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Chapter one: fear itself
Katsuki’s POV
They were on a field trip to the UA support gear storage warehouse to do gear tests and training along side the support classes.
They’d only just begun their tour of the facilities when all hell broke loose.
A group of twenty or so villains surprise attacked them, charging at class 1A and their supervising teachers.
As the battle began Midnight focused on evacuating the support students while the hero course students sprung into action.
Katsuki was going hand to hand with one of the low level thugs, the bastard was actually pretty decent at dodging his explosions.
He swung in to strike the man across the face, hoping to let an explosion off by his ear to distract him before his next hit.
Instead the criminal ducked out of the way and as he moved he swiped his hand over Katsuki’s head and muttered something.
“Show me what you’re afraid of.” It sounded like.
Katsuki growled, spinning around, ready to strike again when suddenly the scene around him changed and he was standing in an alleyway.
Specifically the same alleyway he’d been attacked in by the sludge monster when he was in junior high.
“What the-“ he sneered looking around, he caught sight of a figure in the corner of his eye and turned to attack but had to hesitate.
It was Deku... only it wasn’t. He was smaller, skinnier, malnourished even. He had dark circles under his eyes and a splatter of blood across his face.
He was wearing what looked like a tattered version of their junior high uniform.
But the most jarring part of this image was that Deku was standing triumphantly over the lifeless body of All Might, his red sneaker stepping on the clearly dead hero’s head, pushing his face into the gutter.
“You seem so surprised Kacchan... don’t you understand? I’m only this strong because I took your advice.” The fake Deku smiled.
It wasn’t the warm, uplifting smile Katsuki had grown up trying to avoid. This wasn’t the same smile that had left butterflies in his stomach and clouds in his brain.
This Deku wore twisted grin. Something about the look in his eyes giving it sinister undertones.
Katsuki flexed his hands out aggressively. “What the fuck are you on about Deku?” He growled, ready to run forward and blow this piece of shit villain away.
Deku cocked his head to the side innocently. “I took your advice Kacchan. I killed myself.”
Katsuki’s breath caught in his throat, his blood running cold.
He remembered those words... the cruelest thing he’d ever allowed himself to say out of anger and out of spite. “Take a swan dive off the roof”
He’d regretted it immediately, he hadn’t meant it, he was just frustrated and let his hatred get the better of him.
He was thankful that Deku wasn’t a complete idiot and never seemed to take anything Katsuki snapped at him to heart.
But he watched as the person before him became the mistake he could have made.
The fake environment changed from the alleyway to the roof of their junior high.
The Deku imposter was standing on the building’s ledge, tears and snot running down his face as he sobbed.
Katsuki was frozen, eyes wide in fear. His hands had gone slack by his sides, the fight forgotten as his brain short circuited.
All he could think was ‘Deku is about to jump... this is what would’ve happened if he actually listened to me...’
“This all your fault Kacchan!” Deku sobbed out. “You wanted me to die!”
Katsuki was shaking, those words threatening to bring tears to his eyes.
“It’s not real! Fight back Bakugou!” Kirishima shouted from somewhere outside of the quirks illusionary field.
But Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to listen.
“I hate you!” Deku spat, teetering over the edge. “You wanted this! You’re evil! You wanted me dead!”
“N-no.” Katsuki strained, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes despite his best efforts to hold them back.
“It’s not real!” Deku, the real Deku’s voice, suddenly cut through the fog in his mind.
“It’s not real Kacchan you have to fight back!” He screamed from somewhere close by.
Katsuki brought his hands to his hair, shaking his head as he tried to think clearly.
For whatever reason, it was easy to focus on the real Deku’s voice, easy to ignore the fake Deku’s crying as he looked away and tried to focus past the fog in his mind to escape the illusion.
“Kacchan!” It was the fake Deku again, he’d taken a step backwards and was one foot away from falling of the edge.
Katsuki nearly lurched forwarder. Nearly tried to save him.
But he was so close to braking free now, he could hear his classmates fighting in the distance and his friends calling out to him.
“Come on dude! Get your head in the game man!” Kirishima shouted and Katuski blinked away the illusion.
The fake scene began to fade away and he could see shitty hair and Kaminari running over to him.
By the time they reached him the school roof had disappeared and they were back in the warehouse.
The battle was still going. His classmates had continued to fight the other villains while he was busy being tricked by some loser’s quirk.
Speaking of... Katsuki brought his attention back to the villain he’d been fighting.
A skinny man with long black hair and dark circles under his eyes. “Impossible! No one can break free from darkest fear!” The villain growled madly.
Katsuki’s upper lip twitched into a sneer. “Pathetic.” He huffed before propelling himself forward with his explosive force. “Die!”
-
Class 1A had almost completely bested these low ranking villains and once the pros showed up it was only too easy to round them up and another victory for the hero’s was secured.
The students were praised for their battle skills and quick thinking. There were almost no injuries, except for Midoriya of course, who managed to break both his arms during his fight.
The authorities arrived to arrest the criminals and the students were hanging around outside the warehouse. Receiving minor medical attention and giving their statements to the police and pros.
The villains had apparently come here to steal the UA support gear and sell it on the black market. They’d hoped that the hero’s guarding it would be to busy protecting the students that they wouldn’t pay attention to the stolen gear.
They hadn’t anticipated 1A being as competent as they were.
But the class had dealt with enough villains to hold their own in a fight at this point.
Katsuki was sitting on the street curb watching as the dark haired villain he’d fought was loaded into the back of a police truck with the other bad guys.
He was glaring at the ground when someone sat down beside him.
“I did some research on him.” Deku said gesturing to the dark haired villain.
“His villain name is Fear Itself, his quirk is called darkest fear. It’s an illusion based, projection quirk. If he touches a person he can then use a psychological attack that allows him to project that person fears out and force them to live through it.” Deku explained analytically.
Katsuki avoided eye context, hating himself for feeling so many things. The same feelings that always made his gut ache uncontrollably whenever Deku was around. He tried to focus on the feelings he could name, like irritation. That was easy given Deku had begun his usual rambling, hardly taking breaths between sentences.
He’d know what the implications of that quirk was. He’d know what he’d seen earlier had been his real and raw fears. But knowing didn’t make processing it any easier. He wasn’t in the mood for introspection. He wanted to break things.
“Kacchan...” Deku said wryly, making Katsuki tense up.
“I couldn’t really see what you saw, just a faded version of it... I mean obviously from what I could tell it’s like you were actually in this illusion like setting, which from my understanding means he’s able to trick your brain’s core functioning so you’ll think you’re actually there but he’s also actually projecting a visible hologram like version, because I could see some of the things he was forcing you to watch and-“ Deku’s rambling was cut off by Katsuki shooting him death glare.
“Get to the point nerd!” He snapped, his lip twitching into a trademark sneer.
Deku swallowed. “I saw... me.” He mumbled, his voice an odd mix of nervous, sad and oddly curious.
“Yeah? And?” Katsuki was on the defensive, trying to get Deku to back down and leave him alone.
But the stupid little twerp just kept pushing.
“Kacchan I heard the things that the fake me was saying to you...” he said slowly.
Katsuki jumped up to his feat. “So?” He growled. “You think I care? You think I give a damn about you and that stupid villain’s quirk? I don’t! I don’t give a fuck about you Deku!” He shouted before stomping to his feet and storming off.
Some of the others were starring at him, curious as the why he’d just snapped at Midoriya.
Most of his classmates were used to this behaviour but the police were startled by his outburst.
But he didn’t care, he just wanted to go home and sleep away the twisted feeling in his gut.