MHA: Lust Quirk

Endeavor was the first pro to reach the alley.

He came around the corner with his flames still active, burning low across his shoulders, his costume scorched and dented from the Nomu he'd been fighting six blocks away. Behind him two police officers and a paramedic were trying to keep up. He filled the alley entrance and the heat from his flames warmed the air and the ice on the walls started melting faster.

He looked at Stain first. On the ground. Capture tape around his wrists. Unconscious.

He looked at me and Todoroki. Sitting against the wall. Bleeding.

He looked at Iida. Kneeling by Native. Left arm hanging.

Then he looked at Todoroki's left side. The flames were out but steam was still rising from his shoulder and his sleeve was burned away and the skin underneath was flushed red from the heat of his own fire. The left side. The fire side.

Endeavor's mouth opened. Closed. His jaw worked on nothing and the flames on his shoulders flared and dimmed and flared again and his eyes were on his son and his son was looking at the ground.

The fire had come out in a dark alley in Hosu because Todoroki was trying to save a friend. His body chose it and Endeavor had nothing to do with the choosing.

Endeavor stood in the alley entrance and his flames guttered and he said nothing. A paramedic pushed past him to reach Native.

More pros arrived. Gran Torino dropped from a rooftop. Manual came running from two streets over with his water manipulation still dripping from his hands. The alley filled with adults and uniforms and someone put a blanket around Iida's shoulders.

Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi showed up twenty minutes later. Tall, thin, the kind of cop who wrote things down before he formed opinions. He took statements from all three of us, one at a time, in the back of a police van parked at the alley entrance.

"You arrived at the scene before anyone else," he said. "How?"

"I heard a scream. Ran toward it."

"From where?"

"Three streets west. I was on patrol with my internship supervisor."

"Who is?"

"Mirko."

He wrote that down. "And you sent a location to Todoroki Shoto before engaging the Hero Killer."

"Yes."

"Why Todoroki specifically?"

Because in the anime Midoriya texted Todoroki and Todoroki came and the three of them survived. I couldn't say that.

"He has a versatile Quirk. Range and close combat. And I had his number."

Naomasa looked at me for a long time. Then he closed his notebook.

The political conversation happened in a room at Hosu Police Station an hour later. Police Chief Kenji Tsuragamae, a man with a dog's head and a verbal tic that added "woof" to the ends of his sentences, laid it out. Three U.A. students had used their Quirks in combat against a serial killer without hero licenses. Regardless of the outcome, this was a violation. If the fight was publicized as the students' doing, all three faced censure, their provisional license paths would be complicated, and their internship agencies would be sanctioned.

The alternative: Endeavor's team apprehended the Hero Killer during the Hosu Nomu incident. The three students assisted in a supporting capacity. Endeavor gets the credit. The boys get nothing.

I knew this was coming. I'd watched this exact scene play out in the anime with different faces.

Todoroki's jaw was tight and his left hand was clenched and the heat coming off his left side made the air near his fist shimmer.

"My old man didn't do anything," Todoroki said. Low. "He was fighting Nomu six blocks away. He didn't even know about Stain until it was over."

I put my hand on his shoulder. His right shoulder. The cold side. The fabric was still damp from melted ice.

"Let it go," I said. "We know what happened. That's enough."

He looked at me. Held my gaze. Then he looked at the floor.

"Fine."

Iida didn't argue. He sat in his chair with his left arm in a sling and his eyes on the table and he accepted the ruling quietly.

The hospital was two blocks from the police station. Hosu General. Same hospital where Tensei Iida was recovering from the paralysis Stain had given him months ago.

They put me in a room on the third floor. My hands were the worst. The cuts from catching Stain's katana between my palms were deep, clean edges. The doctor cleaned them, applied antiseptic that stung, and started wrapping gauze.

Then he stopped. Peeled back the gauze he'd just applied.

"These are closing," he said.

