Chapter Text
“Aaaaaand we’re back! Welcome to the third trial of the illustrious first-year sports festival, hosted by UA High School! Let me hear you say PLUS ULTRA?!”
Jesus Christ, does he ever fucking shut up?
The words came out harsh and clipped, even in his own head, but he didn’t try to quell their venom.
Their little hour-long break had been the worst hour of Rody’s life, up to and including that time his mom had died horribly while giving birth to his baby sister.
Word about the whole Mineta-Debacle had clearly spread the second it had finished. His phone had been pinging off the hook with messages that he didn’t dare open. The first one was had been from Jirou asking if he was ok, and it had made him so angry that he'd almost snapped his phone in half. After that, he’d just shut it off and hid it in his locker, but it hadn’t stopped them all from staring at him like he was some freak on loan from P.T. Barnham.
Meanwhile, Uraraka had passed him in the hallway on his way out here and hadn’t even looked at him. Her eyes had stayed on her shoes like he wasn’t even there, and when he intentionally shoulder-checked her, it didn't even stop her stride.
He could feel his hands shaking in his pockets as flashes of her angry face flared up in his head. Somehow, she was still winning for most painful altercation in the last hour, her words louder than even his gut-wrenching dread at having to pretend to be a girl again. Her screams echoed in his head like a mocking children’s rhyme. Charity-kid. Bottom-rung. You’ll never get anywhere. I’m just trying to help.
He forced scoff up his throat, stalking across the black out-of-bounds line. Whatever. She’d be getting some well-deserved payback soon.
He scuffed his sneakers against the thick canvas grain of the mat as he fell under the crowd's sight once more. At the other end of the arena, a very familiar tired face settled its attention on him. Because no way could fate have given him Izuku (who would at least make him smile while sending him out of bounds) to fight, or Iida (whom he could fake out like a matador and a bull), or even fucking Kaminari (who didn’t have two brain cells to rub together).
No, he had to get Mr. Pretty Head who’d seen him kissing his children’s tears away.
Because today just wasn’t shit enough.
Present Mic had started introducing him, but Rody had to tune it out lest his entire being warble into disjointed doll pieces before his opponent got the chance to hit him. The last scheme of his hadn’t given him the relief he’d been craving, so in his retreat he’d formed a new one. One that was sure-fire, easy to execute, lacking in unwieldy allies who could hear more than they should, and hinged only on him and his greatest skill.
That being his ability to yap.
Watching the general studies kid shift around on his feet, face severe (like someone else he knew), made him grin. The cameras for these battles had actual microphones since there were less likely to get piqued by screaming gaggles of children, so all he had to do was talk to get the nation’s attention. Might as well start now. Not like there’s anything else to do…
“So, can I call you Pretty Head too or are you going to tell me your name?” He asked, voice chipper and smile so sharp it bit into his cheeks. Immediately, a little sphere dotted with a camera lens buzzed closer, and Rody forced his eyes not to stare directly at it. If it doesn’t look sincere then they won’t buy it. Gotta make this convincing start to finish.
The purple-haired guy opened his mouth, but before he could do anything with it, Present’s Mic interrupted. “And facing off with our resident Otheon-native, the star of General Studies and purple-haired hero-to-be, everybody put your hands together for Shinsoooooo Hiiitoshiiiiiii!”
Looking back to him, the guy- Shinso Hitoshi, apparently- shrugged. “Don’t have to.”
Rody sucked on his teeth, screwing his face up in thought. “I like Pretty Head better.” He decided after a moment. Strangely, instead of annoying him, Shinso blushed a sickly shade of pink, ducking his head away with a hand to the nape of his neck. “W-Well, y-”
“Hey, you were that asshole who declared war on our class, weren’t you?” He blurted before whatever idiocy the other guy had tumbling about that big-ass head of his could make its way out. He didn’t want to deal with bullshit puppy-love right now. Not when his body barely felt like his own.
It worked like a charm; Shinso’s face soured back into platonic paleness. “Yeah, I was.”
Rody grinned, taking a step forward. He looked around expectantly, hands folded over his chest. “How’s that working out for ya?”
Shinso hunkered into a fighting stance, feet apart and balance low. His hands rose into fists but Rody could tell it was a stance born from theory, not practice. It made him grin all the wider. Aww, is this baby’s first fight? How cute.
Shinso just glared at him. To make him glare harder, Rody left his own body upright and loose, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m here, aren’t I?” He grumbled in response, raising a cocky eyebrow.
Overhead, Midnight’s voice sent a shiver of cold dread up his spine. “Ready? Begin!”
Immediately, with his hands still jammed into his pockets, Rody sucked in a breath and finally let himself unleash all the wild, frantic feelings created in the last hour. Birds took to the sky in a torrent of chaotic down, squawking and scratching at the air like rabid dogs. They rushed his opponent, swiping their talons across his skin as the drove by. It forced Mr. IOU's stance to the back foot and his ready fists to cross over his face.
“Oh, shit.” Shinso grumbled, likely involuntarily as he was peppered with stinging cuts along any part of his flesh not hidden away. His eyes were closed; even through the chaos he could see that his eyebags crinkling.
Which gave Rody the perfect opportunity to do something really funny.
He darted forward, sent his birds into the sky, and latched a hand onto one of their retreating talons. It only took a second for him to get the air he needed; Shinso hadn’t even lowered his arms before Rody was landing a downwards kick to the top of his head.
“Consider us square, Lavender Scare!” He cackled, jumping off his head in a one-man mockery of his crowd-surfing from before.
He front-flipped away just as Shinso’s neck began to accordion on itself, but found his ankle grasped in a tight grip before he could exit his front handspring. “Oh, I’m not done yet!”
This is too easy. He thought, quickly spinning on his hands to send his other foot flying into the guy’s thin, hollow chest.
“Damn, what are they teaching you guys in general studies? It can’t be anything helpful if you’re reacting this slow!” he shouted as the grip loosened around his leg. Shinso stumbled back, a hand to his chest. His voice hollowed itself out into a wheeze; he barely had time to look up before Rody was pouncing atop him like a cat. “What, you fry your brain studying all that general?”
