Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, in Ochako's dreams, she falls. It's kind of funny when she thinks about it afterwards. Ochako doesn't do falling, that's ridiculous, gravity is her bitch, she has nothing to fear from it but...

Sometimes in her dreams she falls. Not because she tripped or she was pushed. For an even darker reason that keeps her awake at night. She falls because bitter, exhausting life has no more pull on her, and she wants to die, except she doesn't not really, someone saves her.

No one catches her.

.

Here's what Ochako understands the moment she steps inside Yuuhei and stumbles upon the anxious looking boy who will change her life: Midoriya Izuku is special.

And not only because he heroically saved her out of nowhere from a giant robot in the middle of an exam, although that definitely counts. There is an attraction to him, a magnetic shiver running under her skin at the sight of warm eyes, pulling her inside his orbit, where everything is soft and friendly and safe, and Ochako very much wants to stay there. Ochako knows about gravity, of course she does. She means it when she says this star of a boy has his very own gravitational field grabbing innocent bystanders like herself into his territory. Not that she's complaining, mind you.

When she is with Midoriya Izuku, or merely thinking of him, the fierce something inside her chest that ached and longed and mourned settles down with awed adoration. Around his kind strength and steady light, Ochako feels calm, stable, at peace. Her world brightens and she's happy, inexplicably, certainly.

She knows the second he runs to her side and puts his burnt hand on her ankle, that Ochako would die for Midoriya Izuku. That she would kill for him as well.

This kind of instinctive commitment should frighten her. It doesn't.

So yes, Midoriya Izuku is special. Anyone who wants to get to him would have to step over her cold, dead body.

.

A Sky reaches out for its Rain. Somewhere deep within, Takashi gingerly grabs a hand and slips inside.

HUh. Not bad, New Tsuna, not bad at all. This girl will do nicely. She looks the kind of player who won't give up mid game, a necessary quality to hang out around Tsuna or New Tsuna or whatever.

Takeshi likes her, so far. She's not strong enough yet to be a functional Rain, blurry at the edges, unsure of her own resolve, but she has potential. She's not quite there yet. She will be, though. Or else.

Takeshi doesn't want to hurt the little girl, he really doesn't. Unfortunately New Tsuna needs a rain. He will burn himself to the ground otherwise, because that's what bright boys like them do without a soothing presence to temper their flames. If it comes to choosing between the wellbeing of his sort-of-friend-boss-life purpose or his unintentional host, he'll pick New Tsuna any day.

But Takeshi has faith in little Ochako. She can figure it out. He's rooting for her, honest.

He's just ready to intervene if he needs to. The ever vigilant Guardian, the glint of a blade gleaming beneath a friendly grin, sharp as a thousand knives, dutiful rain rolling under his nails and into her heart.

Takeshi guards, always, that's what he does. Even in death, he shall keep on being a Guardian.

For a Sky needs a Rain, and Rain dries out without its Sky.

.

There is a house, and inside the house there is a boy. Who also happens to be a man, but that's not the important part. The important part is that the house is located somewhere within Ochako, and it's simply not acceptable.

"Maaa, my graceful host!" the boy-man cheers as he sits next to her. "What a honor! Can I offer you some sushi?"

Ochaki accepts the tuna roll warily due to sheer habit. She knows better than to turn down free food, even if it comes from strange boy-man squatting her subconscious.

"So what kind of Quirk is this?" she asks, watching around bemusedly, her sushi still in her hand. "Like, mind-reading? Dream-hopping?"

The happy buzzling vibes she's getting from him stills and freezes. She tenses at the sudden pressure of his unwavering smile. She feels small, so incredibly small under the weight of his presence. "I don't have a Quirk, Ochako."

She gulps anxiously. "Okay, okay, I get it. Please don't get angry!"

The pressure on her very soul lessens. His smile turns back sincerely chipper instead of dangerously polite. "Haha, don't be silly, I'm not angry!"

Yeah right.

"How do you know my name?" she pokes at the hems of her shirt with growing suspicion. She's wearing a high school uniform, but not one she's familiar with.

"It'd be rude not to know the name of my host, don't you agree?" the boy-man bites into one of his sushi before shaking his head disapprovingly. "Uh. Still can't get the recipe right after all those years. Do you know how to make sushi Ochako?"

"What? No, not really, I mean I never tried," she fumbles around her words, dazzled, lost, and frankly freaked out by the surreal situation. "Who are you?"

"Ah, that. It's not that I don't want to tell you, but I don't think you're quite ready yet," he pats the top of her head comfortingly. "Come back when you've figured it out for yourself, okay?"

"Wait, no, you have to..."

The boy-man pokes a finger at her chest with an apologetic smile and pushes.

Ochako falls back.

.

The morning light casts a loving shade of red into Izuku's hair. It looks like a flame, hugging the green curls fondly, crowning his head with a circle of fire. He's beautiful the same way angels are beautiful, singing shattered twinkles of starlight crashing on Ochako's retinas.

