Chapter Text
The real Kacchan didn't hesitate for a single second. The instant his eyes locked onto the absolute clusterfuck occupying his dorm kitchen, his entire posture went rigid. Orange sparks immediately began to rip and snap across his palms, the loud, violent pop-pop-pop echoing off the kitchen tiles like firecrackers. And immediately the smell of burnt nitrogliserin overwhelmed the usual homey smell of katsukis spicy dishes or yaoyorozus expensive tea blends
"Get the fuck off of him!" the real Kacchan screamed, taking a furious step forward. He looked entirely ready to blow his own duplicates straight through the wall if it meant clearing them away from Izuku.
But the deafening shout didn't scare the intruders; it only caused them to start to spring into action themselves
The shirtless barbarian looking not-Kacchan let out a low, animalistic growl deep within his chest, his thick, tattooed arms tightening like bands of steel around Izuku’s waist. With a fluid, protective movement, he pulled Izuku entirely against his bare chest, using his own massive frame as a physical shield to completely block the real Katsuki’s view while also inadvertently dragging the crying boy (though he seemed to be calming down slowly) with izuku since he was still clinginging to izukus arms like a lifline.
"Back off, fake," the barbarian snarled, his hand dropping down to wrap firmly around the hilt of the massive sword at his hip. "You step any closer to my mate and I’ll take your head off before you can even blink."
Across the kitchen island, the slightly older also-not-Kacchan didn't back down an inch. His jaw clenched so tight the muscles jumped, his neat UA uniform wrinkling as he shifted his weight, preparing to lunge directly at the crowd surrounding the smaller boy. He raised a hand, small, controlled sparks crackling at his fingertips. "Both of you need to shut up and step back," he said, his voice carrying a calm, chilling authority that Izuku had never heard from his own Kacchan. "You're crowding him. Can't you see he's already overwhelmed? We need to figure out what the fuck is happening before you imbeciles blow up the fucking dorms."
Beneath them all, buried in the center of the suffocating mess of blond hair and heavy muscles, another-not-Kacchan didn't even look up at the threat of explosions. Instead, he just clung tighter to Izuku's arms. His hands trembled violently, bunching the fabric of Izuku’s t-shirt into his fists, weeping silently as if he were absolutely terrified that Izuku would vanish into thin air the very second he allowed even a single inch of space to come between them.
"Please," the weeping boy choked out, his voice barely a whisper against Izuku's collarbone. "Just stay. Don't leave me. I can't do this again. I'm sorry "
And then there was the other-Kacchan—the one who had just frantically lifted Izuku’s shirt to check his bare shoulder blades. He completely froze, his hands hovering uselessly in the air, just staring at Izuku’s flat, unblemished skin with a hollow, wide-eyed expression. It was a look of pure, heartbreaking shock.
"Where are they?" the other-Kacchan breathed, his voice cracked and frantic as he completely ignored the weapons drawn around him. "Izuku, look at me. Where are your wings? Did the commission do something to them while I was gone? Tell me who did this to you!"
The sheer sensory overload of the moment—the crackle of sparks, the deep growls, the heavy sobbing against his collarbone, the frantic demands, and the suffocating proximity of five identical faces—became entirely too much for Izuku’s brain to handle.
"STOP!" Izuku screamed, using every ounce of air in his lungs. The sheer volume of it cut cleanly through the noise, echoing sharply off the kitchen cabinets. "Look, I know this situation is weird, but I think I actually know what is going on here! So if everyone could please just give me a single minute to explain while not trying to kill each other, i think it would clear up a whole lot of confusion!"
The sudden shout actually worked. Everyone stopped dead. The growling ceased, the sparks died down to a faint hiss, and all five pairs of identical crimson eyes snapped directly onto him.
In the sudden, heavy silence that followed, the brief flash of confidence vanished, and Izuku's familiar anxieties rushed back in. He felt the intense weight of their collective stares pressing down on him, and he instantly started to shrink in on himself, his shoulders hunching up toward his ears.
"Sorry," he muttered automatically, his face flushing a bright, mortified red as he looked down at the floorboards.
But the barbarian not-Kacchan didn't let him hide. Slowly, with a surprising gentleness that completely betrayed his wild appearance, his large, calloused hand reached up. His rough thumb brushed over the scattering of freckles on Izuku’s cheek, cupping his face firmly but tenderly, forcing Izuku to tilt his head back up and meet his gaze.
When Izuku looked up, his heart stopped. The barbarian's face held an expression that was softer than anything Izuku had ever seen on his—
No. Izuku caught the thought instantly, a sharp, bitter pang of reality slicing through his chest. Not his. Goddamnit, Kacchan isn't his. He never will be, and he never has been. Izuku had spent the last year meticulously rebuilding the shattered fragments of their childhood relationship, settling into a fragile, carefully guarded friendship. He knew his place. He was the quirkless kid who got lucky; Katsuki was the star destined for the number one spot. Someone like him had no right to claim any version of Katsuki Bakugou, and he couldn't let himself get deluded by a random quirk.
