Summary: There's nothing delicate about Neito Monoma... except the ways that Pony makes him so.
Evening, everyone! Today’s my posting for Counting the Seconds: A Monomabowl Bang! And I couldn’t refuse an opportunity to write more MonoPony <3 Please also give my partner Frok’s art some love!
There was nothing delicate about Neito Monoma. He was as rough around the edges as could be, all barbed tongue and sharp wit. Staunch as a weed, roots plunged deep into the ground and ready to resist even the fiercest of winds. Really, he was about as delicate as a twisted mass of brambles.
Yes, Neito was indelicate as they came, and yet delicate was the only way to describe the way that he held the bright pink carnation as he carefully lowered it into the hole he’d dug into the soil.
Hero education wasn’t all disaster response training and pummeling each other, at least at U.A. The school prided itself in its relationship with the community, and so all the courses often found themselves heading off campus to participate in service projects. One of their ongoing school-wide undertakings was the construction of a new town community center. After months of assisting in various aspects of the project, Class 1-B had been assigned to place the finishing touch—a butterfly garden.
Neito tugged off one of his gardening gloves and used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Despite thinking to take his glove off, he still ended up smearing a thick line of dirt over his skin; apparently, there was a hole in the thumb, which he noticed as he started tugging the glove back on. He frowned at the patch of dirt-coated skin peeking out of the rip, and the wrinkling of his brow made a few flecks of the soil detach from his forehead and roll down, bouncing off the tip of his nose.
Neito thought of Tetsutetsu and Yosetsu sneering at him earlier. They took one look at him in his collared shirt and khaki pants, and then joked about how “he was too delicate for hard labor.” With a determined huff, Neito just tugged the glove down to his wrist. A little dirt never hurt anybody. He could do this.
Too delicate for hard labor… Tch, he grumbled silently as he leaned over the edge of the flowerbox to begin scooping the soil around the base of the flower. I’ll show them.
He said that, and yet he could only go another minute before ripping the glove off so he could grab the hem of his shirt and use it to wipe the stripe of dirt off his forehead. It must have been the fertilizer, he told himself with a petulant pout. The fertilizer was making his skin irritated, and the last thing he wanted to do was break out in hives or something, right? He rubbed at his forehead with a frown, not sure if he was imagining little red bumps pushing up on his skin or not.
“‘M not delicate,” he muttered under his breath. Somehow it felt like more of a detriment than a reassurance.
“Neitoooooo~!”
Neito looked up just in time to see Pony flouncing over with a woven basket in her hands. Her waves of golden-blonde hair swished with each over her bouncy steps, and his throat constricted at the way the sunlight played over the strands. It was like her hair was sunlight, silken threads woven by the hand of the sun god himself. Honestly, Neito wouldn’t be surprised if the god came down from the heavens himself to tell him Pony was the sun. The light in her smile, her eyes, her beautiful hair… He’d believe it, all right, without a doubt.
Neito was rough around the edges, and Pony was delicate in the most wonderful way. Far too delicate for him to ever dare touch.
“What’s up, Pony?” he asked, pulling a terse smile on his face to try and fake some sense of nonchalance. If she noticed the tautness of his expression, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she plopped down next to him, tucking her hooved legs at her side and setting the basket on her lap.
“Look!”
Neito glanced down to see the basket filled to the brim with flowers plucked off at the stem. Neito frowned, not sure if he had the heart to tell Pony that she probably shouldn’t have picked them. Before he could open his mouth, however, she piped up ecstatically, “One of the flats of flowers had some weird fungus growing on the stems and roots, so they had to trash it. But I managed to save all the pretty flowers!” She scooped up some of the blooms and tossed them into the air with an excited squeal. “So I’m going to make flower crowns!”
“Flower crowns, huh?” Neito chuckled. His smile began to melt, turning lopsided with his bashfulness. It was always so uncanny, how she put him at ease without even trying.
“Yup! So you can get back to work, just keep your head still for me,” she chirped, wasting no time in plopping a bare circlet of woven twigs atop his head. Without waiting for his answer, she began to insert the flowers between the small gaps in the sticks, humming a tune under her breath as she did. Neito would shake his head as he laughed, but he didn’t want to disrupt Pony’s work in progress.
Neito picked up another one of the potted carnations from the flat beside him. He grasped it by the base of the stem to hold the flower out of the way as he flipped the pot over against his palm. He took his time easing the packed soil out of the pot, gently tugging it inch by inch until it gave way and slid all the way out. He cupped it in one hand while he used the other to pick up the trowel, reaching forward to dig another hole in the flowerbox. It was a little awkward, not being able to lean over lest he disturb Pony, but he made it work.
“Neito, do you like flowers?” Pony asked just as he was patting down the soil. He couldn’t move his head with her weaving the flower stems into the twigs, so he just peered at her out of his peripheral vision to acknowledge he was listening. She had her gaze trained on the half-finished flower crown, but she must have felt him looking because her blue eyes flicked down to meet his. As soon as they did, Neito felt his cheeks flush with warmth.
“I don’t really feel a certain way about them,” he admitted.
“You don’t think they’re pretty?”
I think you’re pretty, he countered silently. His blush furthered at the intrusive thought, coursing over his cheekbones to begin flooding his ears. He began to wonder what Pony would think if he said that, but he stopped the words short on his tongue. Neito liked Pony; he really did. But Neito didn’t know what to do with her. He was afraid, bitterly so, of hurting her without meaning to. He knew himself enough to know he couldn’t be delicate if he tried, and he couldn’t imagine treating Pony as anything but.
So he swallowed the words, but they lodged hard in his throat, hell-bent on coming out.
“Sure they’re pretty,” he said instead. Pony nodded, looking back to the flower crown as a flower stubbornly refused to weave in. Neito could feel her fingertips pushing his hair aside, brushing over his scalp; it made a shiver start crawling up his spine, and it took everything he had to quash it before it could send him into a full-body quiver. “I just—hmm,” he cut off with a sharp intake of breath when her fingers inadvertently brushed over the shell of his ear while she adjusted one of the flowers. “I guess I’m not a fan of these flowers.”