Tsunatsunatsuna, the old soul nested in the closet of her mindscape whispers like a prayer. Shouts like a madman. Giggles like a child. Tsuna-warmth-sky-beloved.

How is Ochako supposed to breathe again?

"Uraraka-san," Izuku, no Tsuna, no Izuku, turns towards her, the corner of his mouth crooked with concern. "Are you alright?"

Ochako is not alright, she's burning alive, she's bursting open. Bittersweet memories spill from the drawers she didn't know she had, straight into her lap. Water climbs on the walls of her mindscape, swallowing whatever was left of her life, and she's drowning under the weight.

Somewhere out there, rain falls.

Her lips stretches into Takeshi's mirror-like smile and she gives him the thumbs up. "I'm okay, Midoriya-kun, don't worry!"

.

Her feet bury themselves inside the fresh green grass of the field. The bat settles into her palm naturally, as if she had been practicing baseball her whole life. In a way, she has. She takes a tentative swing for the feeling of it, then a more vigorous one as she imagines hitting Bakugou's sour face.

"Nice grip!" Takeshi smiles, but when doesn't he. The ball jumps between his hands teasingly.

"Thanks!" Ochako adjusts her stance easely to his advice, and her whole body follows when she contorts her arm enthusiastically. This is kind of fun. "So am I like, your reincarnation?"

It makes sense, in a way. Takeshi died at some point in the past (smell of blood under her nails, the glint of a merciless blade, shards of flames burning), and he's pouring his memories into her. Why now, after fifteen years of silence can probably be traced back to Izuku's crashing into her life.

"Dunno," Takeshi in his boyish form with his boyish sweatshirt and boyish grin shrugs indifferently. "Gokudera would, but I'm not the sharpest brain out there, little one."

Ochako scoffs at the childish endearment. She's not a kid dammit. "What about Midoriya-kun then?"

Inside her head she holds the name Izuku like a beacon of light against the darkness festering in her soul (how dare they, hurt Tsuna, hurt his friends, let's kill them all and raze their cities to the ground). She's aware calling him by his first name out loud without permission would be creepy and intrusive as fuck. Ochako is, as a matter of fact, creepy and intrusive as fuck, but she doesn't want her friend to know about that. Just like she doesn't anyone to realize how badly she's losing her marbles.

"He's your Sky," Takeshi says simply, cocking his head to the side like a dog. "You must protect him, right, Ochako?"

She must indeed. And that's the end of it.

"Maybe I could get a sword?" she muses out loud. "I'd look cool!"

The edge of his smile cuts the inside of her cheerfulness. "Haha. Yeah, cool."

She takes another swing, the ball flies flies flies until it falls. Even in her mindscape gravity is an inevitability Ochako has to accept.

She silently vows not to mention swords ever again.

.

"Deku," Bakugou snarls like a wounded beast to a flinching Izuku.

Ochako is at first surprised by the uncontrollable wave of pure loathing rising from her chest, giving birth to tendrils of viciousness twirling in her veins and red glimpses of fury behind her eyes. She's not a hateful person, everyone will tell you. Ochako is a nice, friendly, gentle, cheerful girl, not a maniac who longs to tear apart her classmate's organs and present them to her best friend like some kind of morbid offering.

'Murder and mutilation is not appropriate anger response,' she scolds the vengeful beast clawing at her nerves firmly. She's calling it 'Takeshi-senpai's bitchy side' but really, she's more than aware the cold blue fire comes from her as well. It's easier to blame her soul parasite though.

Izuku avoids looking at her, as if he's afraid Ochako would stop being his friend once she realizes how lame he really is. She's familiar with that ducking head and those curling up limbs and shameful winces and shaking mouth and low-key tremors.

Those are Tsuna's.

And Ochako hates like she never hated before. She doesn't care about the glimpses of self-loathing in Bakugou's self-restraint. She doesn't care about the remorse creeping in on his grunts, nor about the ghosts of guilt lurking in his silences.

What she cares about is the fact he's hurting Izuku by simply breathing in his general vicinity. She wants him gone.

(behead, gutted like a fish, burnt to a crisp, drown under an ocean of acid. Takeshi doesn't care either way as long as the bully never get to speak to New Tsuna again.

Fortunately, Ochako still does. Just a bit. It's good. She shouldn't let Takeshi take that away from her)

"Deku, right?" she perks like she doesn't understand what the insult means. "That's kind of cool!"

She could beat Bakugou up to pulp. But making him watch as Izuku learns to own up to his coolness and embrace the chaos is much, much more satisfying.

.

"There is something wrong with you."

The disgust leaps out of her mouth, runs into his careless casualness. Takeshi flickers between the adult with blood on his priceless suit and the child who used to sneak around to watch his father murder fools challenging him.

The room is filled with people Takeshi killed at some point. In consequence, there is a shitton of cadavers rotting on the background of her mindscape. From his point of view, most of them deserved it, they shouldn't have endangered Tsuna in the first place, so they had it coming hadn't they? That being said, Takeshi would be the first to admit he is indeed quite fucked up.

(His mother is somewhere out there too. His very own first murder)

It's frankly revolting, and more than a little disturbing in the usually nice place that is her mindscape. Normally Takeshi wouldn't want a nice gal like Ochako anywhere near his messes, soiling her innocence with the cadavers in his closet without consideration for the hygiene of her own conscience.

Unfortunately she needs to understand what the life she's choosing entails. She needs to understand protecting her Sky has to be done at any cost to herself, because he won't accept anything less than her best.

(She needs to understand Takeshi's dangerous)

"Haha, I can't deny that!" Takeshi wipes the tip of his crimson tainted sword against the vest of one of his victims.

Her eyes are wide, her voice struggles to keep up, but already she's moving on, accepting this new reality. She works fast, his cute little successor. "That's not...I'm going to be a hero."

"Oh Ochako," his smile turns wistefully fond. She's such a riot, Takeshi really likes her. She kind of reminds him of himself, except Takeshi likely never had an innocent bone in his whole body. "There is no such thing as heros. There's just a bunch of selfish assholes doing the best they can."

The grey of her uncertainty shifts into blue resolve. This is it, she's fighting back, his resignation against her optimism. She won't let her dream perish from Takeshi's dirty memories. Flames caress her mind where she can't see it. But Takeshi can. Oh she's going places with Dying Will Flames like that.

"You're wrong, Takeshi-senpai. I'll show you."

"I look forward to it," he tells the blue wildfire on her forehead sincerely.

.

Ochako is the first, as far as she knows, but not the only one to be enthralled by the out-of-this-world goodness that is Midoriya Izuku. Of course she's not, her cinnamon roll of a starchild shines too brightly not to attract other planets to his orbit. It's better that way, he's not suited for loneliness, and deserves all the love he can get. Ochako's happy about his growing court of rightfully awed admirers, she really is. More soldiers available for her Midoriya Protection Squad (looking at you, Asshole Bakugou).

Therefore no, she's not jealous. That's preposterous. Seriously, she's not.

(Okay, she kind of is. A teeny tiny bit. Ochako got there first, those fuckers better not forget that)

There's Iida-kun. They didn't have a good start, Iida Tenya and her. At first glance, he kind of gives the vibe of a stickler for rules, which would be tolerable enough if he hadn't been incredibly rude to Deku. At second glance...well he's still a stickler for rules, but with a good heart, a practical mind, and a proper appreciation of Deku's awesomeness. So he's alright in her books.

She quickly learns to like him, and not only because Deku's soaking up his approval like a dry sponge who's never seen the color of water. They make a good team, Iida and her. He understands that Deku, while pretty smart and adaptable, still requires constant supervision not to get himself killed trying to save the world single-handedly. And he has plenty of ideas for her Protection Squad, aka the-club-whose-name-must-not-be-pronounced-in-case-Midoriya-is-nearby.

(They make such a good team, actually, that Ochako can't help but wonder...but no, she shouldn't get her hopes up, she has to assume she's the only one, to avoid anymore heartbreak. She has enough of those already with the closet that Takeshi won't allow her to open, but spills up a new wound every once in a while)

There's Todoroki, who's making such earnest attempts to play it like he's not interested in Midoriya at all that Ochako is willing to forgive him for spurning her sunshine's tentative offers of friendship. He's not so bad at keeping up his cool facade, but Ochako can spot longing glances like a boss, and Todoroki is definitely staring bemusedly at Deku when he thinks no one can see him. It's pretty adorable, in a very sad kind of way.

It's alright though. He will get there eventually. No one, no one, can escape Deku's gravity. It's a fact of life, and soon enough Todoroki will accept this inevitability and embrace the warmth. It's a mere question of time.

(Takeshi watches Todoroki, a lot. He doesn't like the shadows lurking inside those pretty eyes of his. There is an old but still new wound in his soul, throbbing pettily, festering uglily, rotting away. The kind of hurt only a parent figure can inflict. He doesn't tell Ochako outright. She'll understand soon enough, if she doesn't already)

And then there's Bakugou. Lurking always, pestering in the background. Spitting on Deku, but refusing to let him go either. Ochako really doesn't want to talk about Kacchan. She'd rather chatter about Tsuyu or Kirishima or Tokoyami or even Mineta. Anyone but Bakugou.

(Pride. Dedication. Fury. The seeds are there already. Soon, the fireworks will set off. Takeshi is surprisingly excited by the prospect. Perhaps they won't have to burn the boy to the ground after all.

...meh)

.

Deku. She likes the name. It's like a patchwork of all his hurts, all his weaknesses, turned into a shield, a weapon, a banner. Izuku is her light in the darkness, but Deku tastes like unstoppable victory on the tip of her tongue.

Deku is not going to die today. Deku isn't going to die under her watch, period. She's not going to accept a reality where Midoriya Izuku doesn't exist. She just can't.

(Ochako won't become another Takeshi, hopeless, lost, rotten in his despair)

Deku will not die. Not again.