He landed on his knees, straddling Shinso with his legs, and howled like a maniac when he saw the blush taking over his cheeks. It hurt, like desperate sobs being pulled from his sternum, but his eyes were dry and his mouth was pulled into a grin. It’s funny, he thought randomly, sparing his victim a glance, his stupid puppy-crush is so fucking pathetic.
“What’s the matter? Never had a pretty boy like me on top of you before?” Rody leered despite the tightening panic closing around his throat. Shinso’s hands reached for him, clasping against flesh and fabric in an attempt to flip them, but Rody knew how to avoid that tired old trick. Quick as a whip, he sunk a knee into the guy’s liver and planted his hands by his head. “Can’t say I’m surprised. You’re fuck-ugly.”
Then, just to add injury to the insult, he scraped one foot along the ground and lifted himself up into a handstand, delivering a swift kick to the guy’s nuts just to watch his lunch rise up his throat. His face went sheet-white, screwed in nauseous pain as he tried in vain to avoid cradling his junk while on every tv in the nation. Giggling, Rody walked a few steps away on his hands and flipped over, landing gracefully just out of reach.
“Shut up.” Shinso growled. Seeing how quickly the boy rolled himself over made something jackrabbit-fast start racing in his chest. That should have bought him more time.
“Well, someone woke up one the wrong side of the wrestling mat!” Rody teased, skipping backwards with his hands in his pockets. Words shot out of him like bullets, his birds spiraling in a buzzard-like murmuration closer and closer to the ground. “Or maybe you’re just tired because of all that time you’ve spent wishing on stars to be in the hero course.”
He was getting distracted, the rush of finally voicing all that bitter rancid rage inside of him intoxicating. He had to remember that this rando wasn’t his target. Not really.
He spared a glance and saw his birds interfering with the drones’ flight patterns, the sound of their wings seemed to trigger their attention. They'd need to be lower if he wanted to draw the closer. With a grin, he sent the nearest flank towards Shinso just as he’d gotten his feet under him. Their claws latched into his gym uniform, leaving snags and fissures as they yanked him about in a mad game of tug-of-war.
“Coming to our classroom with your big dramatic spiel about stealing one of our places. I bet you thought today would be your big break, huh?” Rody grinned, stalking along the outside of the chaos. He technically could say anything to coax the drones to him, but he was having fun messing with Mr. Serious. It was like playing a villain when his kids wanted to play heroes. “You’d show off your little powers and your little fighting stances so someone big and cool and important would pluck you out of the chorus? Give you the princess treatment right into Japan's Top Ten? Make you worth something?”
Shinso grabbed a random leg and twisted it, the fragile bone snapping inside Rody’s chest. It startled a sharp yelp from his throat, and his eyes caught the skidding end to his birds trajectory as his opponent smacking her into the floor. Shinso staggered as a few more birds retreated to guard the first, leaving him with a clear view of Rody’s pained grimace and the hand he’d involuntarily clutched to his heart before he could hide it away.
It made his jaw click with tension. I can have two targets, actually…
“And now you’re here, trying your darndest to show what you can do, only to realize no one gives a shit about you. How sad.” Rody droned on like nothing was wrong, pacing lazily with his hand thumping against his chest in sympathy.
He then rushed forward in a few quick strides and crushed his knuckles against the boy’s nose. His other hand latched onto the guy’s shirt so he couldn’t run away from the second jab he left atop the bruised bone. It sent blood spewing down Shinso’s lip, but he retaliated faster that Rody would have liked with a jab to his hollow stomach. “Shut up! Just shut the hell up!”
“Oh, you’re definitely not getting into the hero course with a punch that weak!” He gasped around the pain, stumbling back with a hard-won smile. Shinso growled, his lips held tight around his own composure.
Wind it around. He thought, rushing up with reckless abandon as his birds rose higher into the skies, leaving the drones to dot the airway. Get back to the point. He’s not who you’re here for.
“Well, let me ease your mind!” Rody spun a roundhouse kick into the side of Shinso’s head, sending him tumbling to the ground. Followed the trajectory with languid strides as if his heart wasn’t beating out of his chest, he stepped a foot atop the guy’s chest and leaned his weight into it. “You can stop trying, because the hero course ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Shinso looked up to him with vehement hatred, spitting a gob of spit and blood onto the mat. Rody just laughed.
“The teachers are sleazy, the work is moronic at best and torture at worst, and all the students should be committed, they’re so fucking crazy.” He listed off, flicking his fingers out on each point before he let one cradle his chin. Below him, Shinso used his straightening spine to grab his foot and fling his measly weight backwards. It was only a step or two, but it was enough of an opening for him to struggle his way back to his feet.
“What, like your floaty frien- agh!” He’d been trying to sneer, back in that stupid fighting stance like Rody would ever give him the chance to use it, but before he could finish it Rody sent a bird to clutch at Shinso’s wrist. The sentence was likely meant to be some kind of bait, but Rody just smiled. How helpful he is to segue for me!
Watching something sharp and wild and not-all-there fog over Shinso’s light purple eyes, he sent another bird to do the same, tugging the guy into a spin by his wrists.
“Bingo, Pretty Head! Just like her!” He cheered, shooting him finger guns. Shinso grunted a hollow scream between his lips, but Rody covered it easily with his own voice.
“Uraraka Ochaco is her name, and she’s a shining example of the type of student admitted to the UA Hero Course!” He shouted, arms thrown wide. The drones were closing in, but he kept his stare on Shinso as he struggled. Don’t play to the cameras. It has to seem spontaneous or they’ll just think you’re complaining. “Which is to say, she’s an arrogant, snide, untrustworthy megalomaniac who garotted me on live tv for her own personal gain! And isn’t that who we want patrolling our streets?”
Shinso screamed as the talons grew tighter, more birds clamping along his arms to jerk them up over his head. There was a steady flow of blood dribbling onto the mat from the lesions along his wrists. Good, he’s busy. Less chance of getting interrupted.