Yet, the barbarian's crimson eyes remained impossibly, heartbreakingly soft as he looked down at him.
.
"What was your idea, Zuku?" the man asked quietly, his rough voice dropping into a low, private tone that completely ignored the rest of the room. "Tell me what's wrong."
"Get your fucking mitts off of him!" the real Kacchan interrupted, his voice booming from the doorway as he stormed further into the kitchen, his fists clenched so tightly they were visibly shaking. "Just spit it out already, Deku! What the hell do you know?!"
Izuku forced himself to rip his gaze away from those soft— ̷o̷h̷,̷ ̷s̷o̷ ̷v̷e̷r̷y̷ ̷s̷o̷f̷t̷,̷ ̷w̷i̷l̷l̷ ̷m̷y̷ ̷o̷w̷n̷ ̷K̷a̷c̷c̷h̷a̷n̷ ̷e̷v̷e̷r̷ ̷l̷o̷o̷k̷ ̷a̷t̷ ̷m̷e̷ ̷l̷i̷k̷e̷ ̷t̷h̷a̷t̷?̷—eyes, swallowing the painful lump in his throat. He took a deep, grounding breath, centering his mind on the facts before he completely lost his composure.
"Earlier today, during our work study, this world's Kacchan and I were on a patrol," Izuku began, his voice shaking slightly before finding a steady, analytical rhythm. "We responded to a bank robbery across town. There were five villains, and while we were handling them, a piece of the ceiling crumbled. I went to shield a civilian, and the final villain fired a weird, beam of light directly at me. But... but Kacchan tackled me out of the way. He took the blast straight in the back."
The other Kacchans all shifted, their expressions darkening as they listened to the breakdown of the fight. The third-year version let out a sharp click of his tongue, while the winged-universe version narrowed his eyes in realization.
"We went to the hospital right after," Izuku continued, gesturing frantically with his free hand while the crying boy still clung onto his other arm. "The paramedics and the doctors checked him over for two hours, but they couldn't find a single thing wrong. No injuries, no residual energy, nothing. The detective told us to just go home and wait for the villain to wake up tomorrow so they could ask what his quirk actually was. Because it didnt immediately trigger so It must have been a delayed reaction, or maybe it had a specific trigger. The quirk activated just now, right when the kettle turned off, and instead of hurting him... it pulled the rest of you here from your own worlds…. I think."
Izuku looked around the circle, his green eyes filled with a deep, earnest empathy. "We need to call the police and the Endeavour Agency immediately to tell them what happened. If we can get the villain's quirk specifications, we can figure out the time limit, or whatever the trigger is, so you can all safely go back to your own worlds." He softened his tone, his heart aching for the sheer confusion they must be feeling. "I can't imagine it being very nice at all, just suddenly being ripped out of your actual lives and dropped into a strange kitchen."
The neat, third-year also-not-Kacchan crossed his arms over his buttoned uniform jacket, his expression thoughtful. "A delayed-trigger displacement quirk," he murmured, his voice sounding older, more calculated. "It makes sense. It tapped into the caster's target and dragged matching anchors across the closest dimensional planes."
"Yeah, whatever, sci-fi nerd," the real Kacchan barked, though the explosive tension in his shoulders had dropped slightly, replaced by a deep, defensive scowl. "But before we do any of that, we're not standing in this cramped kitchen all night. Move."
"Right!" Izuku agreed quickly, immensely grateful for the distraction. "We should probably go sit down in the common room so we're not just crowding the counters. Oh, and... um..." Izuku rubbed the back of his neck, his face burning again as he looked at the identical blondes. "I also really need to figure out what to call all of you. Because right now, in my head, I've just been referring to you as not-Kacchan, also-not-Kacchan, other-Kacchan, and another-not-Kacchan... and it's getting incredibly confusing to keep track of who is who."
All at once, without a single second of hesitation, all five of them spoke in perfect, overlapping unison.
"You can just call me Kacchan."
The barbarian looking one snapped his jaw shut, glaring at the others. "Like hell he will. I'm his Kacchan."
"Shut up, you look like a wild animal," the third-year version snapped back. "I'm his Kacchan."
The sheer absurdity of five identical, deeply intimidating voices saying the exact same childhood nickname at the exact same time made Izuku jump. He let out a loud, highly stressed, awkward laugh, his hands waving in front of him in a panic. "I can't call you all the same thing! That's going to cause total chaos! Let's... let's just move to the common room first, and we can figure everything out there."