“Oh? What flowers do you like, Neito?”
Neito cocked his head to the side and frowned. He’d never really considered it. His eyes roved the expanse of the slowly-forming garden and drank in the myriad of flowers bobbing in the breeze. However, his eyes didn’t come to rest on any of the blooms contained within the flowerboxes. Now, the flowers that gave him pause were the dandelions growing in the shade next to the watering house, their yellow petals still dripping with the morning dew.
“Dandelions,” he answered with a small smile.
“Dandelions?” Pony echoed.
“Yeah,” he nodded. He hadn’t looked back at her yet; he was still staring at the little tuft of weedy flowers across the courtyard. Dandelions were definitely his favorite, he affirmed with a small nod. They were just what he wanted to be—delicate, yet still unrefined. Tough enough to weather the storms, but delicate enough to be able to be soft against someone’s fingers.
But more than that… Their sunny color reminded him of Pony, of the sunshine in her hair.
“Why dandelions?” she asked. She’d finished the flower crown, apparently, because when he looked at her, she was just sitting there with her hands resting in her lap. She offered a smile at his look of confusion. “I’m just curious. I want to know why Neito loves them so much.”
Neito sucked his lips into his mouth. Oh, fuck. Ohhhhhhh, fuck. He was about to do it. He was about to do it, wasn’t he? With the words from earlier still lodged stubbornly in his throat, he couldn’t swallow these. Indeed, they tumbled right out, and he couldn’t stop them if he wanted to.
“Because they remind me of you.”
Pony blinked, and then her nose and eyes crinkled up as her face split into a giddy smile. She shifted, planting her hands against the ground so she could lean closer to his face.
“Me? Like a dandelion?”
Neito’s blush had spread across every inch of his skin now, staining it as pink as the carnations in the flowerbox beside him. He simultaneously wanted to avert his eyes and meet hers, which culminated in him nervously flicking his gaze back and forth between her face and his shoes.
“Mm,” he grunted shyly in affirmation. When he tipped his head to the side a little to scratch at the space above his head, the flower crown shifted a little, dropping down over his brow. Giggling, Pony reached up to right it, but her hands took their time coming down; her fingers skimmed slowly over the soft petals, inching their way down to lightly cup Neito’s cheeks. Encouraged by the glimmering of her eyes—like sunlight refracting on blue ocean waves—Neito continued, “They remind me of… how pretty your hair is in the sunlight.”
His tongue flicked out to wet his lips, and he dropped his gaze to the tresses of hair falling over her shoulder. Begging him to touch, practically, but he was still so scared. He was scared they would fracture in his hands, ripping on his uneven fringes.
“Why are you scared?” Pony asked in a small, breathy voice. He glanced up, eyes blowing wide from being so easily perceived, to find that she was nearly nose-to-nose with him. She fluttered her golden lashes, and her lips played in the space over his as she murmured, “I know Neito would never hurt me. Because Neito is soft.”
“Yeah?” he laughed breezily, his lips forming something between a smug smirk and a bashful smile.
“Mhmm,” she nodded. The action made the tip of his nose brush his, and it felt like lightning struck at the point of impact. The electricity surged through his body, lighting up each and every one of his nerves until he was tingly all over. He couldn’t feel his fingers, but he could watch them crawl up, up, up towards her hair—
and his sense of touch spontaneously returned the moment her hair met his fingertips. Soft was the only thing he could think as he gently took a swathe of it between his thumb and forefinger. He rubbed it between the pads of his fingers, and it literally felt like the finest silk. He was far too enraptured by it now to even consider the fact that they were in public, so he didn’t even give it a second thought before bringing the strands of her blonde hair to his face so he could place a gentle kiss on the ends.
She smells like sunshine, too, he thought distantly. The scent flooded his nose like the pheromones of the flowers, but none of them had a perfume as sweet. Drunk on it, he kissed up the length of her hair; when he felt the side of his head nudge against her jawline, only then did he pull back. He quirked his head, waiting for any indication from her for him to stop. But she just batted her eyelashes at him, a smile on her lips and anticipation in her eyes.
Well, Neito never had been one to refuse such a blatant invitation.
Pony’s hair was soft, but her lips were pure velvet. His hand pushed into her tresses of hair, winding it around his fingers, at the same time he pressed the slightest of little kisses against her pursed lips. Gentle, he was so gentle, still a little scared she would shatter under his touch—but she didn’t. And that was all he needed to go all in. He swooped back down to capture her in a second, much more passionate kiss, and his eyes rolled back in his head as their mouths slotted together because God did it feel like they were a perfect fit. And she was so close, surrounding him, enveloping him in her glow. She smelled like sunshine, she tasted like sunshine, she was sunshine.
She was Neito’s sunshine. His dandelion shining in the sun. And as he reached up to cup her face, he fancied that maybe he had some delicateness after all… Just enough.
Some Neitony art for the @bnha-big-bang! I’m proud to say that I was partnered with @vannahfanfics again, her fic “Shibuya Scramble” is absolutely amazing and I melted 5 times while reading the fic; in it we get to see more of our beloved Class B family and their cool shenanigans.❤️
✨ Read it here ✨
[ID: Digital art, back shot of Neito Monoma holding Pony Tsunotory bridal style in his arms as they look at the view in front of them. He’s wearing a gray t-shirt and jeans while only her jeans are visible. The background is an image of Tokyo in broad daylight, two poles holding the window in front of them.]
Hi, everyone! I am super excited to announce my story for the @bnha-big-bang! I had the privilege of working with two talented artists, @danyartime and @talking4the1, as well as a lovely beta, @aimeramie! You can find Dany’s art here and Guess’s art here/here. They did a wonderful job bringing this story to life. I hope you enjoy it!
