Chapter Text
"So, what's wrong with you?" Bakugou Katsuki demanded of his green-haired friend, en lieu of a greeting. "The Old Hag said you missed yesterday 'cause you were going to some fancy quirk doc?"
From her assigned homeroom seat in front of his, Midoriya Uguisu smiled up at him in greeting, then frowned as his question registered.
"There's nothing wrong with me, Kacchan," she retorted in an offended tone. "But the doctor confirmed I won't be developing a quirk." Which - what?! Katsuki reflexively let out sharp blasts from the palms of his hand.
"How's that nothing wrong with you? The doctor just said you're quirkless! That's as good as useless!" For a moment, alarm bells rang in Katsuki's head as Isu-chan's green eyes glinted, as if a dangerous flame ignited behind her eyes. The moment passed, it was only - apparently quirkless, useless - Uguisu scowling back at him.
"Only if you're - what d'you like to call them? - an 'extra', once the news gets out." she drawled, waved a hand airily at the rest of the classroom, not even deigning to heed Katsuki's warning explosion. She did NOT just lump him with those losers! "I bet that's what they're all going to say when Korra-sensei announces the news. But you know..." here her voice turned thoughtful, and however incensed Katsuki was at Uguisu's insult, he quieted. Uguisu did her creepy muttering everywhere - Auntie Inko claimed Isu-chan got it from her father, whom Katsuki had never met - but Katsuki was the only kid to whom she spoke with that particular tone. He couldn't help but feel special, though you'd never get him to admit it to anyone, ever. Anyone who'd accuse him of it will get exploded, even you, Old Hag! Isu knew he was above those Extras, that's all.
That didn't mean he was any more patient with Isu's waffling.
"Get on with it," he commanded, setting off his quirk once again. Isu grinned this time, the drama-queen; but did get on with it, so Katsuki forewent another explosion.
"The quirk specialist who examined me, his quirk just made his hair change colour with his mood. Fun to watch - I can see why he'll be a popular doctor for little kids - but even he admitted it didn't help him any through medical school. Kacchan - he actually admitted to being wrong," Isu confided wonderingly. Katsuki was suitably impressed - not even his dad liked to admit to a mistake in front of Katsuki. His Old Hag certainly never did, even if she made it up to him anyway. Only Auntie Inko has ever outright stated she'd been wrong to Isu and Katsuki, but she also cried at a drop of a hat.
"So Moody-Hair Doc has the stones to say he was wrong," he snorted dismissively. He had a reputation to uphold, after all. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, how would his quirk have helped with diagnosing what's wrong with his patients? Or knowing what medicines to prescribe?" Isu questioned back, making Katsuki pause in sudden understanding. Mood Hair had jack sh** to do with treating anybody. Isu nodded, and opened her mouth, but Korra-sensei came in for homeroom before he and Isu could finish their conversation. Yet he mentally turned that realization over in his mind, even as the Extras reacted exactly as Isu had predicted to the announcement that Isu was quirkless. Isu merely rolled her eyes as the Extras started talking sh**, Korro-sensei turning a blind eye to it all.
"I'd only be 'good as useless'," Isu confirmed the conclusion he finally came to, as they walked home from school at afternoon, "If I become silly enough to buy-in to what the 'Extras' say." And, as far as Katsuki was concerned, that was that. His best friend - not that he'd admit to THAT either - wasn't 'baka' enough to fall to those levels. Katsuki would blow her up himself if she ever became that way.
It wasn't all smooth sailing over the years, of course. Katsuki knew his temper matched his quirk; and Isu might play the peacekeeper, but Katsuki knew she was no less stubborn when she believed herself to be right. It had led to some - literally and metaphorically - explosive fights between them, before they reached equilibrium.
"Move out of the way, Deku! Why are you defending that extra anyway?" Katsuki roared, taking satisfaction from the way the soot-covered Extra, cowering behind Deku, flinched. Isu was always Deku when Katsuki thought she was stooping to the level of an Extra. She'd definitely whined like one when Katsuki had first read the kanji Auntie Inko had said would have been Isu's name, if Isu had been born a boy (he didn't read it wrong, no matter what Isu said. If Deku didn't like being called Deku she shouldn't act like one in the first place).
