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The world was quiet.
There were no sirens.
No laughs or conversations to be heard.
In the still of the night, there was nothing to break the eerie calm that had settled with such suffocation amongst the streets and back alleyways.
Well, except Deku.
A few blocks away the patrols of heroes and police had gathered, their mission clear. The briefing left nothing to question... there were no longer any options.
At the signal they all disembarked their separate ways, Class 1-A's hearts beating too fast to be anything close to calm. Their last words to him, the things they should have done instead, or how they should have known... with each painstaking step they took, each of them fought the notions and guilt that threaten to escape as bile between clenched jaws.
Although they each carried their perceived sins in silent agony, one breathed it in and greeted it with much more familiarly.
Yes, Katsuki knew that pain, knew it far too well. He had dived too deep not to know the gnawing ache in his chest. Understood it far too intimately to be left with a mind that could still find a moment of joy. These were burdens he would bare and continue to endure, because in his gut he told himself these were the repercussions of a lifetime of selfishly inflicted atrocities. He cried in the early hours when he was certain they would not hear, and then proceed to put on a mask of the upmost indifference when faced with the tears they chose so openly shed. They didn't know what he did; they hadn't seen the soul crushing look of some that had gone beyond the point of breaking. No, they didn't know him like he did. And that was exactly why he needed to be the one.
Bakugou knew what that man had become, how could he not. He had made quite the reputation for himself in the year since he had left the coldness of his shadow and found solace in the dark. He was a puppeteer with ruthless and flawless plans, always executed twenty steps ahead of their wildest anticipations. He had versed himself in their strengths, their weaknesses.
Worst, he had studied them.
He comprehended their attack patterns better than they did, had honed in on every insecurity, and he knew exactly how to exploit the cracks in their inflated bravado. Even quirkless, he was more than able to bring them each to their knees in total submission.
A scream filled the air, piercing and cold.
Bakugou felt his heart stop, a disorienting feeling of falling as it tried to sync back into rhythm.
'No, not her,' he pleaded as he turned and ran toward the source of the cry.
He was praying to a Higher Power, he was begging himself to live up to the title of hero, anything in hopes of having her be okay. But somehow, he already had the answer to his fear.
He sped down the maze of alleys, his legs like lead and taking everything that he had to keep the forward momentum. The recent rain, nothing but puddles now collecting the dirt and grim of the city, dispersed beneath his boots as he ran ever closer. The failings and slip ups of the past played like some sick montage at the forefront of his mind; distracting and debilitating.
Don't think, just run, just breathe.
Just be in time.
Save her.
Save him.
When he turned the corner, he felt all the emotions and nerves come rushing up from the very pit of his stomach.
There, underneath the weight of his foot, was Ochako. Her face was swollen and bruised, blood trickling from the numerous cuts and impact points. Her chest was still and her arm was pinned back in a severely unnatural way. The remnants of tear formed steaks of red were painted across her pale cheeks. If she was unconscious or dead, he couldn't say for sure.
With raw hurt clouding his vision, his crimson eyes found bright green staring back at him.
"Oh! Hello there, Kacchan... lovely night, isn't it?"
This wasn't right, nothing about it made an ounce of sense. This wasn't the boy from his childhood, this wasn't the one who had spent hours obsessing over each and every hero hoping to become like them. The boy that wanted to save the world with a smile, the one who wanted to be seen and acknowledged just as much as his idol.
Well, he saw him now.
He saw the face that was once so pure and innocent covered in the blood of another. In her blood. His hands dripped with his crimson sin, his eyes wide and feral as he radiated danger.
"Deku...." Bakugou cried out softly, his voice shaky and uncharacteristic weak in his throat.
He ignored him, looking at the moon above them instead as of they were on a damn stroll through the park.
"Tell me, Kacchan," he asked wistfully, his eyes still on the sky, "did you ever cry for me?"
How did he even begin to answer such a question? He felt his heart breaking as the true meaning behind his words pierced him.
His gaze once more met his, a lazy turn of his head in his direction as he awaited a response. With a scoff and a terrifying grin he muttered, "who am I kidding, of course you didn't... no matter, I cried enough for the both of us."
The hot tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill over as he grieves the loss of the someone he once considered (but unfairly never treated) as a friend.
"Please... stop this, please, let her go..." he pleaded, grasping for some part of his humanity he could still appeal to.
"Who, her? Oh, she's already dead. See?" He said with the same innocence of a child, grinding his blood splattered dress-shoe into the side of her skull.
"STOP!" Bakugou screamed, horrified and even more guilt ridden than ever.
He was too late, he couldn't save her. His fault, all his fault. He was finding it harder and harder to breathe.
Deku looked up with a parted smile. He shrugged unperturbed at his actions, peeling off red stained leather gloves and dropping them carelessly across her battered face.
"Aw, when did you get so sentimental? I'd dare to say it's as if you care..." Deku snarled with that same unsettling smile plastered to his features.
"Izuku... I do ca-"
"SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up, shut up!!" He snapped, his aloof and deranged act replaced by an intense aggression, the likes of which Bakugou had never experienced from the green-haired boy.
Unhinged.
He left his indisposed prize laying on the ground, taking a few staggering steps toward the startled hero.
Deku was inches away now, grabbing onto the cross straps of Bakugou's costume and pulling him down to eye level.
For the first time, Bakugou was undeniably petrified.
"You're shaking, Kacchan. You, scared of little quirkless me? Please..."
The words sounded so hollow, sucked lifeless before they had even left his lips. More than that, there was that crazed look to those eyes that used to hold such compassion.
You looked like you needed saving.
Wasn't that the thing he had been told by Deku all that time ago when he had been at his most vulnerable?
Tears finally broke. He could see his friend so clearly now.
He didn't want saving, in fact, he was begging for the opposite.
"I-I won't do it...."
"Oh look at you, growing a conscious suddenly. Where's the guy that told me to take my life? Hmmm?" He baited and taunted, shoving him away in disgust. He turned, his focus skyward as he started incoherently mumbling to himself and pacing the blood splattered street.
Bakugou could still make out the shadowy outline of the figure on the ground. She deserved justice. Despite this though, he shook his head heavily, no longer concerned for the mission as he pleaded, "you have to run away... They're looking for you right now and they have got orders to shoot on sight. Lay low, just protect yourself."
"No, no, NO! This is NOT how this was supposed to happen! Why can't you just DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD?!" He bellowed, running back and sending a fist slamming full force against the Blond's jaw.
Bakugou blanched, the strike he received silencing him. He watched Deku shaking his hand out in discomfort, retracting the hero support weapon he had been wearing and readjusting it properly only after being wiped off of the freshly spilt crimson matted on it.
The sounds of people and thundering footsteps started to encroach on them.
Soon it would be too late.
"You have to listen to me-"
A chilling laugh erupted from the manic boy still unwilling to stand down in his pursuit of death. He became increasingly unpredictable, the calculated nature he normally embodied entirely lost as he barked, "do you have any idea of what you've done? Of what I've done?!"
He rounded again on him, promptly sending him face down with an elbow to the back of the head.
"Ahahaha- take a good long look, dearest Kacchan! THIS IS WHAT YOU CREATED! HOPE YOU'RE PROUD!"
Bang.
One shot, closely followed by another, and another, until it was the only thing echoing between the allway walls.
Soon there were numerous quirks in use and heroes and police alike rushing the scene.
When Bakugou eyes finally refocused, he could only take in the world between the flashing red and blue lights. The sounds were all muffled and the movements of everyone around him slowed substantially.
Behind the many rows of police caution tape he zeroed in on two crisp sheets laying on the ground, alternating in color in accordance of the nearby police cars.
From his spot of the stretcher, he turned to his right and hurled.
The pain and the years of suppression all came, and once he started he couldn't calm himself enough to stop.
Heroes kept coming up to him, trying to reassure him or tell him of the vital role he had played in the mission's success. He couldn't stand to listen to a word of it.
This hadn't been just some small time villain he couldn't care less about, he wasn't some nameless lowlife punk. He had been someone incredibly intelligent with larger-than-life aspiration. Someone that had always fought against the injustices in the world in a desire to be like the number one. Had been the one to go rushing into a river right after him to extend his hand ask if he was okay.
He wasn't okay, not this time.
"Izuku, I'm so sorry...."
Forgive me.
Please forgive me, my friend.