Neito squinted his sky-blue eyes as he gazed up at the forty-seven floors of smooth glass etched with silver lines that towered above him. The color reflected in the rectangular panes, making the skyscraper gleam a brilliant blue against the backdrop of the clouds and the gray buildings. Neito was standing in the impressive shadow of the newly-opened Shibuya Scramble Square, the latest attraction to one of Japan’s most hustling-and-bustling shopping districts. With fourteen floors of commercial shops, several stories of office spaces, and three floors of observatory that provided a panoramic view of the cityscape, it was bound to be considered one of Japan’s gleaming gems within the next few years.
Not that Neito cared. He’d much rather be back in the dormitory plotting his next scheme to bring Class 3-A to its knees. I can’t believe I let them drag me out on this shopping trip, he sulked as he cast his eyes to the building’s glass double doors, where Tetsutetsu, Itsuka, Setsuna, Pony, and Yosetsu were all chattering animatedly. Pony noticed he had paused to admire the hulking structure and bounced over, her hooves clicking against the sidewalk.
“Isn’t it impressive, Neito?” she trilled, her waves of hay-blonde hair fluttering around her shoulders as she craned her neck to observe the tall structure. “I bet you can see everything from the top!”
Neito only watched her with lidded eyes, drinking in the way her big eyes sparkled and her smile seemed to stretch on forever. Actually, Neito could believe that he’d been dragged into this—because Pony had asked, batting those pretty blonde lashes so innocently, and Neito just couldn’t refuse her. He supposed he was the fool for falling in love with her and allowing her to have him wrapped around her dainty little finger.
“Neito, Neito!” she chimed, bopping him on the head to rouse him from thought. Befuddled, he blinked. Pony smiled wide and reached down to take his hand. “You’re gonna get left behind, silly! Let’s go!” As the heat rushed to Neito’s face, she tugged him into the building after their friends, skipping elatedly. “Wow! Look at all the people! Neito, I don’t want to get lost, so I’m gonna keep holding your hand, okay?”
“Psh. Whatever.” He looked away so she wouldn’t see the carnation shade of his flushing cheeks. As he did so, he got a glance at the sprawling first floor of the skyscraper.
Though the Shibuya Sky Scramble had only been open for a short time, it had already incurred a massive population of shoppers and workers. The ground floor was absolutely packed with people walking every which direction, resting on the various benches and at the small café tables dotted about, and filling the air with their deafening cacophony of conversation. Computerized signs and screens advertised the building’s plethora of offerings, peddling major clothing lines and accessories, household commodities, electronics, jewelry, and food. The chaos overstimulated Neito almost immediately, making him twitch and cringe.
“So noisy,” he said, raising his voice over the din. “What’s so special about this place? A regular mall would do just fine, and I’d actually be able to hear myself think!”
“But, when do you think, except when you’re plotting some ridiculous scheme to irritate the other class?” Itsuka said, sticking out her tongue at him. Neito stuck out his tongue back and pulled down his eyelid at her for good measure.
Setsuna glanced over from where she was appraising the directory, her eyebrows pinched in mild irritation.
“Hey, now, we’re here to have a good time. Don’t start bickering!”
Neito sniffed haughtily and stuffed his free hand down into the pocket of his jeans, looking around at the small bits of storefront he could see between the hordes of people. Even on just the first floor, the shopping mall offered an extraordinary level of diversity. He was here, so he might as well see if he could find something that interested him. He walked over to the large display outlining the shops on each floor, tugging Pony along with him. He could use some new athletic wear, or a new pair of sneakers wouldn’t hurt.
His rowdy cohort was debating if they should grab lunch before exploring the shops or dive into the fray to work up more of an appetite. Neito turned around to cut into the conversation, but the words died in his throat as he saw a large group of men dressed head-to-toe in black striding through the doors. There was just something about them that sent Neito’s instincts buzzing, a foul aura that pervaded their presence, that he found himself shouting even before the one in front produced a machine gun from behind his back.
“Everybody get down! ” he and the villain shouted simultaneously.
Pony screamed as Neito tackled her to the floor, while Tetsutetsu hardened his body with iron and flattened himself over Itsuka and Setsuna. Yosetsu lifted up his shirt to rip a metal pipe he always carried for protection free of its holster around his middle, using it as an extension to hook around the leg of a vacated café table and yank it down in front of them as the man started shooting with reckless abandon. Neito covered his head, listening to the metallic tinkling of the bullets striking the metal surface of the table and the glass shards raining down on their backs as the display map shattered under the spray of bullets.
In a mere instant, the deafening hum of the Shibuya Scramble Square had been rendered silent. Neito lifted his head to peer through a small gap in the table leg, watching as the assailant hefted his machine gun over his shoulder.
“Good!” the man droned, looking around the room with his square jaw set. “Now that I have your attention…” He paused to procure a walkie-talkie, which buzzed loudly as he pressed the button. “Commander, would you like to address the populace?”
Everyone hugging the floor cringed as a speaker screeched to life overhead. It crackled with static for a moment before a smooth, deep voice bled through the mesh.
“Good afternoon, shoppers. I would like to announce that the Shibuya Scramble Square is now under my control, and every one of you is now my hostage.” Shocked gasps and dismayed cries rippled through the building as the mystery voice paused. “I imagine this may come as a shock to all of you, and some of you may feel compelled into bravery. I will point you in the direction of my underlings with large guns or dangerous Quirks and advise you against that notion.”
“What a prick,” Yosetsu huffed under his breath. “He’s been watching too many cheesy spy movies.”
“Some of you may be compelled to instead flee for your lives. One of my superior officers has erected a force field around the building. You cannot get out… and none of your precious ‘heroes’ can get in.”
At this revelation, several children began to openly bawl, and adults quietly wept in despair.
“Be that as it may, it is not in my interest to harm you. If the government and Hero Commission meet my demands, then you will all be turned loose unharmed… Well, at least those of you who are fortunate enough not to irritate my crew. They are a hot-blooded lot, after all, and can sometimes fly off the cuff.”
To emphasize his point, the bunch of crooks standing in front of the exit sneered threateningly. One even winked at a young woman huddling nearby, who began to bawl and curl into herself as much as possible.
“Of course, I would prefer such scenarios be avoided, so play good hostages and behave. I will not be making any more announcements, and the power will be cut off.”
