself, or that you never voluntarily activate it. Your name is synonymous with death. People don’t want to think about either one of you.

The rumor spreads immediately. The whole school begins to avoid you, terrified or disgusted to even be in the same room as you. The principal even has to field a few calls from irate parents, demanding to know why their child is sharing class space with a killer.

You’re given the rest of the day off. You call Hitoshi on the train ride home, in a daze.

“They found out about…”

You don’t know how to tell him. There’s too much backstory he’s not privy to. You feel dirty admitting that you have secrets that even he doesn’t know about.

He’s silent for a moment, waiting for you to get your bearings. When you don’t finish your thought, he does. “Your quirk?”

And you should have known. Of course he would see right through you. Of course he would know and not push you to share. Of course.

He skips class to come to you, two trains and a healthy walk away. He enters your room without knocking, scoops you up into his big arms.

“Sorry,” you mumble into his chest.

“Don’t apologize,” he returns.

He splits his lunch with you, trading the chopsticks back and forth, or just picking from the box with your bare fingers. Bits of rice fall apart in your grip, and he scoops it up, drops it into your hand.

“Are you mad at me?” you ask, the question that’s been on your mind, even more than what’s going to happen tomorrow at school, how the others will treat you. What does Hitoshi think? “For not telling you?”

He considers that for a moment, flicking a piece of rice off your thigh. “No,” he says. “I’m just concerned, and confused.”

“I am too,” you tell him. It just never felt right to reveal it. Too vulnerable. Too private. Not even that you don’t trust him, or ever thought he’d judge you for what you can do. You could have bonded over the news, probably. Shared your plights, your fears. You could have told him. At any point, you could have told him.

But it’s different, loving someone unconditionally, and expecting to be loved unconditionally.

Hitoshi doesn’t ask you to elaborate, or investigate why you didn’t have enough faith in him. He doesn’t punish you for any of it; he passes you another slice of cucumber.

“So,” he drawls. “Are you gonna tell me what it is?”

You chew, considering. Hitoshi just keeps eating, not even looking at you.

“It’s called anastasis,” you say finally. “I can move … dead bodies. Ask them to do things, as if they’re alive.”

“But they aren’t alive,” he surmises.

“No,” you say, your tone just a little too sad to be ironic. “No, I can’t bring people back to life. Just use them.”

Your room is too small for the both of you, ever since Hitoshi hit his growth spurt. You can feel his presence all around you, like he’s filling up every corner, every nook and cranny. Like he can see and touch everything, and has.

“Yeah.” He nods. “That’s a tough one.”

He looks at you, then. His eyes are bright in the afternoon light, the odd color seeming to glow almost, like halogen streaks, like electricity gone molten in the sky.

“You can puppeteer dead bodies and I can control people’s minds.” He laughs then, a breathy, half-there thing. “Monsters, the pair of us. Isn’t that special?”

“A match made in Hell,” you agree, picking some rice off his thigh.

The last thing he has is an orange the size of his fist. He peels it deftly, then breaks it apart, handing you piece after piece. He only stops passing them to you when you press one against his cheek. He flinches at the cold touch of it before huffing a laugh. He tilts his head so he can take it into his mouth.

His lips brush your fingertips. He won’t meet your gaze.

He hands you the last half of the orange. You share it in silence.

…

No one bullies you. They don’t push you, or call you names. They don’t even look at you.

You’re a ghost.

…

After graduation, Hitoshi is quickly recruited as a sidekick for an espionage agency. Suddenly his whole life becomes a mystery, from who he’s working with to where he’ll be in the morning.

You are accepted to a moderately impressive university, decide to major in something lucrative. Your time is dedicated mostly to your studies. You’re more than willing to break the mold whenever Hitoshi shows up at your dorm in the middle of the night, fresh off a mission.

You feel a little silly, sharing your standard twin bed with him. He’s filled out, in all the ways hero work requires. He’s so much bigger than you, stronger. And he’s got his life figured out, even if it runs him ragged sometimes.

