Best Song Ever

Hazama dropped the most adorable, deadpan “buh-bye” and ended the call.

Hoshino couldn’t dare respond as he had better things to do. He had to keep his mouth open. And he watched, wide-eyed, as Ishigami slowly marched out of the broken wall with the cloud of dust and smoke clinging to his back like he was in a goddamn deodorant commercial. The man, the myth, and the legend continued his march toward the very person he threw.

The poor Butterfly member—Hoshino assumed, since doing this to a civilian would be outright villainous—was just getting up, groaning and must’ve been revisiting his life choices. There he faced Hoshino, who at this moment was shielding a student with his body.

Oh. The man was Jerome himself. He looked defeated, about to surrender, but Ishigami bonked him again with the fucking metal bench and knocked him out for the remainder of the fight with a resounding, satisfying gong. Hoshino could only hope that he wasn’t dead.

And as if the rest of the Butterflies were following some sort of cue (Hoshino really hoped that they didn’t let Jerome get hit by a metal bench again), a group of three hooded figures emerged from the main building’s entrance. The other two’s faces were hidden, so Hoshino didn’t have to describe them—which he was thankful for. The one in the middle was an older, dark-skinned man with a majestic, oily handlebar mustache.

“I had to let it happen,” the man with the mustache explained, ripping his glance away from Jerome and sinking it into Ishigami. “He simply didn’t know who Ishigami Kyouma was. To make matters worse, he led you straight to us. We had a FUCKING group chat where I literally sent your photos to everyone last night.”

“He couldn’t have known that Larry was real and an actual friend of mine.” Ishigami chuckled and dropped the metal bench. The thud it made against the grass made Hoshino wonder if Jerome was alright. “But it still is a bad move, Satoru-san. You should’ve let a different person stand guard.”

“No. You would understand, Ishigami.” Satoru, the mustache man, brandished his wand. “The Butterflies have no other hands to spare. And think about it. Imagine being tortured by a man named Jerome.”

Ishigami sighed to mask a chuckle that escaped his lips.

“But in any case…” Satoru continued, lowering his head to make his tone even more dramatic. “Even though our plan went to shit, we still got the top dog in our hands. Ishigami Kyouma. The Girthy. Barbell Bush. Bob Ross Roids. Creatine Curls. Amazing Emoji Steward. Muscle Muffin. The Bannable Offense. Macho Mango. Donny Bushman. Carrot Shock Top. Broccoli Biceps. Cotton Candy Schwarzenegger. The… Afro Fucker. You are the most decent government lapdog I’ve ever met, and I’d really hate to kill you, but today… is the day you die.”

Ishigami cracked his knuckles and assumed a stance that was best for throwing hands. “You’ve always seemed like a decent fellow to me too, Satoru-san. I’d hate to die.”

“What a nerd.”

Ishigami stomped the ground, the space beneath him crumbling under his weight, and shot himself toward the Butterflies. The spellcasters raised their wands and peppered him with bolts in response—Ishigami blocked them all. Barbell Bush conjured a shield without a wand or an incantation, putting a bit of panic in the mana-ridden air as the attacks either slid off his shield or were shattered at the moment of impact.

The barrage summoned a dense wall of smoke that masked Ishigami’s charge. Hoshino’s eyes widened even more. By the time his enemies found him, Donny Bushman’s brick-like fist was already buried in the face of one of the hooded figures behind Satoru.

Ishigami, the Bannable Offense, then planted his feet and turned, aiming his fist next at the mustache man himself. However, Satoru ducked through the blow and had the third Butterfly take the full might of Cotton Candy Schwarzenegger’s swing—which now looked worse than what Jerome had to suffer. Hoshino could swear that the man’s face cocked back farther than it should. It was as if the man’s neck and spine forgot for a moment that gravity existed.

But it was an opening nonetheless. Satoru shot out a quick “HO-HO” and pressed the tip of his wand against Ishigami’s rippling abs. He widened his grin, pushing a corner of his mustache upward, and unleashed his magic.

“Bolt.”

Everything went bright. The air cracked and was replaced by the sound of shattering glass. The explosion left both of them covered in dense, bluish to purplish smoke. Ishigami jumped out of the cloud a moment later with a shield tracing his stomach—he was relatively unhurt, but the rest of his button-up shirt was about to rip itself apart, either from the stress of his own attacks or from the enemy’s magic.

“Ishigami…” Satoru clicked his tongue as the smoke around him dispersed. “Has anyone told you that you look like a pervert with…” He eyed Ishigami up and down. “What do you even…”

Ishigami groaned and rolled back his shoulders. “If I had a nickel—”

“Don’t get me started.”

Satoru chuckled and whipped his wand like a blade. Bolt. Or rather… bolts. The man summoned multiple glints of grayish light, each eager to be fought. Hoshino swallowed his spit, his heart starting to sink. Satoru. This guy. He could conjure that many attacks within a single swing. What’s more… some of the bolts were hanging around him—he was keeping control of each one of them.