"Is that bad?"

"It's fast." He turned my hand under the examination light. "The wound margins are already contracting. You said these happened less than two hours ago?"

"About that."

He looked at my chart. Looked at my hands. He wrote something in the margin and flagged it. Third medical professional to notice. Recovery Girl at U.A. after the USJ. A doctor during the Sports Festival. Now this one. The pattern was accumulating in paperwork I couldn't intercept.

"Enhancement Quirk," I said. "I heal fast."

"Enhancement Quirks don't typically affect regeneration at this rate." He finished wrapping my hands. "I'm going to recommend a follow-up examination with your school's medical staff."

"Sure."

He left. I sat on the hospital bed with my hands wrapped in gauze and looked at the ceiling. White. Flat. No Gerald.

My phone was on the bedside table. I picked it up with bandaged fingers and the screen lit up.

Fourteen texts from Mina.

where are youryoanswer your phonethe news is showing hosu on fireRYOif you're dead im going to kill your ghostplease answerim not joking answer the phonei called mirko's agency number and nobody picked up because SHE DOESNT HAVE A STAFFtsuyu says she can't reach you eitherochaco is freaking outHAYAMI RYOi swear to godplease

The last one was just please. Sent forty minutes ago. No emojis. No exclamation marks.

I typed: im alive. hospital. hands banged up. nothing permanent.

Three dots appeared immediately. She'd been watching her phone.

what happened

fought someone. won. mostly.

MOSTLY???

im fine. tell ochaco and tsuyu im fine.

Three dots. Disappeared. Appeared again. Disappeared. Then:

im coming to hosu

mina you're in a different prefecture

WATCH ME

I put the phone down. My hands throbbed under the gauze. My nose was set but still swollen. The bruise on my ribs was turning purple.

Iida was in the room next door. I could hear the murmur of a doctor explaining nerve damage to someone who wasn't asking questions. His left arm. The damage would linger. I'd saved his life but I hadn't saved his arm because I'd gotten there after Stain had already cut him.

A knock on the doorframe. Todoroki. He was standing in the hallway with his arm bandaged and a butterfly strip on the cut below his eye.

"The doctor said your cuts are healing abnormally fast."

"Enhancement Quirk."

"That's what you told him?"

"That's what it is."

He leaned against the doorframe. His left sleeve was still burned away and the skin was pink from his own fire.

"I used it," he said again. Same words as the alley. "I told myself I'd never use his power. That it was mine to refuse."

I didn't say anything.

"It came out because you were going to die." He looked at his left hand. Opened and closed his fingers. "My ice couldn't stop him. So my fire did. And I didn't decide. My body decided."

"Your body was right."

"I know." He dropped his hand. "That's the part I'm not ready for."

He left. A nurse walked past with a cart that had a squeaky wheel.

Iida appeared in my doorway ten minutes later. Sling on his left arm. His glasses were cracked across one lens. His posture was different from the Iida I'd known since April. Less rigid.

"I went to Hosu to avenge my brother," he said. He was looking at the floor. "You came because..." He stopped. "Why did you come to Hosu, Hayami?"

"Because I knew you were going to do something stupid."

He looked up. His eyes behind the cracked lens were red at the edges.

"How?"

"You told the whole class you were going to Manual's agency. Manual is in Hosu. Stain is in Hosu. You picked the same city as the guy who paralyzed your brother." I shrugged. The shrug hurt my ribs. "Wasn't hard to figure out."

He looked at the ceiling.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't mention it."

"I mean it."

"I know you do."

He stood there for another few seconds. Then he turned and walked back to his room and the door closed.

I lay back on the hospital bed. My phone buzzed. Mina again: im on a train. 3 hours. dont you dare fall asleep before i get there.

My hands were healing faster than they should. Three doctors in three situations had noticed and three sets of notes were sitting in three separate files.

The squeaky-wheel cart went past my door again. Mina was on a train.