Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The warp gate worked. Katsuki didn’t know where it was supposed to take them, but if Deku said it worked, then it worked. They had all appeared in a shadowy alleyway in the outskirts of a city. Deku was excited, as he was with all of his stunts, while the others in the group were just confused. Deku had yet to say where they were going, but Katsuki had a feeling he would find out soon.

Very soon if Denki’s questioning got anywhere.

“What are we do-do-doing today, Dek-Deku?” Denki twitched and jumped around excitedly, knocking his hood off of his head. 

Deku smiled at Denki-but his smiles were always too sweet, like the frosting on a grocery store birthday cake-and pulled his hood back up. “You’ll see. You’ll love it. I promise.”

Deku promised a lot of things.

Deku patted the scars on Denki’s cheek. “Put your mask on. We have to get going.”

Deku, Deku, Deku.

I’m starting to sound like Sparky.

Maybe I’m going just as crazy.

~~~~~

Deku led the pack through the city, like he always did. He wanted Katsuki on his right and Shouto on his left for protection, so that is where they always stood. The rest of the group were in their regular spots, as well. Tenya, Ochaco, and Hitoshi stayed in the back to act as watchmen. 

They could make a break for it, if they wanted.  

But they had lost their sense of choice long ago.

Just like me.

In the middle of the group were who Katsuki liked to call “the little crazies”; they were insane, just like Deku, but nowhere near as powerful. Which was ironic, because Deku was quirkless.

Quirkless! Quirkless! Quirkless!

Katsuki shook his head to clear it.

The little crazies consisted of Denki and Eijirou, who had both lost their minds one way or another. They were strong, sure, but they had to get refocused every twenty seconds, and therefore couldn’t be trusted to do much.

I wonder if the voices in his head are being spread to me like some kind of STD.

Oh, and Katsuki was dating one of them. Kind of. It was more of a one way relationship. Eijirou felt a hell of a lot for Katsuki. Katsuki couldn’t feel anything, anymore.

Besides, it was hard to have a relationship when no less than three people could be alone together. Except for Deku and Shouto. Deku could be alone with whoever he wanted.

Blood. So much blood.

The little crazies and the betas in the back were actually pretty good people deep down. Katsuki couldn’t fathom why they would be so willing to follow three sociopathic murderers like a bunch of ducklings.

Usually, when they went through a city, they went through the alleys under the cover of a dark night. Now, however, it was the middle of the day, and they travelled on the sidewalk along with the business workers going for lunch. Deku and his entourage looked like a gang, Katsuki thought. They basically were. A group of teens in dark clothes stalking prey like a pack of wolves.

Katsuki wasn’t sure why Deku was so sure that they wouldn’t be stopped by the police or a hero. They were pretty recognizable, even in their concealing clothes. 

And yet, the most attention they got was a few weird looks. Katsuki glanced at Deku suspiciously. Deku was smiling, like always. 

What the hell did you do?

~~~~~

They found out where they were going only a few minutes later, when they all stood right across the street from the school’s front fence.

Katsuki wanted to throw up.

In all this time, all these months, Deku had him kill heroes, civilians, men, women, and children. Deku had tortured him in every possible way, but he had never, never brought Katsuki here.

And now, here they were, standing in front of U.A. high school.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK.

“We’re here!” Deku’s jazz hands went unnoticed. Even the little crazies were silent. This school was how it all started.

This school was what changed them all.

Katsuki figured this was just another bout of torture. Deku was just bored, again. Maybe Katsuki had fucked something up and disobeyed without realizing it. What did I do? What the FUCK did I do? 

Katsuki’s eyes darted around, trying to find the trap, but Deku was already setting his plan into motion. Denki was sent to the nearest electrical tower to shut it down. Katsuki watched the lights in the building flicker and turn off. Tenya rushed Denki back just in time for Deku to lead the group to the side of the building. They all went over the fence and darted between hiding spots until they could see a class of students training in a field. They must have been in the hero course if their use of quirks was any indication and what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?