"Yaoyorozu-san," she says, her voice an ocean of calm in the chaos. "Make me a katana please."

"A...katana?" her classmate's eyes widens. "Uraraka-san, what are you..."

Her surprise is understandable, but Ochako doesn't have time for explanations. There is an army of villains between her and Deku. Those bastards need to get the fuck out this instant. "Just do it!"

Yaoyorozu thankfully complies without further protests. The weapon she creates is flawless, well-balanced, sharp like she wished. It's not Shigure Kentoki, but considering the dire circumstances, it'll do. "Thank you. Now the most resistant cover you can make."

Her hand curls on the shaft of the katana, and Takeshi's ghost shivers under her skin. "Are you sure, Ochako? There is no going back from this," he breathes into her ears with rare seriousness.

Of course she's sure. Fear of exposure can only be taken into account as long as Deku's life doesn't lay in the balance. She can't be bothered to give a shit about the consequences of her actions until her friend is safe and sound at her side. She'll process the rest later.

Deku will not die. As long as Ochako's heart beats, he's simply not allowed. Blue fire erupts on her head, on her hands. It ignites her entire being with a quiet resolve.

Her classmate gasps in disbelief. "Uraraka-san, what is going on?"

"Yaoyorozu-san," she turns towards her comrade with the gentlest smile she can manage. "Whatever happens next, it's not your fault okay?"

The katana is equally heavy and weightless between her shaking hands. She takes a deep breath, and lets the blue take over. "Shigure Soen Ryu, seventh form. Shibuki Ame."

The blade cuts straight into the air, creating a whirlwind in its wake. Within the shreds of her...of their soul, Takeshi-senpai grins like a shark.

"It's raining indoors," Yaoyorozu notices bemusedly, testing the water drops over her outstretched hand. "Did you do this? I don't see how it's going to help us though..."

"Cover yourself," Ochako interjects rudely. Politeness is only good for people who can afford it.

She waits until her classmate is safe under her titanium umbrella. It should be enough to protect her. She's right by saying plain rain won't help them pass through. It's not plain rain though. It's Ochako's. And Ochako's rain will do exactly what she orders it to.

Takeshi's ghost hand covers her. Together they find the shards of their flame tucked into tiny raindrops. And then they pull.

Innocent raindrops turn into ravaging meteors as they crash on the ground at sound-like speed, straight into their enemies like a thousand merciless bullets. Hundreds of villains scream and their suffering is music to their ears. Good for them. That would teach them to get between her and Midoriya Izuku.

She doesn't waste time to throw herself into the chaos she just created. She's not afraid of getting wet, and she's got a Deku to rescue.

Ochako runs and Ochako falls and Ochako flies. Stretching at the surface, Takeshi laughs.

.

Sometimes in her dreams, Ochako falls. Deku is here to catch her.

He doesn't need to. Ochoka is Rain-shaped, falling is what she does best.

And gravity can just suck it.

Chapter Text

When God or whatever rules Up There strang little pieces of humanity together to build Bakugou Katsuki, they completely forgot a vital part of his development. Patience.

Brawns, he got. Smarts, too. Resolve? He could sell this shit by cargo on ebay to needy spineless fuckers and still have plenty to spare. But temperance? Acceptance? Now those are qualities he never saw a glimpse of within himself.

Patience is good for people who believe that eventually, things will work out on their own. Katsuki sincerely doesn't understand how they can delude themselves so deeply. Life won't give you anything, everything you got you have to take for yourself. Waiting is just another word for compromising, and Katsuki doesn't do compromising. He doesn't do settling either, or accepting, or whatever euphemism losers invented to justify their meek and resigned attitudes.

He read something about that in a nerdy website full of psychological bullshit once. About the fact that there is a distance between what you wish for and what is, and growing up means accepting the existence of that distance. Katsuki very much...hasn't.

Katsuki sees it everyday, people giving up on their dreams and their values, people letting life and work and society walk all over them, people setting aside their self-worth and pride for the sake of convenience, people getting on their knees like bitches instead of standing up for themselves, with a 'well, what can I do' sheepish smile? He'll tell you what you can fucking do, you can stop acting like a pussy and fight back.

That what he does. He fights. He fights so much his interactions are just a myriad of 'againsts'. It's exhausting, but he doesn't know how to operate otherwise. There is an enormous feeling of wrongness in his entire existence, and instead of walking around it, of adapting, he fights. Fight what exactly, he doesn't even know.

Thus, Katsuki is angry. All the fucking time. It's not simply an itch pulling on his nerves constantly, it's a damn tempest. He runs on a perpetually high level of fury, and the smallest ounce of irritation never fails to make him ignite out of his skin and explode.

He knows something is wrong with him. He calls that something Wildfire. Wildfire isn't happy. Ever. It sees everything in degrees of negative, never pays attention to what Katsuki has and always to what he has not. Wildfire is a black hole nested in his mind who swallows whatever crumb of satisfaction Katsuki gathers for himself and has the nerve to spit back bitter resentment.

Wildfire is a fucking nuisance, and Katsuki wishes it would take its mournful viciousness up its ass and die.