“I don’t know if you could see, what with my ‘impressive avian attack’ as Present Mic put it, but she did fully wind a metal wire around my throat because I didn’t do what she wanted.” Ok, we’ve set up the information. Now some light slander. “And I for one feel very safe knowing that someone so obsessed with winning that she’d risk the safety of her allies will be in charge of my well-being one day!”
Oh, can’t forgot about all that stuff I googled! I gotta appeal to the academics. “Personally, I think winning a school festival completely justifies the manipulation of-" what were they called again? "-psychological trauma responses from that time I got strangled by a villain during a terrorist attack, don’t you?”
His birds let go, tumbling Shinso into a graceless roll along the mat. All around him, he could hear the audience crowing. Maybe with laughter, maybe with disgust, maybe they were all telling him to shut his trap and get on with it, he couldn’t tell. He also didn’t care. This was the safest he’d felt all day, and he wasn’t giving that up for a congeniality award.
But still, bad for the plan. Time’s running out. Button it up.
Rody stalked up to Shinso and kicked him in the side, rolling him just a little closer out of bounds. “I’m just praying for whatever poor schmuck is stupid enough to give her a work-study, because I doubt UA will actually punish her for trying to take my head off.” Put the heat on UA and scare off the investors. That way, no matter what, she’s not getting a work-study.
“Lord knows they don’t actually care about their kid’s safety." he chirped. "If they did she’d be expelled by now! But UA loves it’s nutcases, and she’s a crazy, dangerous, selfish, stuck-up little brat who think declaring war is a normal way to start a conversation!”
He reared back for another kick, ready to finish this entire bullshit match in one fell swoop.
“Actually, I take it back. You’d fit right i-ah!”
And Shinso, the king of ruining his day, whipped around and knocked his legs out from under him.
Rody landed hard on his back, all the air in his body punched straight into the atmosphere with no hope of returning. Quick as a rabid animal, Shinso pounced on him and punched him in the face. It was only to the cheek (because hero-wanna-be’s were ever-so honorable), but it still caused a harsh flame of pain to blossom along the left side of his face.
“You talk way too much.” He grunted quietly, scooting back with a hand yanking on the fabric of Rody’s gym shirt. “What the hell are you even going on abou- shit!”
The grumbling voice got cut at the end by an indignant yelp. Likely because a clump of pink birds had grabbed him by the ankle and jerked him into the sky.
Because no way was Rody letting this little prick end their match so unceremoniously.
It had been his plan to end it quickly after he’d finished his Uraraka Smear Campaign, but as he watched those messy strands of lavender hair dangle overhead, that whining toddler inside of him begged him not to. He was having fun; if he thought hard enough then he could probably blame Shinso for some part of his shitty day, so really he was continuing his comeuppance streak by making the guy squirm a bit. And ending the match quickly was what everyone else would want to do, anyway. Can’t be too good, otherwise I’ll be stuck working for Mr. Punch-Guy or whatever. Wasting time is frowned upon in hero-world, right? So this is strategic, actually.
Rody couldn’t stop his bark of laughter as he watched Shinso flail uselessly, shirt falling over his face as he was yoinked higher and higher into the sky.
Strategic and hilarious.
He sent more birds up after the rising general studies student, circling in languid rounds until the ones holding Shinso decided to let go. They flung him skyward in a pinwheeling ball of limbs, only for another set to catch him in the air at the last second.
“C’mon now, no sense in ending things early! We still have to give these nice people a good show!” He shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. Shinso didn’t respond, too busy screaming as the Vinos played hot-potato with his body. “They paid good money for those tickets!”
The crowd in question, he now realized, had definitely been booing him before, because the way they laughed now was a far cry from their earlier din.
“Come one, come all!” He shouted in his best impression of a carnival barker, gesturing widely to the air above him. A drone swerved around and stayed level with his face, watching him twist an invisible mustache and tip an invisible hat. He was done with his little plan, so he’d earned the right to play to the camera. “Witness these incredible feats of involuntary acrobatics from the resident General Studies Hero: Shinsoooo Hiiiitoshiiii! And all performed without the use of a safety net! Remember kids, don’t try this at home! He’s a professional!”
He unclenched the talons in his chest and sent Shinso plummeting to earth, landing in a heap of groaning limbs. Rody winced loudly, looking back to the drone still trailed on his face.
“Ouch!" he shrugged cartoonishly. "Well, I said he was a professional. Never said he was a professional acrobat!”
Something akin to raucous laughter took over the rhythm of the crowd. The birds fluttered high, patrolling in jittering circles as Rody began to stalk his own around the dropped body of his opponent. He clasped his hands behind his back to keep them from shaking, meaning it was his biceps that had begun to tremble instead.
Shinso sat himself up on his hands and knees, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his hand. “You are so annoying.” He grumbled to himself.
“I know, it keeps me up at night.” Rody drawled, crossing his arms over his chest as if something inside wasn’t stinging like fire. Just to satiate it, he sent a few birds from the flock to sneak up behind the guy and sink their claws into the tangles of that lavender hair. Shinso screamed, hands rising to yank them out only to find stinging cuts and biting beaks as his reward. Still on his knees, they dragged him into a backbend until he could barely balance.
“Hey, why the long face, Zombie-Boy? The cameras are watching!” Rody crowed, skipping closer. “Show them those pearly whites!”
Two talons on either side of his head detached, jamming themselves into his mouth. Rody could feel under his nails the way they scraped thin fissures into the inside of his cheek, yanking his lips into a wide, gummy smile.
Shinso grabbed both legs with his hands and yanked them out, beating the two birds into the ground like he was playing a particularly violent game of whack-a-mole. It made a jolt of aching tension run through Rody’s entire body, and made his birds limp back to his side with embarrassed, pained squeals.