If that wasn’t Shouto’s quirk that made that wall of ice, Katsuki didn’t know what it was. Actually, if that wasn’t Shouto himself in a hero costume…

Katsuki’s head snapped to face Deku, who was smiling even wider than before. 

“DIE!” Katsuki turned back to the class when he heard a familiar voice and a familiar explosion. His eyes caught on a familiar puff of blonde hair. 

I designed that costume. That’s my fucking costume. 

“That’s me,” Katsuki whispered. He took a closer look at the rest of the class. They were all there. Ochaco and Eijirou and Tenya and- fuck, fuck, fuck -Deku. “That’s us.”

Deku giggled. “Congratulations.”

“What did you do?” Katsuki hissed. “ What did you do? ”

Deku shrugged. “I opened a warp gate, is all.”

“Where the hell are we?”

“Ever heard of the multiverse theory?”

Katsuki’s eyes widened.

Shouto interrupted before Katsuki could fully panic. “Izuku, we may have a problem.”

That they did. Because Denki had caught sight of the hero version of himself and ran out of the hiding spot to meet him.

Katsuki let out a strangled “Shit” while Deku just sighed.

“Should I stop him?” Shouto asked.

Deku shook his head. “Let’s see how they react.”

Long story short, the heroes did not react well.

Short story long, the class appeared to be in a free for all battle, with quirks firing off all over the place, and Denki sprinted right into the fire. His heroic counterpart shot a disk through the air, then pointed at it. That was when Denki decided to jump in front of the other him and shout, “Hi!”

The other Denki screamed and shot off a bolt of electricity right through the Denki that Katsuki knew. So Katsuki knew what would happen next.

Denki flailed and convulsed as if he didn’t have an electricity quirk. His eyes rolled back in his head just before he fell to the ground. He looked dead.

The heroes had stopped fighting to silently stare at the crumpled mass of a person in front of them. 

A girl with pink hair was the first to speak up. “Kaminari? What just…”

Kaminari’s hands shot up to grip his hair in panic. “Holy shit. Oh, my…. Holy shit.”

A teacher ran over- Eraserhead , Katsuki offhandedly thought-along with the rest of the students. “What happened?” Eraserhead asked.

Kaminari shook his head in a panic. “I...I don’t know. I was waiting for someone to get in the range of my sharpshooter, and then this person just jumped in front of me. I got scared and set my quirk off. It wasn’t even that high of a voltage…”

“Okay. Everyone back up. Let me see what I can do.” Eraserhead knelt in front of Denki and rolled him over. And then the teacher froze. “Holy…”

Kaminari’s eyes widened more. “Did I...Are they...Oh, no. No, no, no.” He shook his head frantically. 

“I don’t…” Eraserhead stood up and out of the way. Denki’s hood had fallen off during his convulsions and Eraserhead had pulled off his mask to check his breathing. Therefore, Denki’s face was completely bare for the heroics class to see, fractalling electrical scars and all. 

Kaminari’s panicking stopped short when he saw his own face laying in front of him. “What the fuck?” Kaminari muttered. Then he shouted, “ What the fuck? ” The class exploded with the sound of confused wonderings as to what was going on and why another Kaminari was there and seemingly dead on the ground.

Except he wasn’t. 

“Alright,” Deku muttered, “time to go.” He snapped his thumb and middle finger, and Denki’s body jolted. The crowd of heroes scurried back while Denki’s chest, head, and limbs jerked around wildly. After a minute of that, Denki’s body calmed again.

“What was-” One of the students interrupted themselves with a scream when Denki slowly sat up, his head flopped to the side. Denki rolled out his joints and met his other self’s eyes.

“That was fun,” Denki giggled. “Let’s do-o-o it again.” He suddenly stood and reached for Kaminari. Before he could make contact, however, Denki’s arms were yanked backwards by Eraserhead’s capture weapon. Denki pouted as he was pulled to his knees and his quirk was erased by the hero. “Ru-u-ude.”