The loudspeaker cut off, followed by the building’s power; people screamed in dismay as everything suddenly darkened. They were cast in gray shadow, only illuminated by the sunlight filtering in through the shattered windows. As the burly machine gun-wielding man began to shout orders and rules at the shoppers, Neito looked at his friends.
“We aren’t going to behave, are we?”
“Have we ever?” Yosetsu snorted with a roll of his eyes. Neito grinned, turning to look back at the villains as they started fanning out to strategic watchpoints across the ground floor. Neito had only a few precious seconds to cook up a plan to overpower the small militia and weasel their boss’s location out of them—but luckily, Neito was good at nothing if not scheming.
“Itsuka, Tetsutetsu—I think it’s time for the bowling ball maneuver.”
“Yes!” The silver-haired boy grinned and pumped his fist, which attracted the attention of the nearest guard. When the man barked for them to quiet down and started marching over, Neito leaped into action. He flipped himself onto his back and kicked the metal table as hard as he could, sending it skidding with a loud screech across the tiled floor. The small group of armed individuals all huddled back together to investigate the disturbance; it was almost comical how easily they arranged themselves like dumb bowling pins.
“See ya!” Itsuka grinned as she inflated her hand and scooped up Tetsutetsu, who had once again hardened his iron body and curled into a ball. With a twirl, the girl hurled her classmate at the men like a bowling ball, sending Tetsutetsu rolling across the floor with enough speed to have sparks jumping off his body. He collided with the center of the group with a hoarse battle cry, bowling them over and unbalancing the others. Before they could recover, Yosetsu descended on them whacking every skull in reach with his metal pipe. Pony used her horns to knock them to the floor, and Setsuna and Neito were using good old-fashioned knuckle sandwiches to incapacitate the rest. Itsuka came running up just as they finished, holding an armful of ties from the nearby men’s formalwear store, which they used to bind the criminals together in one big, irritated, writhing mass on the floor.
“All right,” Neito hummed as he pressed his foot into one of their faces, “where’s that boss of yours, hmm? I would much like to have a chat with him.”
“Bah!” the man spat, prompting Neito to push down harder and imprint the pattern of his tennis shoe sole into his cheek. “You little brats don’t stand a chance anyway, so I’ll tell you. He’s at the top, on the third floor of Shibuya Sky—but we’ve got our men stationed on every floor, and they only get tougher goin’ up.”
Neito narrowed his eyes at the admission, calculating. They anticipated that there would be off-duty heroes or students here, so they planted small forces on each floor. Furthermore, they placed their most trusted and powerful members near the top, so that by the time someone fought their way up, they would be exhausted.
“You punks don’t got a—”
Neito cut him off by smashing his foot into his face, rendering him stunned. The blond smiled satisfactorily and stepped away, giving a hand flourish and a bow.
“Thank you for the information! We’ll be going now. Be good little hostages and behave, won’t you?” he mocked with a head wiggle before trouncing back to his classmates, who were standing by the bottom of the frozen escalator.
“What are we gonna do?” Setsuna frowned. “The man on the loudspeaker said that heroes can’t get in.”
Now that the young heroes-in-training had liberated the first floor, the civilians were calling the authorities and their concerned families en masse. It wouldn’t be long before the streets outside were flocked with police officers and heroes—but if there really was a barrier, then they couldn’t get in no matter how much they wanted to. Neito pinched his chin, narrowing his eyes as he considered their predicament.
Waiting for the proper authorities to find a way to negate the barrier and take over the situation would be the safe way to go, but… If they stall negotiations to allow that, who knows what this madman will do? It would be much better if he had something to preoccupy his time—like a group of hot-blooded students culling through his force. His lips began to curl up into a sinister smile. Besides, if they were here, that’s what Class 3-A would do.
Itsuka groaned and palmed her forehead. “Oh, no. I know what he’s thinking.”
“That’s right!” Neito cackled and jabbed his finger dramatically into the air. “We will ascend this skyscraper and disable the barrier, mowing down anyone who stands in our way! In the name of Class 3-B, we will trounce this wretched villain, save the lives of thousands, and end up on the front page so that Class 3-A can bask in our brilliance! Muahahahaha!”
“Muahahaha!” Pony echoed, throwing her hands in the air with a delighted grin. She always enjoyed his enthusiasm, an aspect he greatly appreciated about her. Neito dropped his arm as a determined glint alit his eyes, his sneer sharp enough to cleave diamond.
“All right. Let’s show these clowns the best of U.A. Let’s go plus ultra!”
“Right!”
Like the lackey had predicted, the first ten or so floors were staffed by low-level thugs. None of them even had combative Quirks, leaving them to fight with various sorts of weapons. The students made quick work of trouncing them and trussing them up, ascending the escalators to descend upon them like a whirlwind. By the time they had freed the shopping section of the tower and were about to head into the office section beginning on the fifteenth floor, flashing red and blue lights could be seen through every window—just beyond the sparking, shimmering green bubble surrounding the tower.
The police had blocked off the intersection and were working with the heroes to attempt to breach the force field, to no avail. Neito and his friends just might be the only hope. Pony came up beside him, peering over his shoulder with wide eyes.
“They really can’t get through.”
“No,” Neito frowned and turned his back on the scene, “which is why we need to make haste.”
Just as the students had cleared the first floor of offices, the building kicked back into life. They were momentarily blinded by the fluorescents that bathed them in bright white, causing them to shield their eyes and squint in confusion. The static of the loudspeaker echoed through the air, followed by a sigh.
“I regret to inform you that your leadership cares not for your lives,” the man’s voice rumbled. “My demands have been met with callous silence.”
Neito waited with bated breath for him to mention the fact that a small army’s worth of his goons had been defeated, but it didn’t come. He could hear the tapping of the man’s digits against a hard surface as he ruminated, letting anxiety taint the air. What a showman, he thought with a roll of his eyes.
“It was not my wish to resort to such drastic measures, but… Sometimes, you must show that you are serious to be taken seriously.”
“I have placed a series of bombs throughout this building.”
“Bombs?!” Tetsutetsu hissed.
