Chapter 171 - Collision
They heard police sirens.
Neito tripped and fell.
Ochaco let out a grunt and turned to help him.
He pushed her hand away brusquely, leaned against a wall to steady himself, and eventually sat down at the foot of a narrow staircase, his back against a step.
He raised one hand towards her the other on his chest which rose and lowered quickly.
"I need- my breath-"
Ochaco reached for him again.
"Let me-"
"No !"
Ochaco looked at him, surprised at his sudden outburst.
"Don't-"
He exhaled loudly.
"Don't touch me !"
Hand still hovering in the air, her fingers closed on nothing as she brought her arm clumsily back to her body.
"A minute," he said. "I need a minute"
Ochaco watched him breathe slowly while she stood in the rain, arms flailing, with the distinct impression that if she tried to take cover beside him, he'd push her away.
"So ?"
"So what ?"
"You got any signal ?"
Ochaco blinked.
She fumbled in her pocket.
"Yes, I-"
A tentacle of shadow snatched her mobile out of her hand.
Neito retrieved it and typed feverishly ; she saw him enter an unfamiliar number, but he raised the screen before she could see any more.
"We have to call the school", she said.
"I know"
Silence.
"Who are you sending this text to ?"
"My uncle"
Ochaco frowned but said nothing.
There was another gunshot and Neito and Ochaco instinctively ducked their heads in their shoulders.
Neito didn't let go of the mobile phone, finished typing and threw it carelessly back at her.
Ochaco caught it awkwardly and put his hand on it to protect it from the rain, growing more and more irritated.
"Catch", he said deliberately late
She felt like breaking his nose.
"Have you told the school ?"
He gave her a sideways glance as he sank back into his improvised seat, breath still short.
"I did"
Ochaco looked down at her mobile phone.
He'd deleted the message he'd sent as well as the number.
She glanced at him but he didn't even look at her, his attention focused on the street they'd just come from and in the direction they'd left Aizawa.
He looked torn, as if he wanted to go back but barely managed to restrain himself.
Ochaco half shoved her mobile into her pocket then froze.
'What do you want ?
- The exact position of All for One'
She hesitated.
There was a cavalcade of shots - all further away than the previous ones.
Neito stood up.
"Let's find other Heroes to help Sensei"
Before she could change her mind Ochaco sent her localization to all of her contacts in the class group.
*
A ring of blue flames shot up from the ground around a small building.
They illuminated the deserted neighbourhood as if in broad daylight, stretching the surrounding shadows into thin fingers.
High above, black clouds rolled and collided as thunder rumbled and erupted in a thunderous roar.
A cloud of steam separated sky and fire like an illusory diaphanous veil, sometimes looking as dark as the sky, sometimes as blue as the burning pit of fire under.
All around the neighbourood an icy, biting rain, lashed the ground.
The moment the first pillar of blue flame had shot up into the dark night, Dad had veered in its direction, Hell Flames on full blast for miles.
I veered next to him without a word, wet hair clinging to my forehead, fear tightening my throat and clouding my thoughts to the point where I felt like I was wearing blinders, unable to see anything but the cement platform in the middle of the sea of flames.
I glanced sideways at my father - exhausted, pale, wrinkled forehead, tight lips, worried eyes - and felt a pang of guilt shoot through my chest.
But I didn't bury it deep down as I was used to doing with most of my emotions.
I knew it was for his own good - that a dead Touya, idealized because he had become a chimera, was better for him than a living Touya.
His death would hurt him for a while - it was a pittance compared to his safety.
My thoughts returned to the anonymous SMS.
Someone knew. I didn't like it. Yet I could do nothing about it.
No matter what happened tonight, I would assume all the consequences of my actions and what they engendered.
Three hundred meters.
His flames redoubled as his concern grew. I kept up the pace.
I was capable of going much faster, but I had to give Hawks time to finish before we got there - otherwise it would all have been for naught.
To say I wasn't worried about him would have been a lie.
The time I'd allotted him for the murder - mistakes included - was long gone.
There should have been no geyser of flames, no spreading fire.
Hawks should have run away - or at least tried to - and been caught by a hero's patrol.
We should have received a phone call from the police, we should have gone in the middle of the night to the very station where we had been told that Touya was alive.
This could only mean one thing : Hawks had failed.
But that didn't mean that Touya wouldn't die.
After all, my clone was with them.
His orders were to assassinate Touya if Hawks didn't manage it and to vanish as soon as Touya was dead - if he didn't, it meant that he thought Hawks still had a chance to kill Touya without outside intervention.
Two hundred meters.
The ring of flame turned into a fiery dome.
I didn't know whether I would rather have Hawks alive or Touya dead.
One hundred meters.
To tell the truth, I knew which option I wanted - the answer only made me feel like a human scum.
"Shoto !"
He didn't need to say any more as a torrent of water burst from my palms.
Cascades of water crashed over the burning houses underneath our feet, kicking up a cloud of steam in our wake.
The waves rolled down the streets like rapids, smashing against the walls and splashing the surrounding area like sea against shore.
I cut the flow and directed the waves to disperse into the surrounding streets while still flying towards the main building.
The flames heaved as they died.
I raised my hand and the rain increased on the side of the fire dome that I couldn't-
Suddenly the wall of fire fell.
The night turned black again, barely lit by the spreading fire.
My father landed on the roof first and I softly behind him.
Our sudden arrival generated an air movement that blew the steam around us.
Everything was silent.
A thick, damp, white mist floated around us as if we were in a cloud. Thin wisps of it stretched out like long veins and stuck to the ground.
Despite my reinforced shoes, the heat from the burning ground was radiating up my legs. The ground was malleable, like dry but wet mud.
It smelled of burnt flesh.
Dad surveyed his surroundings, tense, jaw clenched, water trickling from his hair to his neck.
It was like buckets of water were falling from the sky.
My eyes darted to the right in the thick of the smoke.
I stood still, my heart pounding.
Then I started walking, legs heavy, into the fog.
Three steps later I stopped, arms flailing, eyes riveted on the body at my feet.
He lay in a pool of coagulating blood, his dirty, burnt arms hanging loosely at his side as if he were dead.
The left side of his skull was so badly burned that half of it was hairless. Bloody, reddish burns stained his throat and ran down his torso like scars of hot iron.
He couldn't breathe.
"Is that…"
*
A/N : If you want to read ahead of schedule up to 27 chapters, go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG