The halls felt endless as I sprinted through them. My mind was eerily silent, and so I had a strange feeling of arising worry growing in my chest. I didn't know what it was about, but my subconscious — and possibly my mother — were both urging me to believe that it was due to the people around me, or lack there of.
It was so quiet and bodiless that I had nearly convinced myself that this wasn't even reality, but once I turned the corner, it was like the static roared to life — along with the audience from the arena outside.
The entrance to the bleachers was just beyond the staircase before me, and as I neared the top step, I could make out the familiar head of navy hair that I had desperately been searching for leaned against the wall.
A pulse of excitement ran through me, but as I was about to advance toward him, another head of pink hair made its way into my sight. Hatsume, the one mechanical girl from Midoriya's team, was standing in front of him. I was quick to take several steps back as to not be seen, and as I did, I witnessed Hatsume inching closer to him as she latched onto his arm.
The sight baffled me, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions, either. She was on about something involving their apparent match that I had neglected to see, and how she was sorry for using him as a pawn to get the top Pro Heroes to notice her 'babies.' Iida, despite my shock, was smiling warmly at her.
"You know," Hatsume continued. "You weren't that bad either, maybe it wouldn't hurt to see more of you."
I bit down on my cheek to prevent intervention, and as I did, a sickening giggle went off in my ears. I let out an uneasy breath with my hand held against the wall for support in an attempt at calming myself down, but the sweltering heat was undoubtably there.
"You think so?" Iida asked, and from the tone of his voice it sounded as if he had chuckled.
My free hand balled into a fist. I didn't know why I was so surprised — I put this situation into place on my own. I told him that I didn't need him. I threw his affection and his concern back in his face.
Did I deserve this?
Most definitely.
But that small fact didn't falter the increasing rage in my system; because, technically, we weren't broken up. I never anticipated Iida as someone who'd move on from a relationship that quickly, especially not one that was never officially ended. The sound of their quiet banter and gross, mushy giggling was insanely too much for my clearly weak stomach to handle, so I turned on my heel and proceeded to make my way around the other side of the building and toward a different entrance to the bleachers.
"My, my," the voice sighed. "Wasn't that a sight?"
I growled low in my throat. "Shut up."
"That made you very angry, didn't it? I didn't even think Iida would do such a thing! What a brute! A scoundrel!" He said melodramatically. I could hear the mockery in his voice.
I didn't reply, and the lack of it made him giggle sadistically.
"Oh, Osoroshi," he cooed. "You want to let this anger out, don't you?"
"Leave me alone."
"You do," he confirmed on his own. "I can help you. You don't have anything to lose when I'm in control."
"I wouldn't know that," I bit back. "Because you never have been."
"Ah, but I was close before," Dream Walker pointed out. "Besides, letting go of the reigns is a great stress relief! Why don't you let me help you?"
"If it's so good, why don't you keep your spot?"
"It can get boring, watching from the sidelines."
I snorted humorlessly and rounded a corner.
"I bet you want to hurt Hatsume," he guessed after a brief silence. "And Iida too, maybe. You want to make him feel how you feel, huh?"
That was true, but at the same time I've been making Iida hurt this entire time. The duration of our relationship has revolved around my problems and my stupid quirk. We became a couple because of Dream Walker. If it weren't for that day we skipped school and if I hadn't opened up to him in the way that I did, none of the things that happened between us would have taken place. If Iida never met me, his life would be so much easier. He would have never gotten hurt. He would be happy right now, or at least he would have been. He looked pretty cozy with Hatsume on his arm the way she was.
"You want to hurt someone," Dream Walker insisted. "Why not take this rage out on your next opponent? Let me help you."
I bit down hard on my cheek.
"You're already halfway there, Osoroshi," he continued. "Just let go."
"Yuki."
A voice I was really hoping not to hear rattled me away from my previous conversation as I turned toward the hall I was currently passing. Shinsou was standing there, stoic faced with his hands shoved into his pockets.
"Who're you talking to?"
"No one," I replied sharply, glaring at him as he approached. "What do you want?"
"I just noticed that you weren't sitting with your class," he replied nonchalantly. "It's been thirty minutes since your match with Hattori, so I went looking for you."
"Whatever for?" I asked sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
"I could care less about your well being, so don't get the wrong idea," he growled back, glaring. "I had something to say to you."
"Out with it already, then." I snapped, stiffly crossing my arms.
"You could kill this guy if you wanted to, Oso."
"Just because I lost against your friend doesn't mean anything," Purple Hair began as I squeezed my eyes closed. "I'm still coming for that 1-A spot, and your seat there still isn't guaranteed."
"Listen to this cocky bastard, don't you wish that you could never hear his voice again? It could be easy — fun... maybe."
I flinched my head to the side and bit down hard enough on my cheek to draw blood, wishing to God or whoever-the-hell would make Shinsou shut his cakehole.
"You still have that fight with Bakugou—" he continued, and at the mention of the explosive blond, I quickly looked up to him.
"Wait, what?"
"You're next opponent is Bakugou Katsuki," he clarified curtly, clearly irritated from the fact that we were straying from his original topic. "You weren't around to hear it, but anyway, I don't care about the power you think you have or how you think it came off as something good to the Pro's or U.A. in general."
Shinsou stepped irritably closer and I sucked in a breath to avoid smelling him.
"You, without hesitation, displayed the quirk of your mother, who was a villain responsible for deaths of countless heroes and civilians," he drove in next to my ear. "As far as anyone's concerned, you're just as capable and just as threatening as her. They should just throw you in confinement now."
Gritting my teeth, I planted my hands on Shinsou's chest and pushed hard enough for him to crash into the adjacent wall of the hallway with enough force to make the floor shake. I filled the long stride between us and slammed my hand onto the wall space next to his frazzled head of hair and glared hard.
"I'm gettin' really fucking sick of this, Purple Hair," I hissed, feeling the trickle of frost poke out from the palm of my hand. "I don't give two shits what you think or what you believe. Sure, my mom was a villain, but who she was does not define who I am. I understand that you're pretty fucking desperate to get into Class A, but trying to intimidate me sure as hell isn't gonna get you there. I am not a cripple, I am not a villain, and I will never again let you get away with labeling me like that again. You think I'm defenseless? You couldn't even beat Midoriya — who didn't even use his fucking quirk. You wanna dehumanize me and say my quirk is one for a villain? Well look at yours, jackass, what hero controls people? You could easily make someone kill themselves."
Shinsou's eyes were wide with what looked like shock, but he soon recovered when he realized that I had stopped talking. Closing his mouth that hung slightly ajar, he straightened his back and swatted the hand that was plastered against the wall to the side.
"And what kind of hero has the eyes of a demon?" He asked monotonously, though there was a hint of mockery that made my blood collectively boil all over again.
I clenched my jaw as he sent me one last glare before walking off in the direction from once he came, but before I was given the remote chance of recollecting myself or moving at all, a stagehand came running down the hallway.
"Thank goodness I've found you, Miss Yuki!" They said breathlessly. "It is time to enter the arena, Katsuki Bakugou awaits."
~~~
An: Bakugou's fucked.
~~~