“That bastard!” Yosetsu cursed as he punched his palm, gritting his teeth so hard that they could shatter.
“They are precisely placed to compromise the structural integrity of the building when detonated. Simply put… If the government and Hero Commission do not meet my demands within two hours, this jewel of Shibuya will be nothing more than rubble filled with your corpses.”
As a cold flush traveled through Neito’s body, dismayed wails of office workers rose up from the cubicles to echo through the corridors. The stakes had just been raised to critical levels; now, the students of Class 3-B had no choice but to continue ascending the tower in an effort to disarm the bombs before the worst happened.
“Oh, and to the little sprouts who are playing hero right now…” All of them gulped, blood draining from their faces. “There are fifteen bombs altogether. I hold the detonator on the top floor; the associate controlling the force field lies somewhere between you and me. I’ve grown rather bored dealing with these dithering idiots you call leadership, so… let’s have a good game, shall we? Will you try to search out and defuse the bombs within the time limit? Will you bum-rush my army and come to face me? Or will you seek out the user of the barrier Quirk and allow the heroes to do the work for you? I’m eager to see your decision. Rest assured, I’ll play a good final boss and allow things to develop as they will. Happy hunting, and time starts now~”
On reflex, Neito started the timer on the stopwatch he kept chained to his front pocket. The speaker cut off and the power once again drained from the building. Neito then scowled and punched the nearest wall.
“Cocky bastard! It’s villains like him I hate the most, who act as if playing with others’ lives is entertainment!” His scraped and bruised knuckles throbbed as he bit down on them, cutting through the skin to cause blood to dribble down his fingers. His mind was whirling, racing, desperate to find a way to approach the dismal scenario.
Two hours is not nearly enough time to search this entire building as a group. We’ll have to split up, but what if that’s what he wants? To hunt us down one by one until there’s no resistance? What if it’s a bluff just to occupy our time? But if it isn’t a bluff, this building will be falling down in less than two hours. Then there’s the matter of the barrier… It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, but without disabling it, we don’t have backup… Ugh! Think, Neito, think!
As he seethed, shaking, Pony slowly approached to pull his hand away from his mouth and gently clench it in her own.
“Neito.” Her sweet voice flooded through him like warm water, stifling the blood boiling within his arteries. He relaxed immediately under her worried stare, tension easing from his clenched muscles. She gently ran her thumb over the small nick he had bitten into his knuckle, smearing around the blood and soothing the sting. “We’re here, Neito. We trust you, so tell us what you need us to do. We’ll all work together to save everyone.”
Neito smiled tiredly and reached out to pet her cheek, a tender gesture he’d always framed as something he did as a friendly gesture because Pony was a touchy person. She leaned into his touch with a soft hum, her eyelashes fluttering. He framed it as friendly, but Neito hid his affections and longing behind the gentle brush of his fingertips over her soft, rosy skin. Perhaps Pony and the others knew and just entertained his explanation to keep from embarrassing him. Whatever the case, he allowed himself to softly stroke her cheek and tuck her blonde tresses behind her ear for a few seconds, savoring her presence to ground him.
“Thank you, Pony.” He sucked in a breath through his nose, permitting clarity to rush through him. Luckily, his enemy had laid out his solution for him. “Setsuna and Itsuka, you two should search for the bombs. Setsuna’s ability can search many places at once, and I know you took a special course with a bomb squad, Itsuka, so you should be able to handle deactivating them. If you happen to pass the control units for the power, do us a favor and turn it back on.”
“Right! Leave it to us!” Itsuka nodded with a salute. She pulled Setsuna to the side so they could question the office workers about the structural layout of the Shibuya Scramble Crossing.
“Tetsutetsu and Yosetsu, you two are our heaviest hitters. I want you to pave the way, continuing to clear the floors as we have, and try to find the barrier user among them. Pony and I will splinter off and climb up the elevator shaft to the top floor to confront the head honcho. If any one of us succeeds, we’ve won.”
“How do we know who put up the force field?” Yosetsu frowned, twirling his metal pipe in his hand.
“Don’t ask. Knock them out; it should drop the barrier. I’m sure he has to maintain an effort to keep it up.” Tetsutetsu and Yosetsu snickered and exchanged high-fives. Before they could charge off to crack some skulls, Neito gestured for Yosetsu to hold out his hand. “I’m going to borrow your Quirk since I don’t have much combative power myself,” he said as he tapped his fingers. Over his three years at U.A., he had significantly increased the number of Quirks he could borrow as well as how long he could hold on to them, capping out at about two hours. Hopefully, he and Pony would locate the villain in far less time. He wished he could copy Tetsutetsu’s as well, but he had never been able to surmount the caveat that he couldn’t copy accumulation-type Quirks.
“Everyone, listen carefully,” Neito addressed them before they could split off. “Thirty floors lie between us and him, and we have no idea what traps or tricks lie in store for us. I know we all want to be heroes, but don’t act recklessly.”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” Yosetsu snorted, making Neito give him an annoyed side-eye. As Yosetsu smirked endearingly, though, Neito smiled.
“Class 3-A has netted quite a number of sensational stories, so… Let’s give those journalists something to jabber about, eh?”
“That’s our Neito!” Itsuka squealed. She held out her hand, wanting to initiate a group cheer, and they all piled their hands atop hers. Neito took the opportunity to copy Itsuka’s and Setsuna’s Quirks as well. “Let’s do it, guys. Together.”
“Plus ultra! ” they shouted in unison and threw their hands up. Then, they scattered like marbles; Pony and Neito proceeded to the nearest elevator. With a bit of brute force and the aid of a mop handle as a lever, he was able to pry open the silver doors and expose the elevator shaft. The wind moaned through the dark, long vertical passageway, and the cables swung ominously. Neito leaned in to squint up, where the top of the shaft was shrouded in darkness.
“We don’t know how long it will take Itsuka and Setsuna to restore the power.” Neito frowned as he turned and looked back at Pony. “So for now, we’ll have to climb the cables. There should be maintenance ledges on each floor in case we need to rest, so tell me if you get tired, Pony.”