(He wishes it would tell him what the fuck it wants, instead of howling uselessly in his nightmares and fumbling blindly in the dark)

He dares anyone to take on his burden and see if they can keep being patient with it. What a bunch of fuckers.

.

.

Katsuki gets his first sample of love at first sight at three years old. Needless to say, the unexpected wave of unknown feelings takes him completely by surprise. Here he is, minding his own business, ignoring the other utterly useless children, upgrading his boring drawing with blissful explosions, when it happens.

"Ullo," the kid with green hair and and green eyes and orange soul smiles at Katsuki. "Your drawing is cool!"

Wildfire growls by reflex at the intrusion and stills. It stares. It blinks. And then it purrs.

Katsuki's world shifts on its axis.

"Um," Green Orange's enthusiasm falters when confronted to Katsuki's flabbergasted silence. "So..sorry, I'll go now..."

He mumbles to himself anxiously, wriggling his hands together instead of meeting Katsuki's insistent glare. When he makes a move to stand up and run away, Katsuki's brain goes 'fuck no'.

"You stay right there," he says as he grabs Green Orange's hand. He ignores how his hand burns at the contact. "We're going to play Mafia."

Mafia is a game Katsuki usually plays by his lonesome. It involves creating fake bombs and placing them to strategic places in order to kill as many enemies as possible at once. The first time he explained the Mafia game, his parents freaked out. So he stopped talking about it and just...kept going in secret. Mafia makes Wildfire quit with the inner teething for about one hour, a rare commodity for Katsuki.

Plus, it's fun like no others playpretends are. Children are so incredibly boring, he can't believe he's theoretically one of them.

But Green Orange? He looks kind of brighter than the rest. Maybe he'll get Mafia.

"Uh?" Green Orange blinks before beaming gleefully. "Okay!"

Somewhere within Katsuki, Wildfire goes batshit insane. Fireworks of manic elation sparkle behind his eyelids for about three days straight.

.

.

Green Orange's name is Midoriya Izuku. For about a year, Midoriya Izuku is the best thing that ever happened to Katsuki.

First of all, he's smart, in his own nerdy kind of way. So smart in fact he can keep up with Katsuki, when no one else can. He's got those twinkles of pure brilliance twirling in his green-orange eyes whenever he figures out something or spawns up a new concept, which is a lot. Izuku's brain is a beautiful, although frankly insane engine that just never stops rolling. By the end of the week, Katsuki is getting high on the sparkles like, all the time.

And that's cool enough on its own but you know what's even cooler? Wildfire not tugging on his nerves on a 24/7 basis. When Izuku is around, it stops screaming, rumbles with happy bubbles instead and it's wonderful, for everyone involved. For his entourage, as permanent fury isn't apparently suitable for healthy social interactions. For Katsuki, because not living on the edge of losing his shit is surprisingly pleasant. And for Izuku, who reciprocates his borderline obsession with unlimited enthusiasm.

It's a win-win transaction for all parties, and though bemused at the discrepancy between their characters, their parents encourage their friendship wholeheartedly. Especially Katsuki's, who he knows seriously considered kidnapping what they called 'Kacchan catnip' at some point.

Everything is bright, at the time. Katsuki and Izuku would be best friends forever, and when they grow up, they're going to fucking rule the world.

And then, as everything is perfect in his life for once, Izuku backstabs their dreams.

Katsuki's Quirk erupts in the form of shards of explosions carving their way out of his very own skin, because of course it does. Wildfire wouldn't have settled for anything else, that storming wanker. One by one, all kids of their group age get their own lame 'power' while Izuku's remains hidden. Katsuki defends him against all their classmates laughing at his failure. Obviously Izuku has a Quirk somewhere, waiting to burst out. He's Katsuki's best friend and they are going to become kickass pro-Heros. Kickass pro-Heros, or any pro-heros really have cool powers, so Izuku ought to as well.

It takes one asshole in a white coat pulling out the word 'extra-joint', and all his carefully cultivated hopes crumble to the ground. Katsuki never felt more betrayed in his whole life. Izuku is supposed to be Katsuki's equal, not some random loser.

(He is supposed to be Katsuki's star. What a riot, he can't even shine for himself. How is he meant to do anything for Katsuki that way, ha?)

The news hit Katsuki truly hard. It takes him a while to recover from the blow, but he eventually does, after a few weeks of raging, storming and sulking. So yeah, okay, Izuku can't become a pro-hero, however Katsuki still can. It's not the end of the world. Izuku will support him for the sideline and help him build his badass equipment and it's not that bad of a deal after all as he won't have to worry about his emotionally sensitive friend running to his death recklessly.

Yeah, definitely, it's better that way. The more he thinks about it, the more he's warming up to the idea.

Except Izuku? Fucking, useless Izuku just refuses to accept Katsuki's kindness. He persists in affirming he will become a hero anyway, plus ultra right Kacchan? As if he has a snowball chance in hell against real villains. As if he isn't going to get himself killed at the first fight.

