a/n: sorry for the wait and the meh chapter, things have been pretty bad lately. but! thank you all for reading my story and for putting up with me, i really appreciate it <3
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Valui felt her eyes narrow in spite of herself. Had he expected her to just do nothing? Had he expected her to sit back and just watch him die? Her skin crawled at the thought; her muscles tensed and she grew tense. She was useless, she knew, but that didn't mean she could just watch someone — watch him — die because of it.
She had told herself she wouldn't let that happen again.
"What else was I supposed to do?" Her voice held a small snap and an undertone of worry; of panic; of fear. "J-just— Just watch you—"
"S...stop."
Valui did what he said, falling uncomfortably quiet, her eyes scanning over him. The bleeding still hadn't stopped — a small puddle of it was forming beneath him. His eyes were half lidded, like he was struggling to keep them open; they were duller than she remembered. He was getting sickly pale — his face was turning an unsettling gray-white color. The cut was bigger than she had originally thought; deeper; in a worse spot.
Help.
He needed help.
She needed help.
Valui looked down at herself, biting the inside of her cheek and mentally cursing herself for letting this day be the one time she didn't wear a jacket. "Izu—" She turned, starting to call out Izuku's name only to stop when she saw the fight that was happening. The guy that had been on the ground — Iida, Hitoshi had called him — was up and fighting alongside Izuku. And alongside them was some other guy; some guy who was using a combination of ice and fire.
Endeavor? Isn't he Endeavor's son? What was his name again?
Valui shook her head and looked back to Hitoshi, chewing her lip as her eyebrows furrowed nervously. She had to do something — anything — to at least slow down the bleeding lest she want him to pass out.
She'd held off a panic attack for this long. Him fainting would make her lose the battle against herself.
So, in a brief moment where her panic took over, Valui pressed her hands against the cut on his neck. She cringed softly at the feeling of the blood trying to seep through her fingers, but kept her hands there nonetheless. Hitoshi, who had closed his eyes more, looked up at her, a confused look passing through his glazed over eyes.
"W...what are you...d-doing...?"
Hitoshi's voice was strained; it hurt for Valui to listen to. She pressed her hands more against the wound when blood started seeping through her fingers and running down the back of her palms. "I-I'm—" Her voice was beginning to shake; she stopped, taking a quivering breath, before continuing again. "I'm trying to make it s-stop."
Why didn't I wear a jacket today?
Hitoshi made something that sounded like a pained grunt — and for a short moment, Valui considered letting go to not hurt him any more. The thought was fleeting, though. Letting go and letting him continue to bleed out was out of the question. His eyes closed for a long time — so long that Valui nearly began to panic — before finally opening again. "Go," he started, his voice soft and hard to hear over the sounds of the fight just mere feet down the alley from them, "and g..get help."
Valui's lips pressed together, frustration crashing over her and replacing any panic she had been feeling. He was still trying to get her to leave; to leave him by himself for who knows what to happen to him. "No." The timidness that was usually present in her voice was gone now, being replaced by a certain sternness that neither of them were used to — the faint shock that flashed through Hitoshi's eyes proved that. "I'm...staying here. You can't make me leave."
I want to run away.
But not without you.
The conflicting thoughts and feelings made Valui uncomfortable; made her want to curl up in a blanket and go to sleep and forget everything — everything that had caused this change in her. She would go from being how she always was — scared; a coward — to something else; something she couldn't tell was herself — something she couldn't decipher the reason behind its manifestation; either because of something within her, or just the stress and fear of the whole situation forcing an artificial change to her personality. It was tiring to think about; to feel; to dwell on for longer than a few moments.
"H-Hitoshi? Hitoshi, w-wake up..!"
His eyes had shut.
He's not moving...
"Hitoshi!"
When Valui's lucidity came back to here, she was sitting by the side of the road. Her eyes were wide and unblinking; tears streamed easily from them. Her ears were picking up voices, but her brain couldn't register them as anything other than a jumbled up static sound. She was hugging her knees, her hands sticking to her legs from the blood that coated them. She was shaking; rocking back and forth as if a certain part of her mind had snapped and that was all she could do.