"You're going too far, Kacchan. Quirks should not be used to hurt anyone besides villains," Deku shot back, resolute. Katsuki was torn between respect - because quirk or no quirk, Deku was the only one with stones in this sh**ty school to stand up to him - and rage that she was challenging him in front of everyone. Neither of them paid much attention to his tag-alongs, one of whom started jeering at Deku like Bat-Boy actually had a clue about anything.
"Shut, Tsubaki-bo, the grown-ups are talking," Deku quipped, not bothering to look at the inconsequential nuisance. Her arms remained crossed as she kept eye contact with him, fingers drumming a quick rhythm. Katsuki gritted his teeth in response to the challenge. "I'm invoking BFF call out privileges. What did Matsuoki-kun do to set you off this time?"
Katsuki considered not telling her, just on principle, but Deku COULD be surprisingly petty to those who insulted her. When Deku felt petty, she got inventive. That was always entertaining to watch, almost as satisfying as beating up those talking sh** to Katsuki about her. So with a mental shrug, Katsuki relayed gist of the Extra's insults in his own inimitable vernacular, and felt sadistic glee at the hardened glint that appeared in Deku's eyes.
"Is that so?" Deku mused mildly, then aimed a sharp glare at the Extra she'd stepped in for. Katsuki snorted as the Extra recoiled from the look. "Congratulations Matsuoki-kun, you just won today's award for being a dumba$$ in public. Being upstanding students, as well as class rep and assistant class rep respectively, Kacchan and I can hardly let you wander off without supervision and bring down the reputation of Orodera Elementary. Normally I would offer to treat your burns, but since your comments were about me to begin with, well, you'd hardly want my help, right? So up you get to the nurse's office. Let's see if she can't treat the stupid out of you." The beatific smile almost made the Extra piss his pants right there. Oh yeah, Deku was in fine form today.
There was only enough time left at recess to 'escort' the unfortunate extra to the nurse's office (read: make said loser cry in fear of Deku's pettiness). So it wasn't until they were walking home from school that Katsuki had the chance to confront Deku about challenging him earlier.
"I'd been thinking about that fight we had a few weeks back," there was that thoughtful tone again, "and how you'd aimed that explosion right at my arm?"
Katsuki deliberately breathed in and out. Deku had better have a point beyond just rubbing Katsuki's failures in his face. How was he supposed to get his explosions up to par if it only gave Deku the equivalent of a skinned knee? Deku did it to herself every other week from tripping over nothing. Not that he was deliberately aiming it at Deku mind you - he wasn't that big of an a**hole - he'd just been letting off steam when they'd had that screaming match about Deku taking up martial arts, and Deku'd gotten too close at the wrong moment. They'd gotten over it - though Deku had gotten her way again, damn those puppy eyes - but how was he even gonna pass UA's entrance exam if his explosions hadn't improved in the five years he'd been practicing?
"I think we were wrong about your explosions not improving, Kacchan," there was an odd, wavering note to Deku's voice that made Katsuki's brow furrow. "I...look, when you'd exploded at Matsuoki-kun today, I'd gotten close enough to see the strength of those explosions...they were pretty much the same strength as the ones you used in our fight. I don't know if you noticed his torn pants afterwards; I know you were just aiming down to scare him a bit (thanks for that by the way, always awesome to know you got my back in a fight). But Kacchan...I know I got nothing but a minor abrasion from your blasts, but…Matsuoki-kun had second-degree burns on his legs. The nurse confirmed it, when we decided I'd be the one to stay back and wait." here Deku - no, this was Isu's deadly serious face - turned to face him, square in the eye.
"All evidence points to the fact that your explosions have gotten stronger. Besides today's incident, you'd pretty much also decimated that soaked log that your parents wanted moved in the yard with just a hit, remember? It would definitely have taken four or five explosions if this was even a year ago." Katsuki couldn't help but preen. Take that, Old Hag, his training was working. But if that was all Isu was going to say, why the serious face?
"So what? I'm more awesome than we thought, but you've still got the face on. Get to the point."