Hoshino’s curious glare grew to be more nervous. Ishigami. The Girthy. Barbell Bush. The Muscle Muffin. He couldn’t approach Satoru anymore. Hoshino was watching a meteor shower up close. He witnessed stars be born, form constellations, and fall, cutting through space until they collided with a glass-like wall and exploded in a puff of glitter.

Satoru kept the bolts raining to keep Ishigami in place. And just when Ishigami thought that he could finally go on the offensive, Satoru would send another batch and force him to keep his shield up. In cases where Ishigami would try to run around and gain a bit of distance to play with, Satoru would try to aim for his legs—some of the bolts at his side even glimmered, being painfully obvious that he could be aiming for Hoshino and the girl at his back.

Hoshino shivered. A… ra… ta… The grass around him grew darker, colder. Like it was wet with blood. There was that sound again. The sound he could only hear. The voice his terrible, terrible brain conjured at the most inconvenient of times. His eyes blurred with tears. He wanted to puke. A… ra… ta… it said again. It borrowed the voice of his mother. That pained voice. Disappointed yet forgiving. With the knife she blissfully buried deep in her chest beating and with blood dripping from the bottom of her chin… there it was again. Her image. She gurgled her words. She stared into his eyes. Her eyes were slowly losing light, but she was telling him to live.

It pissed him off every time.

Hoshino kept his gaze at the one-sided battle in front of him. Hoshino let himself be fooled by their pathetic display. Ishigami must’ve caught onto their plan. But Satoru wasn’t fighting to kill him. They must’ve had another plan. Otherwise, they wouldn’t bother taking the fight outside in the first place.

And where did Hoshino fit in all of this chaos? He was the fucking hostage. The reason why Ishigami couldn’t fight back. Hoshino gritted his teeth. And should he ever choose to join the fight, either him or the students would get shot in the head. Would Hoshino be able to protect the girl if that happened? Who fucking knew.

But what if Hoshino could make it so that he would only be the one that gets targeted? What if he asked the student at his back to run toward the second-year building? Satoru would leave her alone. He would need to aim if he had to shoot a target from afar. A split second was all Ishigami needed to boom shakalaka his ass toward the Shadow Realm. By then… Satoru’s best choice would be to threaten Ishigami by pointing his bolts at Hoshino—if that happened, he could block the attack with his shield.

Right now, Satoru’s greatest blunder was assuming that Hoshino was a scared, shitless civilian. But could Hoshino do it? But what if Satoru knew? They had a group chat, after all.

Hoshino let out a voiceless chuckle. Bolt. The spell was designed so that at its base level, its power would be enough to blow through a human torso regardless of the caster’s skill. It was efficient enough that mastery in this spell lay in how one could limit its power. This meant that the same bolt that Hazama used to tear through the malevolent spirit earlier was the same spell that would turn him into a bloody firework if he was unfortunate enough to be hit.

A firework.

A breath.

A reminder that he was alive.

Hoshino’s heart grasped at the tiniest ember of confidence he had left. A familiar beat rang in his brain. He widened his grin, now turning desperate—much better than helpless. He heard this song during one of his worst times. He couldn’t understand it at first, but he resonated with it as soon as he learned what the foreign words meant. With that memory in mind, with that bit of added courage, he turned toward the girl at his back and whispered to her to run—as fast as she could—when he gave her that signal. The girl nodded.

That was right. The situation was tough. He was scared shitless. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t do anything about it. Hoshino balled his shaking hands and hit his thigh, begging his legs to stop themselves from trembling. But then again, if he couldn’t stop himself from shaking, he would just force his body to listen. He wasn’t as hopeless as a plastic bag drifting through the wind. He wasn’t so weak that a blow of air would cave him in. He was no longer buried deep enough that no one could hear him scream.

This was the Hoshino moment. He drew a long breath and smiled. Thanks, Katy Perry.

“RUN!”

Hoshino screamed and dashed toward Satoru. As expected, the mustache man, who seemed surprised that Hoshino could move at all, aimed some of his bolts at him. His gaze never left Hoshino’s eyes. Hoshino knew that to him, the girl running away from them didn’t exist. A part of that made him glad. Now… all that was left was to survive whatever it was that was about to come—

“GOOD CHOICE, HOSHINOOOO!” Ishigami screamed, almost laughing as he zoomed in and interrupted Satoru’s attack by forcing him to erect a shield to block his punch. “LEAVE SATORU TO ME!”

And so Hoshino kept running even as his lungs burned. Hype dictated that he should join the fight and 2v1 Satoru, but he knew well that this was not his fight. He would just drag Ishigami down. Plus, there must’ve been some hostages left in the main building. He needed to get them out first so that Ishigami could truly go all out and beat the shit out of their enemy.

Hoshino could no longer see their fight unfold. But that was okay. Satoru must’ve realized that he could cast spells himself, since Hoshino heard an arch of bolts speeding toward his back. There was no guarantee that he could block all of them without looking. He also couldn’t afford to turn back. So, he summoned a shield as tall and wide as a door and let it tank the shots, earning him the ticket to safely get his ass inside the building… wishing that the fight outside would no longer reach him.

This truly was the Hoshino moment. But his fight was just getting started.