“So that’s where your annoying-ass kid gets it.” he said, low yet loud as his eyes darted to the nearest drone hovering by. Blood was dripping from his lips; seems those thin fissures inside his cheeks weren’t all that thin. “I’d hoped for her sake that it was just her being too dumb to speak Japanese properly, but now I see that the Jackass Gene is one that runs deep in your bloodline. What a shame.”
The birds overhead stuttered in their circles, and Rody stuttered with them.
No way did he just…
“What did you say?” He mumbled, eyes gone wide.
He just stared as Shinso righted himself and sunk back into that stupid fighting stance. All that met him was a slimy smile. “Oh, sorry, you told me not to mention those two snot-nosed crotch-dumplings you were loving on in the hallway, didn’t you? Didn’t want the world to know you got some girl knocked-up and had to start playing house about it?”
Rody felt his jugular leaping under his skin, cooling the fever raking through his body with a calm, cold fury.
He just insulted my kids... He thought belatedly, dumbstruck by just how violently, chokingly, manically angry a few simply sentences had rendered him.
It hadn’t been the first time his kids had been mistaken for, well, his kids, but despite the revulsion at the thought, hearing them talked about with such derision was the thing that made red start creeping up the sides of his vision. They were on tv. They could hear this. The jumbo-trons were echoing insults about his children to the whole of Japan. Kids who had been nothing but beaten down for things entirely out of their control, who kept earning reports from their teachers about being 'socially withdrawn' or 'emotionally vilatile', who had finally been convinced by their nice new house and their nice new friends that that they could be safe somewhere.
The words reverberated in his head like funeral bells. Snot-nosed crotch-dumplings. annoying-ass. Too dumb to speak properly. Shinso had said that about his Roro and Lala.
Rody felt himself sink into a fightingstance. … and he thinks he’s gonna survive that?
Shinso stalked a step closer, wiping more rivers of blood from his face. He was smug, but something in his eyes was dark. Unfulfilled. Hungry. “What were their names again? Roro and Lala? Did the little idiots named themselves? Or do you and your junkie baby-mama just not care enough about them to give them proper names?” He leered.
Each word rising the thermometer in Rody’s mind until the end of it exploded. He had known what it was like to be at his limit (he’d been at it for most of the day), but it was rare that he went past it. He had a long fuse by design, and a whole lot of conversational off-ramps pre-made to avoid him doing something stupid.
Hearing his kids’ sweet, endearing nicknames spoken with such vitriol in the presence of a laughing audience sent him so far past his limit he wasn’t even sure he was human anymore.
He didn’t know what he was planning to do, only that he was moving and he wasn’t going to stop until he had all the blood in Shinso Hitoshi’s body on or around his person. Thundering footsteps rattled his core, birds nosediving for the lavender-haired asshole like dropped bombs. From his ragged throat rose a sharp scream, like an animal caught by a poacher making its last stand for freedom.
“You motherfuc-”
And then… he stopped.
Like, all of him.
His hands fell to his sides, his legs stopped moving, his body sagged down an inch as the tension released from every muscle in his back. He could feel his heart rate slowing, dragged into a marching beat instead of the rabbit-paced thundering it had been doing prior. Even his mouth, his most trusted asset, went slack. He tried to look around, tried to find what mysterious anomaly he’d just run into, but not even his eyes were cooperating. They were just staring, unfocused and half-lidded, at the purple bastard standing in front of him.
A boy who looked as grim as a funeral priest, despite what he said next.
“And there we go.” He sighed, resigned. “I win.”
Huh? Rody’s thoughts echoed in his head like he was suddenly watching the world twice, once in real time and once with a second of delay. His head felt sluggish and clear all at once, thoughts rushing around the parts of him connected to his body. Something had coaxed them into a comfortable sleep, leaving him with a maze of blank spots to think around.
“What’s this? Soul-kun has gone completely still!” Overhead Present Mic’s voice grew distorted and fuzzy, like the microphone he was using was suddenly from the 80’s. The whole world was becoming like that, it seemed; Rody could barely hear the crowd’s ambiguous screaming anymore. It was just him, his heartbeat, and his very confused internal monologue.
Well, all that, and Shinso’s voice.
Which he could hear as clearly as if it was inside his own skull despite there being a good few yards of distance between them.
“That’s it. Now turn around and walk out of the ring like a good little hero.” He mumbled, clearly too quiet in the wake of the crowd and yet the only thing The Othenian could seem to make out from his sudden stupor. Those pale arms wound around each other, wiping lines of half-crusted blood off his flesh. “Oh, and take your stupid birds with you.”
Despite wanting nothing more than to roll his eyes and murder the guy, Rody felt those sleeping parts of his brain roll over to comply.
Slow, staggering steps jostled him, twisting in clumsy strides on uneven legs to face him away from his opponent. Behind him he could hear his birds walking steadily, talons tapping like a little line of ducklings following his sudden compliance. The toe of his sneakers skidded against the ground, catching every half-second with squeaking stutters as he dragged one foot in front of the other. It wasn’t his normal walk, his weight was too far forward and his gate jerky, but it was doing its job.
Its job being to drag him out of bounds so he’d lose the match.
"What an unexpected turn in this rockin’ song! Soul Rody is now walking himself out of bounds!” Present Mic crowed, his voice spiking and dipping like he was narrating a pulpy horror movie. “But how, dear listeners, did Shinso-kun pull this mighty fear off? The blood-curdling-ly awesome power known as Brainwashing! Answer a question of Shinso-kun’s, and he can make you into a mindless puppet!”
“Well, he’s not wrong…” Shinso grumbled, that hoarse, quiet voice still clear even as Rody lost sight of the mouth responsible for it. “But I prefer to see it as ‘taking back what’s rightfully mine’.”
His feet had gotten used to their stumbling new balance, steadily drawing him closer to the side of the arena.
Inside his own head, he was flailing like a caught trout. No way was he going to let this fuck brainwash himself out of the consequences of insulting his kids!