"The point is, putting aside the mystery of our fight at the moment, you gave another kid second degree burns even when you weren't aiming at him. That's...some serious fire power there. If this was any other school, you might have been written up for that stunt," here she held up both hands to forestall the explosive retort on the tip of Katsuki's tongue. "No, I know it wasn't deliberate, and you'd probably have gotten away with a warning, even if the teachers didn't think you were the best chance they got to have an alumni be a pro hero. But that's the point, Kacchan; I know that even if the teachers are too blind to let you know, you're better than that. You'll be better than that.
So...that's why I stopped you today, with Matsuoki-kun. Wasn't gonna broadcast this to the whole schoolyard, but I knew you'd want to know."
Dang it, Isu was right. He was aiming for Number One Hero, which means not only will he need to win like All Might, but be better than both him and Endeavour even in stupid things like property damage and civilian injuries and the like. All Might for all his crazy strength had a pretty low property damage rate, and amazingly, an almost negligible civilian casualty rate. But Katsuki was smart enough to know his quirk had the potential to be at least as destructive as the Number 2 Fire Hero. Endeavour might not care much about those things, but Katsuki had made it his goal to be better than that.
Ugh, why does Deku always have to be right? He's gonna go explode some sh*t.
"Whaddya mean you're not going to Orodera Middle, Deku?!" Katsuki demanded, slamming his ice cream bowl down on the table, forcefully. Deku - he wasn't going to call her Isu until she started making sense again - winced around her own mouthful of ice cream, but put the spoon down to give him her whole attention. It did little to appease Katsuki.
"Mom and I talked it over, and we decided to enroll me in an online school until UA," Deku stated calmly, as if she wasn't throwing their ten years of friendship right back at his face. They'd promised to be there to support each other so they could get into UA. And now Deku is abandoning him to those extras, who only sucked up to Katsuki only so they could brag about knowing the future Number 1 Hero? Deku waffled some excuse about having to travel to some volunteering crap in Tokyo, but Katsuki shut that down quick with his trademark literal fireworks (more sound than force, even if he's feeling the angriest he'd ever been - he'd learned that particular lesson well).
"You're running away," he accused, voice intense but uncharacteristically low, eyes wrathful. Deku stared at him with wide eyes, mouth open in attempted protest, but Katsuki was beyond that now. "You'd always claimed not to care about what those extras thought. But you're giving in to them now, aren't you? You're choosing to be worthless, quirkless, Deku now." Deku's mouth pursed, green eyes likewise lighting up in warning, but Katsuki did not heed it.
"No, I don't need someone like that in my life. I'll be the Number 1 Hero someday, and I don't need a worthless, quirkless Deku dragging me down. Stay out of my way from now on." Not waiting for a reply, Katsuki stormed off.
For once, the meddling Deku didn't try to insert herself back into Katsuki's life, like all the other times they'd fought. Katsuki told himself that he didn't care. He was going to be the Number 1 Hero, a winner. That meant getting into UA, and he'll get there with or without Deku.
Katsuki started at Orodera Middle, continued to train his quirk (alone), made sure his grades dominated the top of the rankings each year, and alternately ignored or (verbally) exploded at the fawning teachers and extras. His parent's fashion label continued to meet with success, and they'd roped Katsuki into modeling for their new teen fashion line (with much cursing). When his mom insisted on dinner with her best friend, Auntie Inko came alone. Very occasionally, he passed by the park where he'd last met with Deku, and seethed anew at Deku's abandonment. Mostly (fortunately?) he was kept too busy to give much thought to his once best friend, or so he told himself. Musutafu was technically one of the smaller suburbs in the Greater Tokyo Area; but it was big enough - now that Deku was hiding away like some shut-in - that they never crossed paths for three years.
So the last thing Katsuki needed was to see blurry, desperate green eyes running at him, as he was fighting for his life (he refused to let this - choking on some third rate sludge villain like some loser extra - be the way his sister-in-all-but-blood saw him for the last time).
After All Might (THE All Might!) swooped in and saved the day with a famed weather-changing punch, and he'd finally freed himself from well-meaning but annoying medic extras, Katsuki rushed to track Deku down. He'd been one spit away from yelling at her once she'd pulled him free (she *&^$%ing put herself in danger like an idiot!); but Deku or not, her 'you-will-shut-up-and-suffer-medical-attention-without-exploding-or-else' glare was still effective. She'd all but shoved him into the waiting clutches of the paramedics, and he could do little else but glare back as she was stopped by the clump of useless heroes that'd been on scene earlier.
