Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 98: Undo

By the time Izuku walked in the door, he was in such an obvious daze that Mom picked up on it immediately. She wrung her hands in worry, fretting as she looked him over, "Izuku, what's wrong? Did something happen? Are you hurt? What is it, baby?"

Izuku blinked a few times, then panicked when he realized that she was panicking, "It's nothing bad! I'm fine!"

Mom huffed, "Well, obviously something happened, baby. What is it? You know you can talk to me, right?"

Izuku nodded quickly, but still hesitated for a moment, biting his lip, "Um...Denki kinda..."

Mom's face fell, "Oh...baby, I'm so sorry..."

"No, it's not that! I mean, I wouldn't blame him if he decided not to be my friend anymore, but, um... " Izuku smiled hesitantly. "I think he just took me on a date?"

Mom's eyes widened and she grinned, pulling him to the couch, "Tell me everything, baby."

Katsuki couldn't sleep. For some reason, he'd just assumed that because Ogawa had escaped the villain factory, that they'd be able to protect him and he'd be safe, but looking back, it was pretty obvious that he had been a naive idiot. Of course the vilain factory would have ways of tying off loose ends! Using a brainwashing quirk to do so, however, just left a really nasty taste in Katsuki's mouth. With assholes like All for One out there doing shit like this, no wonder Shinso had gotten bullied so much...

Katsuki shot up in bed at the thought. His first assumption when Ogawa had gone blank like that was that Shinso had somehow accidentally caught him in his quirk, but even Shinso himself had seemed panicked for half a second because he had a brainwashing quirk! Katsuki grabbed his phone and ran out the door, barely taking the time to put on his shoes as he searched through his contacts.

Izuku picked up on the second ring, "Kacchan? What are you doing up in the middle of the night?"

Katsuki ignored the question. There were more important things to think about, "Can a brainwashing quirk undo a brain washing quirk?"

"Like two different quirks? Or is the quirk undoing itself?" Izuku asked. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still a little confused?"

"Nevermind." Katsuki replied gruffly. "Where are you right now?"

"At home?" Izuku answered hesitantly. "Are you ok...?"

Kacchan cut him off, "And Auntie?"

There was a long moment of silence, "Asleep."

Katsuki nodded resolutely, "I'm on my way. See you in five."

"...but you live ten minutes away?"

Izuku stared at the receiver in confusion, but kacchan had already hung up. He rolled over and cancelled his vigilante alarm even though it wasn't set to go off for another hour. At this point he probably wasn't going to get to sleep anyway. Mom had ended up demanding a full play-by-play and they'd stayed up way too late making cookies as they talked and squealed together. He'd only managed to convince her to go to bed a little over an hour ago and even then, Izuku himself was still too keyed up to sleep.

He'd been so nervous when Denki had grabbed his hand and declared that they were going on a date. He'd been half-convinced that he'd change his mind halfway through and end their friendship despite his own insistence that they'd stay friends whether it went well or not. Izuku still couldn't believe that that hadn't happened and he couldn't help wondering why he'd been so convinced that it would, especially considering that Denki had never given him any evidence that he was considering ending their friendship. Izuku's brain had just jumped to the worst possible conclusion and now he was left feeling happy and a little bit silly because looking back, there hadn't been anything to panic about.