He fought and screamed and struggled and scraped at every part of his consciousness, digging like an animal until he’d given himself a thorough headache; Rody was not someone who would let himself be puppeted. His one saving grace from losing himself in the criminal underworld was being ornery, quick to fight, and quicker to judge a job for what it was and turn tail. He only did things he didn’t want when a gun (or a pair of disintegrating hands) was at his head; everything else was a coin toss between his stubbornness and his need for money.
And now, some little 15-year-old fuck with cotton candy hair was forcing his body out of his control? No the fuck he wasn’t!
Hoping that voice in his head could hear him, he bit his mental teeth into anything he could find. When I get out of this, there’s not gonna be anything left of you, Lavender Scare!
That droning voice was saying something to him, loud and echoey despite barely cresting his own raspy vocal cords. It was something about heroes and fairness and how Rody was such a stupid slacker that no one would cry when he inevitably got expelled for not taking this school function seriously enough.
He ignored it, frantic mental hands searching throughout his own consciousness for something that could help him out. He’d never been under a mental quirk's effect before, but he was sure there was some weird fuzzy feeling hiding inside his rattled dome that he could yank on to get free, right? That sounded like it should be correct! He rattled the bars of his mental cage, his frantic search quickly turning into a smash-and-grab with no goal in sight.
Nothing worked. His feet stayed as steady as he’d left them. Now he just had a headache to accompany his impending defeat.
“…I just hope those weepy-ass kids of yours can handle the disappointment of seeing their dad throw everything away like that.” The bastard’s musings finally seeped through his frantic thrashing. “Though, with how you behave on the daily, I’m sure they’re used to that.”
BEEEEEEEEEP!
“Out of bounds!” Midnight cawed. “From the General Studies Course, Shinso Hitoshi is our winner!”
Behind him, echoing and warbled, he heard a sarcastic huff.
“A good show, wouldn’t you say?”
And then, like he’d been plucked out of a pool, his body came back to him.
Heavy panic rose violently up his throat, stumbling his steps as they stuttered around the sudden intrusion of free will. His heart picked up pace so quickly it hurt, leaving him wheezing around a coughing fit of fear. Birds took to the skies in frantic drabbles, his temporary loss of adrenaline having dwindled their numbers into the teens. It was a miracle he even stayed on his feet, body shaking so badly he felt like he was caught in an earthquake.
He spun on his heel as the gentle thump of footfall registered to his fraying nerves. Shinso was walking towards him, face bland and hands in his pockets. He looked… bored. Like he hadn’t just sent his opponent into a blood rage with a few (honestly kinda tepid if they hadn’t been about his two reasons for living) insults.
Rody immediately leapt to rip his head off. “You piece of shit!”
His arm was raised for a punch, feet pounding into the mat below, but he was stopped before he began by two giant, heavy arms of pure cement. One wrapped around his poised fist while the other cradled his midsection, yanking him off his feet.
“Let me go!” he shouted immediately, jamming an elbow into his new attacker’s sternum and earning himself a scrape and a twang to his funny bone. Two birds squealed, biting and clawing at the rock like it could make Rody feel less caught. His teeth ached at the reverberations, cramping the back of his eyeballs.
“It’s over, Soul!” Cementoss barked back, squeezing tighter, "You lost!"
Rody twisted his head and smacked his literature teacher in the face with his ponytail. “Like I give a shit about that! He said he wouldn’t talk about them! He- you said-!”
Somewhere in his rant, his head had twisted back to Shinso. He was almost past them now, steady feet sidestepping his attempted murder. His eyes didn’t even meet anything but his shoes when he replied, never breaking his casual stride.
“I lied.”
Two words were all it took for Rody to seal both of their fates.
Slowly, he willed his body to settle, going stiff but slack against his teacher’s cement-block body. Immediately he was let go and Cementoss turned him around by the shoulders to give his sullen frown a disappointed eye. “Accept your loss with grace and go get cleaned up.” He admonished quietly, waiting until Rody reluctantly nodded his consent.
The concrete block let go of his arms and Rody skirted around him and down the steps. Shinso’s purple hair could barely be seen slipping into the men’s locker room at the end of the path, just beyond the shadow of the hallway. They’d both been briefed that the facilities within would be at their disposal post-and-pre-fight.
That would serve as a good enough venue for his new vengeance quest.
He followed a few paces back, shortening his usually long strides. Best to give him time to settle down so he’s off his guard. With slow breaths he knocked the door open with his shoulder twenty-seven seconds later, hands in his pockets so as to appear unready and non-threatening. Inside, Shinso was standing by the crisp blue lockers they’d been allowed to stash their stuff in. He had a smartphone in his hand, checking some app full of text-blocks and grainy pictures. The screen was already cracked; good, if it got damaged then Rody could claim it was already like that.
He strode up behind him, stopping a foot away.
“Hey.”
Shinso turned, already frowning. “Wh-”
Rody reared back and slugged him across the face.
“Never talk about my siblings again.” He said under the clatter of the other teen hitting the ground. His voice was rarely so grave, but it echoed like the thump of a coroner’s boots in the empty locker room air.
Shinso dragged himself to Rody’s chest-height, hands clutching the swinging locks on the doors as hand-holds. He was grinning despite the weeping cuts and split lip he now sported. “You’re really that sore of a lose-”
Rody reared back and punched him again, sending his head clattering against the metal locker doors.
“Not gonna work on me a second time, Lavender Scare.” He mumbled, eyes unblinking as Shinso cradled his cheek and sent a truly vicious glare right through the empty tunnel that used to be Rody Soul. Before he could right himself, Rody sunk a foot into his gut and used the momentum to pin him to the floor. He didn’t have the knife he used to carry on him anymore (damn school safety policies), but he could probably find something appropriately shank-like around. Anything to get the point across.
Shinso grabbed his ankle and jerked his meager weight backwards like he had before, forcing Rody to stumble off of him. He used the moment to kick up onto his arms, scuttling back as he glared holes into his impromptu opponent.
“Fuck off!” He shouted, pulling one leg under him. “God, you hero course students are so fucking vain! You lose one battle and turn into an ape because you dared to lose to a general studies kid?!”