He’s an adult now. He takes his coffee black except on weekends and he’s never been late to patrol. He’s become so well versed in de-escalation tactics that he rarely has to activate his quirk. When he does his fighting style is logical, quick. No casualties, no property damage.

Some of the older folks say he’s following a little too closely in Eraserhead’s footsteps. Hitoshi disagrees; he’s always been slightly more empathetic and a lot more optimistic than his old mentor. Still, he doesn’t see much wrong with being like Aizawa. He was one of the best, before his retirement. Hitoshi can only hope to live up to his legacy.

The two of you are propped against your headboard, squished together on your tiny mattress, when he reveals the Commission is asking him to come on as a private hero, someone who does their business outside of the public eye, for the greater good.

“All of the work, none of the glory?” You poke him in the side. “Sounds like a big bummer.”

“Someone has to do it.” He shrugs. “And it’s safer for me.”

You roll your eyes. “Such a gentleman.”

He wraps an arm around your shoulders, nuzzles into your temple. “Trying to be,” he says. You can hear the smile in his voice.

You poke him again, and laugh.

He takes up so much space in your bed that there’s nowhere for you to go when he retaliates, fingers nudging at all of your most ticklish spots. He could easily overpower you, but he lets you fight back, knocking his hands out of the way for brief moments before attacking again.

You end up half under him, his elbows propping him up on either side of your shoulders, caging you in. His leg is pressed against yours, his hips flush with your thigh. Something firm is pressing against you there, and your immediate desire is to investigate it.

Your stomach wells with the urge to touch, to learn the feel of him, to rub your thigh against his erection and see how he reacts. See if he’d like it.

There’s none of the self consciousness or anxiety your peers have described, just curiosity, and desire. He feels right on top of you, like this. The heat budding between you something known and familiar. Warm like a held hand.

The two of you stare into each other’s faces, waiting for a reaction, a decision.

Tomorrow he’ll be gone before sun up, pulled away for another mission. He’ll be gone for three weeks, this time.

You toss your arms around his neck, yanking him down. He tumbles on top of you with a grunt of surprise, but settles in just as quick. His own arms come around you, pulling you in with a quiet hum, turning you both to a more comfortable position.

Letting the moment pass. Letting the two of you just rest, anchored by the other’s presence.

There will be time for everything else, later.

Someday.

…

He’s gone more often than not, and for so, so long that sometimes you worry about forgetting his face, the little facets of him that a picture can’t truly capture.

“I feel like I’m being a bad friend,” he admits to you one morning. You’ve got a place you’re renting with a couple of classmates. You all keep to yourselves, mostly. They’re premed, or prelaw, and you’re engrosses in your own studies. No time for socialization, or uncomfortable small talk.

They give you space when Shinsou is around, some unspoken agreement. He’s charming when he wants to be, and he’s always able to sway people in his favor, even without his quirk.

You’re sharing a lazy morning, both leaned against the kitchen counter, on your second cup of coffee when he says it. He’s looking at the stained pages of someone’s research paper spread out on the marbletop, and not at you.

“Why?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” he lies. “I wish I was here for you, more.”

You put your mug down so you can cup his cheeks with both hands, meet his gaze. He’s so tall that sometimes it’s hard to look him in the face when you’re both standing, but he allows you to maneuver his body, always willing to go where you want him.

You shake his head a little, gently, squishing his cheeks, and he sighs at your unwillingness to take this seriously.

His hands cover yours, keeping you close. “I worry, when I’m gone.”

“About what?”

“Everything. And nothing.” His shoulders curl inward, his forehead nudging against yours. He closes his eyes. “You.”

He’s warm, always. You don’t have much experience with skin contact, and you wonder if everyone’s temperature runs so high, if it's peculiar how everywhere he touches leaves your skin blood-hot.

“So even heroes get scared,” you muse. Your own eyes drift shut. You don’t know how to comfort him, what to do. It all feels so outside your world that you don’t even know where to begin, if what you say will only make things worse. “I think that makes me feel better, for some reason.”