No. No. What the fuck.

(Blood on your cheeks. An undying flame flickering away. A tired smile and weakening hand ruffling your hair. 'You did your best Hayato'. If you had he'd be alive.

You wait by the coffin for despair to take you away)

Katsuki tries to make Izuku understand, he really does. He tries common sense. Izuku ignores common sense. He tries persuasion. Izuku cries but keeps on persisting in the errors of his ways. He tries guilt, which always works with his dorkish heart. The stubborn dickhead simply won't see the truth. It's a bit hypocritical coming from Katsuki, who can't give up on anything even if his life depends on it, but the situation is different. It's okay to spend your whole life fighting if you have the right tools for that, and Izuku, with his noodle arms, anxiousness and quirklessness just doesn't.

The tension grows and grows underneath his skin until he completely loses his shit. As previously stated, Katsuki is only equipped with short emotional fuses. Very short emotional fuses. It's only a question of time before he snaps and outright attempts to beat the bullshit out of Izuku, for his own good.

It starts with insults, as Katsuki is getting more and more annoyed. Then it dwells in the troubled waters of physically aggressive territories. He pushes him around a bit, at first. Nothing really mean, just so the nerd finally gets he doesn't belong in the same league than people like Katsuki. Izuku cries and pleads, but still won't back off with his suicidal nonsense.

So Katsuki pushes his convincing campaign to the next level. He tugs and shoves and bites and hits.

Izuku doesn't break. Wildfire screams. Katsuki learns to loathe again.

(He burns he burns he burns. Wildfire sets him on fire again and again, acid in his veins, dynamite throbbing behind his temples. What can't the useless wanker understand Katsuki is trying to save its precious Green Orange?)

After a while, Katsuki loses himself to the red. He doesn't come out of it for ten years.

.

.

At some point, Katsuki forgets what he was even trying to achieve in the first place.

Every time he sees Izuku, either mumbling apologies or standing up for losers when he still has no strength to backup his disregard for personal safety, Wildfire tugs on his heartstrings, whining pathetically for its Green Orange like a needy bitch. Every time the nerd calls him Kacchan with his disgustingly eager voice, he's filled with the bitterness of betrayal and aches for better days. He invents Deku as a poorly-thought defense mechanism, so that Izuku will finally gets the damn message and fuck off.

Deku cries the first time Katsuki snarls the insult at him. The second and third too. He doesn't fuck off. He keeps on trying to reach out for a friendship that is long dead, and it pisses Katsuki off. He never stops calling him Kacchan even when they're clearly not on friendly terms anymore. In retaliation Katsuki hangs on to the diminutive name Deku like a rabid dog on its bone.

All in all, it's a pretty bad childhood for everyone involved. Katsuki goes through middle-school with stellar results thanks to sheer determination and given genius. Hard to study when you got a fire hazard stabbing at your guts whenever he's unhappy, which is basically all the time but Katsuki's stubborn like that. He even finds relative appeasement in chemistry. Biological components' interactions make more sense than people's, and he revels in both the predictability and unpredictability. Also, it gets Wildfire to blissfully shut the fuck up for a class, which is always a plus.

He gets some minions as well, who follow him around and call themselves his friend. It's one damned big lie, but one he cannot be bothered to clear up. Katsuki doesn't do the friendship thing anymore. He gave it a try once and look how that turned out.

Deku doesn't get any friends either, not by choice though. He keeps on mumbling on his lonesome, creeping out their dimwitted classmates, and the very few who are not disturbed by his utter nerdiness and hopeless quirklessness give up on approaching the social pariah when confronted to Katsuki's threatening glare.

(if Katsuki doesn't get to stay by Green Orange's side, then no one else will)

Debu stopped claiming he will become a hero out loud, but he hasn't forgotten about his foolish dream, Katsuki has no doubt. He spends all his free time writing frantically in those stupid notebooks of his, convinced Katsuki doesn't know about them.

Katsuki knows. He always does. It's fucking annoying, but after all these years, no matter how hard he tries to beat himself out of the habit, he still can't stop himself from watching Deku. When he forces himself to look away, there is still this light flickering at the corner of his eyes. Barely alive, struggling to keep glowing, but there.

So they grow up somehow, not together, but hovering in the same vicinity. Izuku slowly withers away in his loneliness. Meanwhile Katsuki thrives in his grades, in his social life, in his future, but he's still. So. Fucking. Angry. He rages. He steams. He explodes. He hates.

(He hurts, too)

He hates so much, in fact, that when he pours out his frustration on Deku, he doesn't feel guilty about it anymore. Not even a little.

He says " Shitty Deku. What don't you take a leap of faith off the rooftop and see if you get a Quirk in your next life?" and thinks nothing of it. This is just lashing out, Katsuki does it all the time. Wildfire will give him shit for that, but when doesn't he anyway.

He'll think about it later. He'll think about it a lot.

.

.

Deku hasn't been to class for three days. Eventually their deadbrained classmates take notice of this oddity. Katsuki himself has noticed since day one, obviously, but said nothing. It's not like he's worried or anything.