That was a question. Rody waited until he was almost to his feet to rear back and slam the bottom of his sneaker into Shinso’s already bruised and bloodied nose.
“Fuck!”
That wasn't a question. “Shut up.” He mumbled, stepping forward as Shinso cringed back.
“No! I’m done shutting up!” His voice, usually droll like a creaking door, piqued and broke around his sudden passion. “You were lucky enough to be born with a good quirk like everyone else in that godforsaken class of yours! I trained for months to get here, only to get slotted in fucking general studies with a bunch of assholes because my quirk wasn’t ‘heroic’ enough! Meanwhile you waltz in with your stupid bright pink fucking birds and get in no problem?! Show me the justice in that!”
Rody didn’t respond. He just waited until that head was at level with his hands to tangle one into the hair at the nape of the guy’s neck. Quick as his skinny muscles would allow, he turned and smashed Shinso’s face into the lockers, smearing blood and mucus along the bright chipper blue before he yanking him back and did it again.
He almost got one more in before a pale arm wound around the back his head and yanked his wrist away, twisting it behind Rody’s back. His chest smacked into the lockers, inches away from the abstract Shinso-painting his attack had left behind. “Fucking stop it!”
“You said you wouldn’t talk about them! You said their names!” Rody shouted back, the dead-eyed calm glitching as he found himself in the familiar position of losing a fight. Shinso jostled him, too chickenshit to do more than restrain. “What, are you guys on the run or something? Who cares?!”
That lit a fire under Rody’s ass like nothing else. He kicked backwards and clipped Shinso’s knee with his heel. It wasn’t much, but it gave him just enough space to twist out of his hold, spin around, and clock him in the jaw with a half-formed punch.
“I care!”
Immediately, he stilled, body slack and calm as chunks of his brain fell under that same numbing spell. He felt his snarling face droop into a steady, neutral line, his center of gravity swaying as his movements died.
Inside, he screamed for so long and so loudly that he manifested a Vino from sheer spite, who sadly was too weak and wobbly to do more than charge on foot and bite Shinso’s leg.
“God, even brainwashed you’re fucking difficult.” He grumbled to himself, kicking at the bird with the hesitance soft-hearted people often kicked animals with. His low, grumbly voice stung through Rody’s mind as he began to panic in earnest. “Sleep, birdie.”
Vino dropped like a stone, curling up in a little football of battered pink fluff.
He knew a lost fight when he was in one, and Rody was thoroughly trashed. Shinso could make him do whatever he wanted now, and unless he could find that theoretical tether and snap it, he couldn’t do anything about it. The bastard could make him slice his wrists with his own nails until he was nothing but an empty corpse, or make him drown himself in the toilet, or march outside and walk into traffic. It wouldn’t take long for Shinso to get them both to the top of the stadium and push him off. The possibilities were endless, and endlessly gruesome.
And then no one would be there to protect his siblings from the guy they’d trusted enough to talk too calling them whiny cry-babies on live tv. There’d be no one there to protect them from anything.
Even without the brainwashing turning the world to detached soup, it took him far too long to register that Shinso was talking. His eyes caught the movement of a frowning mouth just in time for his brain to register the words already said. The first step in the sealing of his fate.
“I’ll let you go if you don’t hit me again.”
… Oh. Right, Shinso was a hero wanna-be. Those types didn’t typically murder.
He couldn’t give an indication that he consented, what with his entire body being out of his control, but the thrashing in his head did stop. Either Shinso apparently could sense that or he was running on hope, because he dropped his quirk's hold a moment later. It was more like being raised gently from a pool instead of shoved violently; Rody came back to his body in a calm wave of sensation.
He blinked, stretching his fingers and toes before he tried his hand at moving his arms in front of him. There was some of Shinso’s blood swiped across his knuckles, and some more rubbed into his forearm. The sight suddenly made him sick, and strangely embarrassed.
He, of course, stood by that anyone insulting his siblings deserved a thorough beat-down, but even he could admit that was all a bit… much. He'd been ready to bust out the theoretical shank on this guy. He'd used his serious voice. Why the hell had he done that? Control was something Rody always had, if not over his life then himself, so why had he flown off the handle over some juvenile insults?
He didn’t know how to voice the… whatever the hell he was feeling, so he just made rounds of looking at Shinso before looking away.
And Shinso, who really would make a great hero because his mercy abounded, ended the tense silence before Rody was forced to. “Look, I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable talking about your family like that, and I’m sorry I lied, but… I can’t stay in general studies another day.”
Rody rolled his eyes despite himself, gratitude and guilt lost to the ever-present headache that was hero kids. “God, you people are so pretentious! I don’t care-”
“I know! Everyone knows you don’t care!” Shinso shouted suddenly, hands flying to his head to dye streaks of red through the purple. Suddenly, he was snarling, composure lost. It made Rody step back, thumping himself into the locker doors; he didn’t have enough adrenaline for another fight.
“You have been doing nothing but fucking around all day! And you know what, if you want to throw away your own chances at winning then be my guest! Have fun working at some D-list sidekick when the time comes, if you get to do a work-study at all!” He snapped, poking a finger at Rody before he smacked his fist into his chest hard enough to rattle his own voice. “But I do care! I need this! I want to be here! This was my one chance to transfer! And even though I won the match, I guarantee you’re still going to be the one people talk about because you flounced around like a carnival barker and make me look like an idiot!”
… Oh god dammit.
It was a sad, horrid thing, to suddenly see your victim as a person.
Rody had experienced it many times. Drug addicts without the right pocket change falling into despair because he wasn’t allowed to sell to them. Store owners tearfully recounting their lost margins and their need to liquidate when he backtracked to make sure no names were given to the wrong people. His career as a mugger had been cut pathetically short when a man he’d been threatening to take the wallet of had started crying about his wife and kids.
And now, standing before him, that same-tenderheartedness reared its head for Shinso. Not the purple-haired bitch he was mildly curious and violently furious with from time to time, but Shinso.
