ʜᴇʀᴏᴇs | ʙɴʜᴀ

↳ chapter 22

  Shoto ran his fingers through his candy cane colored hair. Sakura always teased him for it, but now she was hospitalized. Midoriya, Iida, and him were in the same room, all of them having injured themselves badly during the fight. The injuries sustained were nothing like Sakura's. She had a hole in her abdomen, which the medics weren't quite sure how she even survived. She should have bled to death. Shoto was worried. Perhaps if he rushed himself earlier, none of them would have suffered as much pain as they were now. He kept blaming himself for everything. Even Iida's hand was injured. Perhaps he should have taken Sakura up on the hero name 'Hand Crusher'.

"Todoroki-kun, are you alright? I-I mean obviously, you're not alright- I mean!" Midoriya's meek voice sounded from his left.

"Yeah, I'm fine, " he sighed.

"You're obviously not alright, it doesn't take a detective to solve that, " Midoriya's timid attitude gone, a worried one replacing it.

  Midoriya was right. Shoto had been stressing about Sakura ever since he saw her in the alley. Maybe, just maybe, if he arrived sooner-

"Stop it, "

  He looked up to see the source of the voice, Midoriya. The freckled boy was crossing his arms, a stern expression on his face. Shoto raised his eyebrow.

"Stop blaming yourself. I know you're blaming yourself. You aren't the reason that Sakura is injured, it's because of that stupid goddamned girl teleporting in front of Iida-kun, " he chided.

"But if I arrived sooner, this wouldn't have-, "

"No 'but's. It isn't your fault. As a matter of fact, if you hadn't rushed in, we would all have been dead. You should be congratulating yourself. Besides, it's over now, " he scoffed.

  To be honest, Midoriya was feeling the same way as Todoroki. Perhaps if he arrived sooner, the whole situation would even have began with in the first place. But he pulled himself together and thought about it in the logical sense. He couldn't bear to see Todoroki in this state.

"Aren't you feeling the same way too?" Shoto asked, as though reading his mind.

  Midoriya froze. He had just voiced his thoughts. He looked down at his own hands, the voice in his head getting louder. He needed to be strong, for both of them. So when he looked up and plastered a determined smile across his face, it took him all of his strength to keep it together.

"Yes. But we can't dwell on the past, it only makes things worse, " he said, clenching his fist.

Shoto paused. Midoriya was right. He couldn't dwell on the past. But there was one part of him that resisted his thinking. That kept blaming himself. It was the part that admired her. That hated the thought of her getting hurt. It felt... Overprotective of her. He forced that admiration down, thinking of the bigger picture.

  It was all over. Everything was fine.

••

The news about Stain had spread like wildfire. Everyone knew about the mysterious Hero Killer. A video online about Stain's backstory and beliefs were spread. I crinkled my nose in disdain. Stain's influence on people was impressive, to say the least. I too had agreed with Stain's beliefs, even though it wasn't very cool of him to stab me like that. I sighed, dragging my feet to school.

  The Hero Killer thing left me slightly traumatized, as it would to anyone who had been stabbed by Stain. Pushing open the door of the classroom, all eyes were on me. Of course they were, since we were in the news. Furthermore, the Stain video wasn't helping with the situation either. Then I realized, people were staring at me for a different reason.

  There was a katana on my table.

  I paled visibly. So that was where I teleported it. I laughed nervously, racking my head to come up with good reasons as to why there was a fricking katana, no, a bloody katana, on my desk. Kaminari, being the boldly stupid one, was the first one to ask.

"Hey Yumé... Why is there a katana on your desk? With blood?" he asked coolly.

  Freaking out, I panicked. It didn't help that the whole class was staring at me. I racked my head of the most reasonable thing to do. My body moved before my mind, tackling Kaminari and knocking him out by the neck.

"You didn't see anything, " I said in a deadly serious voice to the whole class, dragging Kaminari's unconscious being back to his desk.

  Everyone continued with their normal chatting with each other, talking about their internships. After teleporting the katana into an incinerator, I went back to my seat.

  I mentally noted how much stronger Izuku had gotten. When he was fighting Stain, he managed to use his power without injuring himself, based on what I saw before I bled out. Not only that, but he also managed to get some good hits on Stain before he was frozen.

  That reminded me, I had to go and apologize to Tenya, Izuku, and Shoto for everything. I went up to the boys, bowing my head. Confused looks were etched upon their faces.

"I'm so sorry guys! I didn't mean to make you worry! I could have done 3 million other things that wouldn't involve myself getting hurt, " I apologized to the boys.

  I felt Tenya's hand on my shoulder, telling me to stop bowing. I looked up at the boy wearing glasses, who simply smiled at me, showing me his arm. He explained that he had injured it during the battle.

"If you didn't save me, I could have died. Thank you, Sakura-chan, " he smiled.

  I grinned back. I then turned to Todoroki with a knowing look on my face. He rolled his eyes at me, as though begging me not to bring it up right now.

"You know, I told you that you should have put 'Hand Crusher' as your hero name, " I teased the heterochromatic boy.

"I thought we agreed not to bring this up,"

"Sure thing, Hand Crusher, " I said, bursting into a fit of giggles.