He says nothing, just pulls you in, both arms around your shoulders as he buries his face in your hair. He’s gentle with you, all ghosting hands and sheltered gaze, breath soft against you. Like he’s handling a hothouse flower, a delicate, delicate thing.

…

In the final year of your degree, they come for you.

A man in a charcoal gray suit who won’t stop smiling passes you a manila envelope. There can’t be more than thirty pages tucked inside, but it feels like a brick in your hands.

“Your power can help save lives,” he says. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Saving was never the thing that came to mind, when you thought of your quirk.

You flick to the first page. A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FOR SUBJECT 219, it reads. Your name isn’t there, or on the second page. Not anywhere. There’s assorted data about your quirk, information you don’t know how they got a hold of. They call it Resurrection, and you bite back the urge to correct your visitor. Isn’t that a biblical reference? You don’t know much about Christianity, but you’re certain it has nothing to do with your quirk.

“What would I have to do?” you ask.

You were pulled from a bio lecture. It’s third period and the dorm is near empty. All of your roommates are gone. The sound of you flipping pages is almost comically loud in the dead silence. Even the man seated across from you seems to hardly breathe.

“Participate in a series of tests, to start. Nothing too invasive, we just need to find the upper limits of your abilities.” His smile widens when you meet his gaze. “Then, if everything goes smoothly, we put you in a snazzy outfit and get you out into the field.”

You’ve barely taken in any of the words in the packet. You flip to the last page, but there’s nothing you care about. It’s all jargon, impenetrable. Maybe they don’t want you to know.

“I can’t be a hero,” you say.

“Why not?” the man is quick to counter.

“My quirk works under very particular circumstances,” you say slowly, as if explaining to someone small. “It’s not very PR friendly.”

His smile doesn’t falter. “And sometimes, when particular circumstances arise, we need a particular type of help.”

You close the packet, fold your hands on top of it. You were supposed to call Hitoshi this afternoon, but you’re sure the agreed time has passed by now.

“I’m not promising glamor,” the man tells you. “You’re aware of the stigma around your quirk. That won’t go away, even with the kind of image management we’re capable of. You’d be kept, whenever possible, from the public eye.”

You look at your hands on the folder, your chipped nails and your soft knuckles. You’ve never had to fight anyone before, not really. Not the way Hitoshi does.

You know what he would do, if he was in your place. Hitoshi has direction, drive. He knows what he wants; to do the right thing.

“You’d be saving lives,” you’re told again.

“When would I have to leave?”

“As soon as possible. Right now, if you’re able.”

It’s simple enough to pack up your life. You leave a quick note to your roommates, promising to call and fill them in on the details later, not knowing that your phone will be confiscated in just a few minutes, as will the rest of your belongings. They’re tossed in the back of a nondescript van, and you’re shepherded into the passenger seat.

“Wait,” you say, reaching for the phone that’s already been tucked away in the man’s pocket. “Can I call my friend? Really quickly?”

“Later,” you’re promised.

The car ride is hours, through the late afternoon and the night. Out of the city. Away from everything. Strangely, all you can think about is the essay you had due the next day, how you would have been at the library all night working on it. It doesn’t matter anymore, none of it does, but your heart still races at the thought. Maybe you’ll write it, eventually. Maybe you’ll go back.

You’re swaying on your feet by the time you arrive, a white brick of a building that towers over the idyllic wooded landscape.

You’re too tired to ask questions, or make demands. You let another stranger guide you through the facility with a hand on your back. He says nothing as you walk, it’s not a tour and you’re not being filled in on anything.

“And here we are,” he says, opening a white door at the end of a long hall of white doors.

Spotting the cot in the corner of your otherwise empty room, you have no qualm about throwing yourself onto it. Sleep is dreamless, that night.

...