She didn't remember anything after Hitoshi fell asleep.
A soft pressure on her shoulder made her body jump. Her eyes frantically looked up, staring for a moment before recognizing the person who was standing beside her with their hand on her. It was the fire and ice boy — the one she had assumed was Endeavor's son. Up close, the resemblance was easier to tell; at least, the resemblance half of him had. It was like he had been split right down the middle.
Quirks are weird.
"Are you alright?"
It took a moment for her to understand him; for the fog in her head to dissipate and for everything to stop sounding as if she were underwater. She blinked. She didn't care if she was alright — why was he asking? Couldn't he tell she was okay? What about Hitoshi?
"W...where's Hitoshi?"
Now he blinked, like her question had caught him off guard. "Shinsou?" When she nodded, he answered, "At the hospital."
That didn't do much to calm the panic that was running rampant inside her.
"I...need to call h-his parents..." The words left Valui's mouth before she could think about them; her hands began moving to grab her phone before they were stopped.
A gentle grip held both of her wrists. Her gaze shifted upward; he had knelt down in front of her, their eyes meeting. "The paramedics already did. His mother's on her way to get you." The ease that brought her — however minimal it was — must have shown on her face, because he let go of her. "So just calm down, okay?"
Valui nodded; slowly and half forced.
He nodded back, then moved to sit next to her. Silence fell over them; Valui found herself staring at her hands. Rust colored blood had caked itself onto her palms; underneath her fingernails; stained her skin. It made her fingers stick together just enough to where it bothered her.
"Do you want that off?"
"H-huh?"
Valui turned toward him only to find that he was already looking at her, his head tilted and a question in his eyes. "The blood. Do you want it off your hands?"
You can do that?
"Y-yeah..."
He shifted, turning himself so he was facing her side. "Hold out your hands."
There was a moment of hesitation before Valui did as he said and held her hands out to him. He hovered his hands over hers; Valui watched a thin layer of ice formed over her palms and fingers. The feeling — and the sight of it — took her off guard; she jumped and even inhaled in a way that sounded like a soft gasp.
"It won't do anything to you." His reassurance made her now-tense muscles relax again. "But I don't want to accidentally hurt you, so stay still."
"O-okay."
Heat left his hands and flowed onto hers — the kind of heat that started off dull and rapidly grew hotter until it burnt the skin. This heat never got to that, though. It only got hot enough to melt the ice into water; and when it had, he pulled his hands back from hers. Valui blinked, staring in awe for a second before realizing she was supposed to use that to get the blood off her hands.
As she rubbed her hands together, then on her shorts, he spoke again.
"So what's your name?"
"Valui."
From the corners of her eyes, she saw him nod. "Shouto."
That's what your name was.
Valui nodded lightly to herself, finding her gaze staring aimlessly at the concrete she was sitting on. Fuzzy memories began appearing in her mind — vague outlines of what had happened prior to her being out here and everything being relatively calm. She remembered screaming — her throat her, now that she thought about it — and Izuku running over to her; someone called an ambulance at some point; everything happened so quickly that she doubted she would have been able to remember it even if she were in a better mental state.
"Is...he going to be okay...?"
She didn't want to ask.
Rather, she didn't want to hear the answer.
"He should be. The cut he had was pretty bad, though."
Shouto shifted so he was facing forward; Valui hugged her knees again. "...It's my fault..."
"Why do you say that?"
"If..." Valui felt her throat tighten and tears well up in her eyes. "I-if I had listened and... a-and gotten help, maybe he— h-he—"
She couldn't finish, as she started crying in the next moment.
"I don't think so," Shouto said, his voice and words managing to reach her; her tears slowed slightly, but didn't stop. "It would have been worse if you left. I think the paramedics said something like that."
How much worse...?
Valui didn't ask.
She really didn't want to know the answer to that.
She hesitantly looked up, glancing over when she saw Shouto looking at her through the corners of her eyes. There wasn't any emotion on his face, but there was a faint sliver of something in his eyes — something she couldn't quite name.
"You saved him, Valui."