Shinso, who was skinnier than he probably should be. Who looked like he’d never slept before in his life. Who had thin, faded scars around his nose and cheeks that left an unknowing but deeply disturbed pit in Rody’s stomach. He'd been wanting to get into the hero course so badly he’d done a whole song-and-dance at their doorstep trying to psych them out. He’d clearly been teaching himself basic fighting stances long enough for them to stick even in actual, unsanctioned fights. This was meant to be his big break. He’d wanted to be worth something.
And Rody, in typical Rody fashion, had fucked it up for him.
And he'd done it for nothing.
Slowly, in dawning guilt, he remembered Uraraka’s dead stare in the waiting room. Her shaking hands and the desperation that had clogged up her voice as she’d demanded him take this seriously. Take her seriously. And yeah, she still shouldn’t have garroted him, he stood by that, but when she was clearly in the middle of some kind of psychotic breakdown, he’d just… made fun of her. Hit her. Stormed away and slandered her on live tv.
Not gotten Iida or Izuku or fuck, a teacher, and said ‘hey, Uraraka is acting really fucking weird and I’m worried about her despite being really mad, can someone she’s not mad at go see if she’s ok?’ like a fucking adult. No, instead he’d just stolen the one important thing he could have from her as humiliatingly and violently as he possibly could.
Because she’d been mean to him and he’d wanted to be mean back.
Well, turnaround’s fair play, he reminded himself, voice hollow and fake in his own head. She should have gotten her shit together if she wanted me to feel sympathy for her.
The toddler dictating his day wilted, throwing up reminders of her frantic gaze, her cracking voice, the way he’d utterly shattered her by definitively severing their friendship. Dammit, he kind of wanted to go check on her. See if she was still shaking and crying and dead-eyed. See if she needed someone to pull her out of the empty tunnels her pupils had become.
… He knew he wouldn’t, though. It was too much power to give to someone who had, at the end of the day, choked him out for a sports festival. Uraraka, despite the yearning for that mischievous gleam that had quickly encroached on the previously unused title of Best Friend, wasn’t safe. And showing her that he still cared after all that would get him killed extremely fast.
He wanted to throw up at the thought of empty lunch seats and extinguished sparks, but he stayed his heart. Survival was paramount, all else fell before it.
Shinso shuffled about in front of him, weight swaying in the awkward, thoughtful silence Rody had left him in. He looked sullen and sad and disappointed like all that snarky fight had completely left him. It was familiar in all the worst ways.
Rody reached over and pinched his arm.
It was nice to see that annoyed grimace return. “Ow! What the-”
“My kids- my siblings, by the way- were watching from the stands.” He said by way of an explanation, faking a little annoyance in his voice. “You called them stupid.”
Shinso, the damn good guy that he apparently was, looked thoroughly ashamed at the news. He cradled his likely-still-stinging (Rody was an elder sibling; his pinching skills were world-class) arm and ducked his head. “… I didn’t know they were watching. I’m sorry.”
The Othenian just scoffed, turning on his heel. There was a first aid kit stuck to the wall by the fire extinguisher, and he wasn’t about to let the purple bastard walk out of this locker room with all that blood still on him.
“Go tell them that.” He grunted, sauntering to the side and yanking it out of it's plastic clamp prison. It clacked loudly against the marble counter of the sinks opposite the lockers. Jauntily, he hopped himself atop a sink and flipped it open.
Shinso was looking at him like he’d lost his mind, but Rody just yanked out a roll of gauze and crooked a finger in his direction. Slowly, a brittle, familiar smirk tugged his cheek.
“But first, c’mere. You look like shit.”
It was surprising when Shinso slowly, awkwardly, wrong-footedly complied. He slid half his thigh atop the counter, rolling his white-pupiled eyes skyward. Despite the attitude, his eyes were blatantly staring in wary disbelief as Rody uncapped some antiseptic and set to work cleaning up some of his emotional debris.
In the end, it took about thirty minutes to disinfect and patch and plaster all the damage he’d done. Him and Shinso didn’t talk much during the process, but they were sparing each other cautions glances that denoted a level of trust clearly unfamiliar to both of them, so he felt it was a successful reconciliation. Once he was done, he pushed him off the counter and dragged him by the shirt sleeve outside to the stands, where he ignored Kaminari getting absolutely bodied by that vine-haired girl from 1-B in favor of finally finding out where the hell his kids were sitting.
They had apparently scored some stellar seats in one of the less-populated areas curving around the arena’s side, high up and far in the back with two of the jumbo-trons franking their view. Meaning they’d just gotten several angles of his weird, mean breakdown.
Thank god they still barely understand Japanese.
They both swarmed to him like honing missiles when he caught their eye, almost knocking him down the long stadium stairs with their enthusiasm. Feeling settled in a way he hadn’t all day, he scooped both of them atop his hips and turned to Shinso’s awkwardly hovering form, snorting when both kids sent him hurt glares before hiding their faces against his neck.
“Sr. Pretty Head as something he would like to say to you two.” He cooed, bouncing them in his arms so they would un-glue their heads from his shoulder.
When they did, Shinso was in a full bow, head dipped so far to the floor Rody could see the red marks along his neck from where he’d grabbed him. His apology, while as long-winded and dramatic as everything else he’d said that day, was a good one. Genuine, with lots of asides about how his quirk worked and how he was just trying to get Rody to answer his questions and he really didn’t mean any of what he’d said, scouts honor.
Lala had squirmed her way out of Rody’s arms to rush him, smacking her tiny fist atop his head. She waved a finger in his face when he looked up, admonishing him about being mean to her brother. And Shinso, to his credit, had weathered her little smack and listened intently to her scolding, hands on her hip and face in a cute, angry pout. And he did so without laughing, too, which was a feat. Rody hadn’t managed that, constantly having to cover snorts and chuckles with coughs so Lala didn’t think he was laughing at her.
Roro had been more reserved, glaring daggers from his place in Rody’s arms before he, too, wiggled his way to the floor and gave Shinso a searing stare. He’d said one plain, clearly well-rehearsed warning about ‘not messing with his brother like that ever again’ before he’d tried to start an interrogation about why Shinso wanted to be a hero.