After she nodded in affirmation, Neito looked back at the stopwatch. He had wasted ten minutes on the briefing and planning. It was a long way up, so the longer that it took the girls to find the power controls—if they did at all—the less time Neito would have to fight their enemy. On top of that, they would be tired after climbing.
Still, this is the best option we have. We would be just as tired and spend just as much time fighting to the top. Our presence may go unnoticed while the militia is focused on the others… Still, Neito couldn’t help but pause and search his mind, wonder if perhaps there was a better way to go about it. He of all people knew his classmates’ caliber and mettle, but he hated splitting them apart; if something went wrong, he wouldn’t know, he wouldn’t be there. As he stewed in the opening of the elevator, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, he heard the gentle click of Pony’s hooves against the tile and the feeling of her fingers looping with his own.
“Neito.” There it was again. He adored the sweet way she said his name. He looked back at her, allowing his vulnerability and unease to flicker across his expression. She smiled sweetly and reached up with her free hand to pet his cheek, like he had done to her so many times. “Don’t worry. You’re brilliant; this plan will work. Let’s climb up to the top and defeat this evil man. Then we can come back another time and enjoy Shibuya together.”
His heart fluttered with hope. Yes, they could do this. He could do this, especially if he had Pony by his side. He reached up to briefly cover her hand with his own, wrapping his fingers lightly over hers and letting her touch linger a few more seconds before firmly but not unkindly pulling her hand away. His eyes met hers, gleaming with renewed determination.
“Right.”
Pony jumped first, using her powerful horse-like legs to vault into the shaft and grab onto the cables. She swung wildly back and forth for a few moments before her momentum finally settled. Neito jumped next, grabbing onto Pony’s outstretched hand for extra surety. The cables slipped a little against his hands, burning slight welts into the skin, before he latched his legs around them. Inch by inch, they began to ascend the cables. The darkness wrapped around them like a cloak, pierced only by small slivers of light creeping underneath the elevator doors. Up, up, up they climbed, shrouded in silence as they concentrated solely on the ascent.
Neito lost track of how many doors they passed by the time his arms began to burn and shake. Have we climbed five floors? Ten? Or have we barely moved? Regardless, Neito had no care to plummet to his death. Carefully, they wormed around until they found the small, slender maintenance ledges. As soon as Neito sunk down onto the metal and collapsed against the wall, he really became aware of the burning in his muscles and the sweat sheening on his skin.
Their panting, labored breaths filled the darkness of the elevator shaft. Neito squinted in the dark, trying to pierce the veil to see how far they had yet to go, to no avail. He couldn’t check his stopwatch either in the gloom to see how long they had been climbing, either. Just as he was beginning to wonder if it might have been better to bum-rush after all, a loud grating sound echoed around them and a square of light appeared a few yards below.
“Neito?” Itsuka’s voice called into the dark, and he caught sight of her orange ponytail swaying.
“Up here! What floor are you on?”
“The twenty-second.” Wow. We got further than I thought. “Setsuna found the breakers and dispatched the ones guarding it! We’re about to turn on the power, but we didn’t want to risk you guys getting hurt by the elevator, so we thought we would get you out of the shaft.”
“All right. We’re coming down.”
He and Pony slid down the cables and swung out to join Itsuka and Setsuna’s disembodied head in front of the elevator. Once they were safely on solid ground, Setsuna used her faraway hands to flip the breakers. The building hummed around them as the electricity surged through the circuits, the elevator door slid closed, and the buttons lit up. Itsuka pressed the button to call the elevator while Neito glanced down at his stopwatch. They’d spent about forty-five minutes in the shaft, leaving a little over an hour.
“We’ve disabled five of the bombs, but they’re hidden well,” Itsuka explained while they waited for the elevator. “Last I saw them, Yosetsu and Tetsutetsu were a few floors up, but the goons are getting nastier with every floor.”
“Well, thwarting a terrorist attack is never guaranteed to be easy.” Neito sighed as he swept his sweat-slicked bangs away from his forehead. “Keep searching. Now that the power is restored, Pony and I will go straight to the Sky Tower to hopefully get the detonator and end this entire situation. Still, I would prefer it if all our bases are covered.”
“I think I found another one!” Setsuna announced suddenly.
“Right, well, we’re off! Good luck and be careful, you too,” Itsuka said before hurrying off. The elevator chimed and opened for the two heroes; Neito stepped in and pressed the button for the highest floor, the bottom level of the Sky Tower, and the doors slid shut.
“They’ll know we’re taking the elevator and will have an ambush planned for us,” Neito said as he looked at Pony. “When the door opens, kick off the wall to surprise them and use your horns to scatter them. I’ll use Itsuka’s Quirk to back you up.”
“Okay!” She took her position against the back wall of the elevator, planking horizontally with her hooves firm against the metal. She tried flicking her sweaty hair out of her face, but the strands kept flopping back against her eyes. Smiling at her cute flushing face, Neito enjoyed it for a moment before squatting down to tuck the crimped strands behind her ear. “Thanks, Neito!”
The way she smiled, one wouldn’t think they were in the middle of a crisis. Neito loved that about her; her radiant positivity was the perfect foil to his pessimism and moments of doubt that he never let the world see. Only Pony could see those flickers of unease within him, and all she had to do was utter his name to bring him out of the darkness and into the light—her light, her soft warm light that he loved so much.
The elevator dinged, yanking him out of his thoughts and sending him stumbling back. Like he had predicted, a large crowd had gathered in front of the elevator to greet them. Pony sprang off the wall, denting the metal with the force of her jump, and plowed right into their legs. As she landed on all fours, she started shooting her horns about, sending the goons flying. Neito took a moment to recover from the shock, but then activated Itsuka’s Quirk and batted their enemies away with his large hands. There were certainly more than had been on the lower floors, and they were definitely stronger. Neito could feel the minutes ticking down as they carved through wave after wave of villains. It seemed like when they cut one down, ten more materialized to replace them. However, after an exhausting effort, they were soon surrounded by unconscious and groaning bodies everywhere.