In the morning, they lead you into a warehouse, where there’s a gaggle of men in button downs and lab coats who nod along to their own words, as if in tacit agreement with themselves. They tell you they will be observing you for the foreseeable future.

The warehouse is frigid and empty, save for a folding table at the very center.

On the table is a row of dead mice. The men in labcoats ask you to reanimate them one by one, each with a different goal. This one to see how long you can hold it, this one to see how far your reach is.

It takes you three tries to even activate your quirk, and even then you don’t have good control over it. You never use it, try not to even think about it, and the new and constant exertion is exhausting. By the end of it, sweat is stinging your eyes and your whole body is trembling. You wheeze like you’ve just run a marathon.

When the last mouse hits the floor, limp again, you turn to the scientists watching you from across the floor. A few of them look up, meet your gaze for a brief second. Then they go back to writing.

…

You don’t get your phone back.

...

There are others being kept in this facility, and you are integrated after your first three days.

Your new regime is strict, and non-negotiable. Up with the sun, heart healthy breakfast, a morning run with the other people they’ve collected. There’s five of you, altogether, though you don’t know anyone’s name, have trouble keeping track of them even though they’re so few.

You’re the newest at the facility, and still under observation. You’re taken away for hours at a time for testing.

The others watch you come and go, trying to figure you out, intuit what you’re here for. Only one person is brave enough to actually approach you.

They call him Marionette. He can control the electrical impulses in bodies. In other words, “People do what I want.”

He has no problem telling you that, or using it on the other trainees he doesn’t like. It’s bizarre to see in action, someone losing control of themself, forced to walk away after giving you a vicious glare.

Marionette smiles and shrugs when he catches your expression. “All in a day’s work.”

You learn, through side-eyed observation and his own admissions, that it’s a messy process. “It’s easy to hurt someone,” he tells you. “Easy to get hurt.”

Mostly it’s about mental grit. It’s essentially a tug of war over the body in question -- whoever is stronger in mind wins. That had caused some problems, along the way.

You’re post-run, on the way to the locker room to wash off before your next lesson. He’s waiting for you at the end of the track, hands tucked in his pocket. He gives you a smile and a wave, falls into step beside you.

“How’s your first week treated you, fresh meat?” he asks.

Tired, you want to say. I am so tired.

“Fine,” you tell him.

He considers you for a moment, looking you up and down in a way that should be salacious but isn’t. Calculating, more like. It reminds you of someone.

“First week’s the hardest. Always,” he says. “New place, new people. They’re making your body do things you never thought possible.”

Part of you wants to ask if he knows who you are, what you can do. You almost want to see his reaction, to test him. If he’s here, he must be in the same boat as you. Unmarketable quirks. You’re sure his must be at least somewhat terrifying to witness in the field, though you don’t really think about it until he says, “One of the first tests they ran on me was a capacity check. They brought in this bull -- it was huge. I think they had it imporated or something because I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

You’re almost at the locker room now, the blank metallic face of it gleaming in the sun. Marionette is falling behind you now, just half a step, but enough that you have to turn and look at him. Enough to slow you down.

“And it was strong. Strongest thing I’d ever used my quirk on, at that point. Too strong.” His face is placid, mildly pleasant. He’s still smiling as he talks, but there’s a strange light behind his eyes that you can’t identify. “It was so loud, when it died. I couldn’t tell if the screaming was inside me or not, but it made my ears ring.”

You don’t know what your expression is, but you know it must be unpleasant. Marionette still has that smile on. He steps away. He shrugs. “First week’s the hardest. It gets easier.”

Then he leaves you, alone in the morning light.

...

It’s a full month before you finally get your phone back. Your first call is to Hitoshi.

“Are you there?” he says when he picks up, like you hadn’t been the one to call him.

“Here,” you confirm.

“I thought you—“ he lets out a clipped sigh. He doesn’t finish the thought.

“I didn’t have my phone,” you tell him. “Or my laptop. Or anything, really. I don’t even have my own clothes.”