Rody cut that off quick, distracting the kids with promises of snacks and shooing Shinso away once they were properly enthused.
The guy turned gracefully into his own dismissal, already retreating from the barrage that was the Soul family with a small smile on his lips. Before he could get far, though, he turned back. Rody straightened up from ushering his kids back to their seats so they could grab their various things from Stanleyk’s lap, pinning him with a confused, mild stare.
Shinso just nodded his head lightly and awkwardly. “… Good game.”
Rody snorted, rolling his eyes. “Oh, fuck off.”
They both laughed, low and cautious and self-conscious. It was a far cry from friendship, but as Rody watched that lavender mess get further and further away, he realized that it wasn’t as far of a cry as he’d have guessed. Hm, guess he's not all that bad... still dramatic, though.
“Rody, can we…” Lala’s voice, suddenly quiet and apprehensive, rose from the bleacher seats. He looked up from his musing to find her standing before him, hands wringing the hem of her dress like a wet towel. Her face was an open canvas of conflict that he had no idea what to make of.
He knealed low, setting a hand to her shoulder. “Yeah, Lala? What is it?”
She bit her lip. “…Can we meet that girl you were playing horseys with? Please?”
“The… who?” It was exactly what his thoughts were saying too. He leaned back, scrunching his face in confusion as Pino (regular sized and likely going to stay that way) crawling atop his shoulder.
Lala (because apparently that was exactly what she hadn’t wanted him to say) curled further into herself. “The pretty girl who make things all pink and floaty.” She admitted sullenly, short nails picking at the stitches around the caterpillars on her dress.
“No, Lala!” Roro shouted a few steps behind her, stamping his foot like they’d been having this argument for days now. “Rody said she’s mean!”
“Woah, woah, hold on.” Rody interrupted, waving his hands. Suddenly the 'who' of his many questions was painfully clear. “You’re talking about Uraraka, right? Short brown hair? She had the boots that flew around?”
“Uh-huh! Her!” His sister lip up, nodding emphatically. He scrunched his brow, glancing his eyes between her clear want and Roro’s suspicious anger. He met his brother's face with a confused frown. “She’s not mean. She’s my friend.”
“But you said that she hurt your neck!” Roro interjected, pointing emphatically. “You said she was mean and dang’rous and that no one would do anything about it! And that’s bad!”
Rody watched him with a horrid mix of shame and impossible fondness. He’d kind of forgotten that his kids watching his match had included the watching of his whole Fuck-Uraraka speech. It made him sour with shame; being a teenage criminal already didn’t afford him many chances to be a good role-model, and damn if that was behavior he didn't want them to emulate.
“She did.” He said slowly, cupping his hand against Roro’s shoulder. “And she apologized to me right after. She's not actually that bad, but I was still mad after we talked so I… I said a lot of mean things about her to get back at her.”
“But that’s not nice, Rody.” Lala mumbled, looking at him confusedly.
He gave her a wane grin. “No, it isn’t.”
“Well, it also wasn’t nice for her to hurt your neck in the first place, so… hmph!” Roro gruffed, stomping his foot into the ground again. Rody couldn’t help himself, he snatched him up and crushed him in a hug. “Couldn’t have said it better myself, filhote.”
Roro giggled, wiggling in his hold until Rody allowed his limbs to loosen. When he did, Lala was looking up at him with so much hope in her eyes that it was physically hard to look at.
“I… I don’t like that she did that to you even if she said sorry, too, but…” for a moment she looked like she was holding back vomit, wringing the end of her caterpillar dress in her hands, before she finally blurted, “but she did really good fighting the scary boy and she was really cool and strong and I want to tell her she did good even if she lost!”
His heart squeezed so hard in his chest that he was worried he might actually be having a heart attack. It was such an onslaught, the love for his sister mixed with the shock of hearing how taken she'd been with Uraraka's special brand of violence. His face didn’t know what to do, caught between a smile and a frown with his eyebrows coming up in open concern.
Slowly, after much gaping and babbling useless nothings, he finally blurted “She lost?”
Lala gave him a big nod, her apprehension dwindling. “She and the boy with the- the loud sparkly hands were fighting, and everyone got mad that he was fighting her, and then a scary voice from the tall thing said that it was good that he was fighting her so much because it meant he res-reshpepted her. And then she lost.”
His heart sank to his knees. Those tunnel eyes flashed over the underside of his skull, growing deeper and colder by the second. Oh… she won’t take that well.
She normally could. She’d lost plenty of sparring matches without going nuts. And also, it wasn’t Rody’s fucking problem, anyway! He wasn’t her life coach! He wasn’t her dad! Yeah, she may feel like the closest to an of-age sibling that he’d ever had, but that didn’t mean she was one. Caring was pathetic, and she couldn’t be trusted with that.
Lala looked up at him, eyes wide and imploring. “Can… can we go meet her? Please?”
He sighed. I’m such a fucking putz.
“Yeah. Yeah, we can.”
It felt all kinds of wrong to walk around the backrooms of the arena with his kid’s hands in his, but he weathered it as best he could. The back hallways were still pretty deserted, considering most of the inhabitants were still in the stands watching Izuku and Todoroki try to turn each other into atoms, but even the threat of new eyes was getting to be too much. He’d already had his fill of people messing with his kids today.
It was a fair bet to assume a fight lost to Bakugou would end Uraraka in some kind of sick bay, but he checked the waiting rooms first. Three of them had been empty, one had contained Tokoyami talking fervently with his shadow monster like the thing was alive, and the last one made him stop.
Because, just before his hand had reached the knob to poke his head in, he’d heard something. Something sharp and quiet, muffled by wood but clear all the same.
Uraraka’s voice, hoarse and thin, croaking desperate sobs like she was throwing them up. Her breathing was ragged- desperate, even- and amidst her huffs and coughs was a constant rolling mantra.
“I'm sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."
Yeah, definitely not taking it well…