“Damn,” he cursed under his breath and looked at his stopwatch. Twenty minutes was cutting it much closer than he preferred. Still, they had battled up to the forty-sixth floor; their “final boss” loomed on the horizon. Yet, the effort had taken its toll. Both he and Pony were panting heavily with sweat dripping down their skin. Neito’s muscles ached, and his eyes drooped with exhaustion. He’d nicked a couple of useful Quirks from the fight, filling his stock of ten Quirks counting his classmates’; however, with how exhausted they were, he didn’t know if they could put up enough of a fight to subdue the mastermind.
He was lost in doubt again, rooted to the spot as he drowned in the variables. Tetsutetsu and Yosetsu should be up here by now; had they been defeated? What if they were critically injured? Did the girls find all the bombs? What if they didn’t, and they ran out of time? Maybe he should have put more effort into defusing the bombs. Had he let his emotions and desire for recognition get the better of him? Had he led his friends and thousands of innocents to their grisly deaths out of selfishness?
Neito’s body began to quake as he spiraled, his blue irises shrinking into a sea of white and a new, nervous sweat blooming on his body. What if he was wrong? What if he was wrong? He could see Pony out of the corner of his eyes, her expression morphing into concern. He needed her; he needed her touch, her voice, and so subconsciously, he found himself reaching out to her. His hand then froze, shaking in mid-air, when he saw a snake-headed villain sneak up behind her. He wanted to scream, to warn her, but his voice had frozen too; no sound would come out. All he could do was watch in horror as the viper sank his fangs deep into her neck.
Her scream of agony jarred him into action. He cleared the distance between them in an instant, grabbing the villain by the throat to rip him away from Pony. The girl crumpled to the ground, clutching at the small puncture wounds with a loud sob. Neito stumbled on top of the villain to straddle his middle and punch him savagely in the face.
“What did you do?!” he roared and punched him again before he could even answer. Green-tinted spit flew from the criminal’s mouth, and Neito realized with a sinking feeling that venom was seeping from his pointed fangs. “An antidote! I know you have one, you fiend! Give it to me!” He grabbed the crook by the collar and shook him roughly. As his head flopped back and forth, the villain released a rumbling, raspy chuckle.
“The bosssssss hasssss it,” he hissed, forked tongue flicking at his bloody teeth. “It’ssssss quite potent, my venom. She’ll die within fifteen minutesssss.”
Again, he clicked his stopwatch on impulse. In dismay, Neito looked back at Pony, who was curled into a ball crying and clawing her neck. Neito sprang away from the villain, leaving him cackling and coughing, to crawl on all fours over to Pony. He turned her onto her back, making her whimper. Her hand pawed at his shirt, clutching hard as she gazed miserably up at him.
“N-Neito… Neito, it hurts,” she moaned in anguish. Neito gently shushed her, pulling her up into his arms and softly rocking her.
“I know. I know. Don’t worry, Pony, I’m going to get something to make you better. Just hold tight, just hold tight, okay?” His heart was breaking as he watched her twist and writhe in torment; her blood vessels were distending, taut under her skin as her blood pressure climbed. Sweat poured off her body from her soaring temperature. He brushed her hair away from her face and petted her cheek, tutting soothingly. “I won’t let you die, Pony,” he whispered, tears beading on his pale gold lashes. “I won’t.”
“Oh. Well, this is an interesting development.”
Neito glanced up, wild-eyed, to see a man in a suit walking slowly down the steps. He was a large fellow but clean-kept, with his hair slicked back and his face clean-shaven. His pale blue eyes, clear like diamonds and just as cutting, gleamed beside his sharp cheekbones and over his ruthless smirk. He looked like an ordinary businessman, or would to the untrained eye. Yet Neito could tell he was powerful based on the way the planes of his muscles were snug under the black suit jacket and pressed slacks.
In one hand, he held a small remote that Neito took to be the detonator; in the other, he held a vial of clear liquid—the antidote. Neito’s heartbeat quickened, flickering between the remote and the vial—eventually fixating on the slim glass tube.
“I applaud you for coming this far, young heroes,” the man said as he came to rest at the base of the steps. “I did invest a lot of manpower in this endeavor, yet they have been overcome by a couple of students. I suppose there is something to be said about the newest generation of heroes.” Neito could hear the condescension dripping from his voice. “Allow me to be yet another one of your lessons, then.” His face twisted into a broad sneer and he held up the two items. “I will freely give you one of these two items, whichever you choose, and you will have to fight me for the other. Who will you save— thousands upon thousands, or your partner?”
“You dirty fucking bastard,” Neito hissed, face scrunching up in fury. It was a horrible choice, an impossible choice, but one that he had to make. The villain only chortled and jiggled them both.
“Now, now, we haven’t a lot of time, do we? Make your choice, young man.”
Neito wanted to take the vial. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything because every second that Pony suffered in pain fractured his heart a little further. He looked down at her, at her eyes glazed with misery, her skin pale and clammy, her soul desperate for relief.
“Pony, do you trust me?”
“More than anything,” she breathed, her wide, innocent eyes staring up at him like he’d hung the moon. He would, for her, no matter how impossible.
“I promise,” he vowed, cupping her cheek and leaning down over her. “I promise, I won’t let you die.” Pony’s eyes fluttered shut as his face drifted down over her own to press a small, chaste kiss to her trembling lips. “Just hold on for me.” he breathed against her mouth, and she gave a small whimper in response. Neito sat up and gently laid Pony on the floor. He slowly rose, squaring his shoulders and spreading his feet apart over Pony’s trembling body, and looked at the villain with enough hate to burn the world asunder.
“The detonator.”
“What a hero.” The man laughed before obediently tossing it over. Neito caught it and immediately pressed the “deactivate” button before ripping out the wiring and battery. He dropped the splintered remains of the machinery on the floor while the villain watched in amusement. “Now then,” the man hummed and tucked the vial safely into his breast pocket, “come at me, young man.”
Neito looked at his stopwatch. Ten minutes—plenty of time to kick this old bastard’s ass.