"Ah," their teacher blinks uselessly when asked about his student's whereabouts. "Midoriya had an accident. He's at the hospital, and won't be back among us for a while."

….

….

What.

Just. What.

It's not...Deku didn't...No. No. He wouldn't. He wouldn't. No matter what Katsuki says, he never gives up, so he can't have...No. This is some...weird coincidence. Yes. Exactly. Accident is not an euphemism for 'jumped of the roof because his childhood friend told him to'. Accident means accident. Deku must have been hit by a car or something when he wasn't paying attention, lost in his own fucking world as usual.

If he had really...Katsuki wouldn't be sitting here. There'd be a police investigation and shit. Or at least one public announcement. Okay Deku is a useless nuisance, but there'd be something.

He's freaking out for nothing. Deku is fine. If he wasn't, Katsuki would have known right? They have a fucking bond. He would know. He always knows whatever happens with Deku, whenever he wants to or not. Yeah, Deku is just fine. He bets he's just being fucking dandy in his hospital gown, annoying the shit out the staff by trying to figure out their quirk.

Katsuki is fine too. It's not his goddamned fault. It's not.

"Wha, really?" the girl who asked about Deku gasps. As if she gives a flying fuck about him. What a freaking joke, none of those wankers would piss on Deku if he was on fire. "What happened?"

Yeah, shitty teacher. Tell us what the fuck happened.

"Your concern is appreciated, but it's his private life," Shitty Teacher smiles weakly. "You'll have to ask him when he comes back. If he wishes to tell you."

There is a concert of disappointed protests following the vague statement. 'Not fair' one whines. 'We deserve to know' the other cries out. 'He's not going to die, right?' a girl fakes worry. 'Don't be silly," her friend laughs it off. 'It's just Deku'.

And Katsuki. Katsuki flips the fucking table.

Silence falls in the room, like everytime he lashes out. Except he is not. He's calm. He has never felt so calm in his entire life. Nothing can touch him. He is in another world now. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Dekudekudeku, cries out his brain. Izukuizukuizuku, replies his heart.

(tsunatsunatsuna, mourns his soul)

"I'm going home," he says tonelessly as he grabs his bag.

No one tries to stop him. He goes home.

(He doesn't. Another Katsuki goes back home. Another Katsuki stares aimlessly at the clouds drifting through the window of the train. Another Katsuki fumbles with his keys for ten minutes, his hands shaking so hard he can't get them to work. Another Katsuki runs to the bathroom, straight to the toilet and throws up, throws up until he manages to evacuate the disgust rotting his guts, for what feels like hours...

This Katsuki? This Katsuki isn't quite there anymore.)

.

.

He passes out on the bowl of his toilet. He thinks. He doesn't really know anymore.

This can't be a coincidence. Deku jumped from the rooftop and it's Katsuki's fault. He's not a hero, he will never become a hero, and he almost killed his only friend.

He wants to die.

The hit to his belly takes him completely by surprise. The blunt force of the kick sends him rolling in his floor. "What the fuck..."

"Tch. Now you want to die, dipshit," the raspy voice, unknown yet incomprehensibly familiar groans from above him. "Don't make me laugh."

He blinks up. A teen is scowling at Katsuki, towering over him with his hands tucked in the pockets of his ripped jeans. Silver strands fall over his foreign features, the leather boots he used to kick him in the gut shines ominous, and he looks down at Katsuki like he has never seen a dirtier scumbag in his entire life.

(He should get in line)

"Who the fuck are you?" Katsuki blurts out, but he knows, oh he knows.

He'd recognize that scent of smoke and the buzzling of cracking fire anywhere. Wildfire made man gives him another unimpressed glare for asking stupid questions. "Who do you think, genius?"

"You're not real," he gasps.

Wildfire is simply the name he gives to the fury coiled in the darkest corner of his mind. It's not supposed to be an actual person. Shit like that just doesn't happen.

How badly is Katsuki losing his shit exactly?

"I'm real enough," Wildfire shrugs, his eyes narrowing at the teen sprawled on the tile. "Real enough to kick your ugly butt, dipshit."

"Don't call me that, fucker," Katsuki grunts as he gets back on his feet. "I have a fucking name."

Wildfire smiles. It's an horrying thing, stretching cheek from cheek with the friendliness of a knife to the back. "Not very pleasant when people don't bother to use your name, is it, Kacchan?"

And that's the moment Katsuki snaps. Nitroglycerine gathers around his fingers as he lunges forward, a war cry rumbling in his throat and red pulsing under his eyelids.

Wildfire disappears with a smirk before Katsuki's fist can connect with his fucking smug face and he hits the door instead. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He screams frustratedly as fireworks explode all over his arm in retaliation.

.

.

Once upon a time, spite used to be Hayato's only reason to keep on living. He learned to fight out of spite, joined another famiglia than his father's out of spite, survived solely due to spite, rage and pure stubbornness. Then he met Sawada Tsunayoshi, and that changed...things. Suddenly Hayato had something else to hang on to blindly, and that something was devotion.