He couldn't help but snort as she started throwing down with those heroes though. Not that Katsuki particularly wanted to need saving (hated it, where was that sludge &**&^r for him to explode?); but Deku had a point - served those low-rankers right for uselessly standing there making other people do their jobs for them. Apparently, shut-in or not, Deku hadn't totally lost her skill in shutting extras down, so Katsuki supposed he could at least respect that.
But it meant that, when Katsuki caught up to Deku, they proceeded to have a spectacular yelling match - for only a few minutes. Then Deku revealed that she'd been caught by that sludge villain too (?!!?). So it was Katsuki's turn to haul Deku to get medical attention, because his idiot not-sister was a giant &$%^ing hypocrite. It became a big drag, with both Katsuki and Deku stuck in ED overnight, waiting for &*$%ing poison test result (because the sludge &#$%$r who'd shoved his slime down their throats apparently used the $^%#%$ng sewers to get around - which, gross!). Then the Old Hag and Auntie Inko got to the hospital and proceeded to wail all over him and Deku (well, Auntie Inko wailed; the Old Hag just yelled like usual), because the whole frigging thing made the evening news. Katsuki dreaded how the extras at school would cling the next day. For once, though, the Old Hag was good for something, even if she smothered Katsuki at home for an extra day.
At any rate, it wasn't until the third afternoon after the sludge incident that Katsuki and Deku finally sat down to hash things out. Deku'd made the effort to butter him up too, since they'd ended up at his favourite boba shop, with the extra spicy Mexican Choco Boba.
"It wasn't an easy decision," Deku started, idly swirling her oversized straw. "Because you were right in a way, it felt like letting them win." Before Katsuki could gloat - or explode, even he wasn't sure what he'd been feeling - Deku finally looked up, meeting his eyes with a hardened gaze, expression serious.
"But the situation, back then, as it stood…oh, Orodera Middle liked to think it's hot stuff, but everyone knew the only thing the school cared about was its reputation. We would have been starting out at the bottom of the food chain; all the teachers and students would have found out I'm quirkless by the end of the first day. Oh, I knew I'd have you to watch my back, but our classmates would have taken the chance with the 'new' environment to be bolder. The teachers would have done nothing, like elementary, and factoring in whatever the upperclassmen could cook up as 'hazing'…
"I would have needed to get truly vicious, given no ground, not cared about the consequences, just to have a chance to survive the cesspool. And I knew it would have destroyed all the good in me - the parts of me that wants to help, chooses to be kind, even when the world isn't. I couldn't let myself become that person, Katsuki - I was already so close to crossing the line. So I chose to remove myself from entering such an environment in the first place."
Katsuki thought back to sharp eyes that dissected strengths and weaknesses like they did hero quirks on TV; an even sharper tongue that'd reduced numerous extras to tears back in elementary school. He thought about all the times in middle school that he had to reign in his instinctual explosive response - because he was going to be the Number 1 Hero, and no one in that sh**ty school would have told him he was going too far (the only one who would've wasn't there to do so anymore). He imagined what it would be like if Deku stopped caring about hurting people's feelings, deliberately choosing to stand aside and let people suffer, and began to understand.
He'd always thought Deku too kind, too much of a pushover unless someone pushed her buttons too far. But just like his explosions, Deku's - no, Isu's - mind could seriously hurt someone if she wasn't careful, if she let her pettiness overrule her good sense, all without a quirk involved. And if motivated enough, she'll make the hurt last until she's squeezed every drop of humiliation out of the victim. While Isu had never wanted to become a pro hero, Katsuki knew she'd adamantly did not want to be a villain either. %$#% it, he'd have to forego blowing up at her again for this, after all.
As if sensing his tacit forgiveness, Isu's mouth quirked up around a sip of her boba.
"I'm not sorry for choosing online schooling. It did me good, and gave me more time to do some good in return. But I am sorry for not discussing it with you beforehand, springing it on you without warning. You didn't deserve to feel like I abandoned our promise like that."
"As long as you never become a Deku like that again." And that, Katsuki thought in satisfaction, punctuating with an obnoxious sucking noise through his straw, was that.