“I’m going to teach you how stupid it is to play games with me!” Neito snarled. Fueled by rage and desperation, he surged across the room, appearing in front of the large man in a few strides. He expanded his hand, bringing it down in a savage crushing motion, but the man crossed both his arms above his head and squatted down to brace himself for the blow. The man retaliated with a kick, a buzzing saw springing up from the meat of his thigh, and Neito immediately switched to another Quirk; his legs turned into springs and he jumped high into the air, landing on the glass railing surrounding the top floor of the Shibuya Sky deck.
“That’s one of my lackey’s Quirks. How did you steal it?” the villain asked, his knee still flexed and the circular saw still spinning in his thigh.
“I can copy a number of Quirks for a given amount of time,” Neito explained and he flexed his hand. “And you can make saws spring from any point in your body, I assume.”
“That’s correct,” the man sneered while he began walking up the steps, turning his hands into large spinning saws. Neito retaliated by producing two long katana blades from his palms, another Quirk he’d nicked off one of the goons. He jumped from the glass fencing to crash down on the villain; he threw up his hands defensively, the saw blades whirring and grinding against the swords to chip away at the steel. Sparks jumped between them, skipping across their shoulders like fairies. The golden-orange jumping lights reflected in their eyes, illuminating the glints of hate blooming in both their irises.
Neito didn’t waste any more time; to defeat this man quickly, he’d have to wage a relentless assault until he forced a moment of weakness. Neito swung his leg, a small blade punching through the toe of his sneaker; the man sprang away but not fast enough. The sharp edge ripped open his suit jacket and white dress shirt, cutting a shallow gash across his belly and sending glittering droplets of red blood arching through the air. As Neito landed on the steps, he used the springs to launch himself at him before he could recover, swinging wildly with the swords. The villain was now on the full defensive, their blades crashing with resounding clangs and sparks. When his back bumped against the wall of the stairs, the villain scowled and angrily lashed out.
Neito ducked one of the swings, the saws chopping through a few of his blond hairs. He switched Quirks again; he grabbed the man’s thick leg and welded it to the wall. The man roared as his skin and clothes melded with the drywall, disrupting the tissue enough that he couldn’t get a big enough saw to appear.
“You little brat!” he thundered and swung at Neito again. Neito back-bended and fell into a handstand, bringing his leg up; another blade sprang from the sole of his foot to punch right through the man’s arm, spraying blood up like a fountain. The man howled as Neito retracted the blade and jumped away. The villain cradled his heavily bleeding arm to his chest and glared at the young hero. As he tried to forcefully rip his leg free, Neito pointed his fingers like a gun and thick globs of glue shot out, splattering across the crook’s other leg and fusing it to the floor. The man grunted when he tried to lift his leg, but the glue had hardened immediately.
Neito calmly walked back toward him. Cornered, the villain swung his good arm with reckless abandon; it was easy for Neito to snatch it up and weld it to the wall, as well as his other arm that was gushing blood. With all four limbs trapped, the man resorted to producing a giant saw from his chest. Blank-faced, Neito activated another Quirk; his hands grew red-hot and turned to lava, and he grabbed the spinning blade between his palms. It screamed as its teeth became coated in the thick molten rock, and the steel bubbled and melted under his touch. Neito let go, leaving the deformed metal saw sticking out of the man’s chest.
“Game over,” Neito said before plucking the vial from his pocket. While he raced back to Pony, the man thrashed and screamed and cursed to the open sky.
“Pony!” Neito gasped, taking the steps two at a time and bounding over the bodies to reach her. Pony had curled onto her side, tremors wracking her body and little squeaks of pain bubbling from her mouth. A bit of drool had accumulated under her cheek from her gasping breaths, and her eyes were painfully wide. Neito turned her on her back again and propped her up against his chest, whispering words of encouragement. He pulled the rubber stopper out of the vial with his teeth, spitting it into the void before putting it against her open mouth. Pony couldn’t control her muscle movements anymore, however, too busy convulsing from the ungodly pain. Neito had fought so hard for that antidote, and he would be damned if he failed at the last minute.
“Bottoms up,” he said and emptied the container into his mouth, puffing out his cheeks to hold the liquid. He grimaced at the bitter taste. He grabbed Pony’s chin to force her face up, then smothered her mouth with his own, using his tongue to push the antidote in. Her instincts overrode her spasming muscles, forcing her swallowing reflex to take over. Gradually, her jerking stopped and she melted into him, breathing a relieved sigh into his mouth. He pulled away, stroking her back comfortingly while she came down from the terrifying high.
“Neito,” she slurred.
“I told you.” He sighed, head falling so that his forehead knocked lightly against hers. “I wouldn’t let you die. I…” He licked his lips nervously, but he’d already kissed her already, so what the hell? “I love you too much, Pony. I couldn’t make it without you.”
Her face scrunched up in happiness. Her bottom lip wobbled and her eyes flooded with tears. She reached up with a trembling hand to caress his cheek, but she hadn’t the strength to hold it up; he caught it as it fell, tenderly holding it against his face.
“I love you too,” she sniffled. Neito smiled sweetly and tilted his face so he could lightly kiss her nose, then her tear-stained cheeks, and then finally her mouth again. He continued to hold her, nuzzling her face with the tip of his nose, while Pony just laughed and hiccuped and cried. He didn’t even notice the barrier suddenly dissolve above them, nor the dinging of the elevator in the lobby below, nor the panting breaths of his friends as they charged up to the top of the Sky Tower. Neito had picked Pony up and carried her to the edge of the building so she could look at the city stretching beyond the glass. She pressed her hand against it, her breath leaving her in an awed gasp.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “You really can see everything.”
“Yeah,” Neito murmured, but he wasn’t looking at the everything she was looking at. No, he was looking at his everything—the tired girl snuggled in his arms, her innocent eyes alight with the simple wonder of the cityscape. “It sure is beautiful.” She looked back at him with a knowing smile, then knocked her forehead against his. Beautiful, he thought again as he lost himself in her big blue eyes. Blue eyes like the sky, shining in the face of the girl who was his entire world.