Devotion saved him out of the pit of despair, self-loathing and viciousness he had trapped himself in. Devotion made a worthy man out of the selfish brat Hayato used to be. Devotion took his against and turned it into for.

Devotion gave him a valuable reason to die for. And so die he did. It was a good death, as far as those went. Clean, fast, on the battlefield. Tenth hadn't been there to see it. Hopefully he hadn't found Hayato's body either.

(He had used enough explosives there shouldn't have been a body to find in the first place. Alright, clean might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly had been fast. Hayato went with a boom, the same way he lived)

His demise mostly happened the way he wanted it. Protecting the Tenth and his crazy (loved) family. So that Hayato never had to live in a world without Sawada Tsunayoshi in it.

Except Hayato didn't have the decency to stay dead. Oh no.

And his reincarnation or whatever? Had obviously no idea what devotion meant.

.

.

After two weeks, Deku comes back to school.

He comes back different.

It's not the shadows nested under his eyes, the briskness of his sighs or the wariness croaking out of his bones, although it's that too. It's not the telling note of attentiveness in his silences nor the gravity hidden behind green eyes either, because that's always been there. Katsuki can't put his finger on what is so different exactly, but the change makes his teeth grit with unease.

(Excitement, too)

Everyone look expectantly at Deku and him as the nerd shuffles at the back of the classroom. Waiting for either Katsuki to explode on the spot or Deku to lay down accusations.

The day after the announcement of Deku's 'accident' and Katsuki's dramatic exit, the story of how he had incited Deku to suicide had spread across the entire school. Whispers flourished whenever Katsuki appeared, reckless dickheads pointed at him from what they assumed was a safe distance. He ominously let out steams at the few fuckers who had the gut to ask him outright, without giving any sort of reply. Naturally, the two losers who had gossiped about him and Deku were dealt with properly.

Katsuki is used to have a wall between him and his peers. He prefers it like that, people are mostly infuriating in their short-sightedness and the less Katsuki actually has to deal with them, the better. Except what was a distance of respectful wariness turned into fearsome contempt. He can see their thirsty glances, waiting for their better to fall from his pedestal straight into their mud.

Fuck them. Fuck them all.

No one dares to ask Deku anything as he sits behind his untouched desk. He is silent as a tomb, distant as the stars on the sky, utterly unreachable. As if he finally moved on from their pettiness, from this unworthy world. From Katsuki.

And that? That is not acceptable. People doesn't move on from Katsuki, he moves on from them.

He decidedly ignores Deku, as Deku ignores him. He ignores the whispers of his classmates, ignores the shitty teacher barking out orders, ignores Fuckfire igniting his belly. He ignores his own guilt twisting his guts, ignores the self-hatred festering in the back of his mind.

But the stars bursting out of his memories? Those cannot be quite ignored, no matter how hard Katsuki tries.

.

.

Katsuki is four, and his sister makes sunflowers out of brightly-colored papers. He hangs those in the ceiling of his room, like a field of golden flowers spread over his bed.

Katsuki is five and his fingers roll over piano keys as if they have been born for that. The woman with silver hair smiles happily at him.

Katsuki is six and piano has been ruined forever for him. He cannot stand the sight of it anymore. The woman doesn't come back.

Katsuki is seven and his own sister makes him sick, all the time. There are no sunflowers in his room anymore.

Katsuki is eight and he understands the real meaning of betrayal. He thinks of the woman with silver hair and a sad smile. He runs.

Katsuki is nine, is ten, is eleven, is twelve, is thirteen. He learns about the taste of smoke in his lungs, about the comforting weight of dynamite between his fingers, about the beauty of explosions. He also learns of the rotten heart of humankind. He drifts away.

Katsuki is fourteen, and a boy with a wistful glow and orange eyes catches him.

Katsuki is twenty-five and stands by a coffin, and then he's fifteen again.

Katsuki is sixteen, is seventeen, is eighteen, is nineteen, is twenty. Warmth fills his hearth. He is tentatively, reluctantly happy.

And then he makes himself burn alive.

Katsuki is fifteen. He is angry, and red fire ignites his bed.

.

.

What needed to happen, happens. After a day of mutual ignorance, Katsuki explodes.

"The fuck did you piss off to for two weeks, Deku?" the vitriol burns his own lips as the question leaps out of his mouth.

Deku blinks up, indifferent, unafraid. Katsuki can't remember the last time Deku had looked at him without terror lurking beneath the green. Without hope shining out too. It's like Deku can't be bothered to give a flying fuck about Katsuki anymore.

He says tonelessly. "The hospital."

And then he walks away. Walks away.

Katsuki comes undone, a little bit, until he builds himself back up out of sheer spite. Once unravelled, red flames are easy to summon. Red is fury, red is fierceness, red is determination. Katsuki has plenty of those. Fuckfire can just fuck off. All of them can fuck off.

One way or another, he will make Deku pay attention to him again.