“Your parents—” Hitoshi’s voice is a quiet rumble. Deeper than you’re used to. Holding back. “They said they couldn’t tell me anything, it’s all strictly confidential.”

“It is.”

“Where are you?” He sounds like he’s ready to hop on a plane and come get you.

“That’s confidential too.”

There's a long moment of silence. You wait, expecting more questions, or some kind of accusation. But he says nothing.

“I’m ok,” you say, finally.

“You better be.”

You think this is the closest he's ever gotten to yelling at you, even though he’s still whispering. The words are flush with emotion, unspent rage. He doesn’t know who he’s mad at, you or himself or whatever force has kept you away these past weeks. All. None. He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling.

You’re the only one who could inspire this in him. The intensity. The hurt. He blames you for it and he doesn’t. He just wants to know.

But there’s six different NDAs keeping him from the truth, and a thousand miles between you two.

So you say, “I am. Promise.”

And he says, “Okay.”

…

It’s the biggest thing they’ve ever asked you to use your quirk on.

A horse— a stallion, over 1,000 pounds.

Maybe they’ve imported it from somewhere; you’ve never seen a horse that big in Japan before. You want to ask how long it’s been since it was alive, why it’s not now. The body is still intact, almost pristine. Even the scent of death hasn’t set in. It hardly smells like anything, in the big, open space of the warehouse.

“Go ahead,” the men in labcoats tell you. Usually they give you instructions— move the body this way, or that. Far or near, or for a particular duration of time. But today they just want to see if you can. If your quirk is stronger than you are.

Hitoshi can lift a car. You’ve seen him do it, a shaky video posted on an underground forum dedicated to him. His muscles so honed and functional that they obey him beyond the extreme.

You can feel tension all through you as you lift the horse to standing, bring it up onto colt-trembling legs. Every atom of your being strains. But it’s deeper than sinew and muscle. It’s deeper than yourself.

The horse, all thousand plus pounds of it, is standing as if it were alive. It’s staring down the row of scientists as they make notes on their clipboards.

You’re already sweating so much it’s dripping down your face, as thick as tears. You feel your quirk about to fail. You’d never have thought to push this far—it feels simply wrong, stretched too thin to be possible.

But you press on. Move the body one stomping step forward with a gasping breath. Then another. You can feel the power behind it, the capability. It was a creature meant to run, fast, and you understand it intrinsically.

The two front legs lift, ready to lope right into a cantor. Aimed straight for the labcoats.

And you wouldn’t have done it, not really. But the horse collapses into a broken heap, the well of your quirk dried up, before you can prove that to anyone.

“Excellent,” someone is saying. You can barely hear it, so tired your ears are ringing. “Absolutely brilliant.”

…

On your first mission, you learn your place quickly.

Bad luck charm.

There’s four of you on the helicopter, riding out to an undisclosed location. You had all been briefed privately and individually about your prospective rolls. Now you know why.

They didn’t want anyone to know you’re coming with.

“Means they don’t expect us all to make it,” someone announces to the group. He meets the eyes of each person, one by one. “This is a suicide mission.”

It’s said with an air of finality that shocks you. How resigned they all are, how accepting of their fate. They look at you, and they see their futures, unfair and unyielding.

You don’t explain why you’re really here, for the body of some lab-made monster, power and fast. That you wouldn’t touch them, if you could help it. You don’t think it would soothe them, or change their opinion of you.

You watch death unfold before you like someone spoiled the ending to a movie. You know how this one goes— they told you to expect it, in your brief.

They don’t look at you, on the way back to the facility, like just your mere presence is some kind of jinx.

And maybe it is. In the back of your mind, you can hear your handler murmuring to you, voice hollow in the big space of the warehouse. If one of your teammates goes down, you must finish their task. This is vital.

No rest for the wicked, you think. Even in death.

#WELL.#Im sick of looking at this now so here you go <3 #shinsou x reader #hitoshi shinso x reader #shinsou hitoshi x reader #*narrator voice* she's doing it again. she's posting another two part fic

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