“Kids, get inside,” Eraserhead said. “I’m taking Kam-whoever this is to the police and then-”

“I would be careful with him if I were you.” Katsuki sucked in a breath when Deku stepped out from the hiding spot then to speak. Eraserhead and the students all turned to face Deku with defensive stances. Deku just smiled from under his mask and continued, “If he gets jostled around too much, he could kill all your students in just a few seconds.” 

Eraserhead glanced at Denki, but quickly put his guard back up to talk to Deku. “Who are you?”

Deku cocked his head like a confused puppy. “What do you mean? Don’t you recognize me?”

Eraserhead blinked and narrowed his eyes, immediately activating his quirk again. “You haven’t hit the news, yet. Sorry.”

Deku chuckled. He pulled off his hood and mask, revealing his green hair and freckles. “Are you sure you don’t recognize me?” The air grew thick with tension. 

“...Midoriya?”

“Ding, ding, ding.”

Eraserhead blinked again. “What the hell is going on?”

“Well, let’s just assume for a moment that the multiverse theory is true, and that some versions of your students don’t like the idea of heroism anymore.”

“And you are one of them?”

Deku nodded. “Would you like to see the others?” Deku did not wait for an answer. He gestured for his lackeys to come out of hiding, and Shouto led the way. Katsuki held onto Eijirou while the betas followed behind. They all stood behind Deku and took off their hoods and masks. The heroes in front of them all gasped when they saw which of them had become villains in another life. Katsuki kept his head down, not wanting to see his other self swearing at him and calling him an idiot. He already did that to himself more than enough.

Eraserhead’s eyes darted around in a moment of panic. He looked at Katsuki longer than the others, but seemed to force himself to look at Deku again. “I don’t believe you.”

“And why is that?” Deku asked. 

“Because I know these kids. I know they want to be anything but villains.” 

Deku’s constant smile faltered, but returned when he saw Eraserhead glance to the side. Deku raised an eyebrow and huffed out a laugh. “You’re stalling.” 

Eraserhead blinked. Just as he did so, a piercing scream rang out that made Katsuki and a few others wince. Deku just kept smiling as he looked over at Present Mic and a few other teachers.

“Oh, hello.” Deku waved at the pro heroes. “I don’t remember inviting you.”

Before he knew it, Katsuki and his group were all tied up in Eraserhead’s capture weapon. “This isn’t a party,” Eraserhead said.

Katsuki watched Shouto struggle against the restraints next to him. He expected to see Deku doing the same, but Deku just stood there. For whatever reason, there was no attempt to escape. Instead, Deku let them all get dragged away, smiling all the while.

Chapter Text

That night found Katsuki locked in a cell. Several investigators filtered in and out for hours, interrogating him and the others, but getting nowhere. They all knew not to say a word unless Deku said so. Katsuki assumed that everyone was doing what they usually did in these situations: Hitoshi and Ochaco were probably giving the detectives snappy retorts; Shouto was probably trying to attack; Denki and Eijirou were probably giving random responses that most couldn’t decipher; Tenya and Katsuki stayed completely silent; Deku could be doing anything at all. 

Quirk-neutralizing handcuffs had been put on all of them. The cells they were in had three full walls and one glass one, allowing police to watch them at a safe distance. Katsuki couldn’t see who was in the cells next to him, but he guessed that Eijirou was in one of them, if the scratching on the wall was any indication. Hitoshi was across from him, staring him down; Katsuki never met his eyes. 

They were fed multiple times, but Katsuki could only stomach a couple of bites. He didn’t sleep, only laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling until the lights turned back on. 

Life was like this for almost a week. The detectives gave up trying to interrogate him after the third day. Katsuki barely moved from his spot on the floor. Occasionally, Eraserhead stopped by to talk to the cops. He also paused to look at all of the newest inmates. Katsuki tried his best to avoid the hero’s gaze.

Katsuki spent most of his time thinking. This usually was not a good thing, Katsuki being alone with his thoughts, but he didn’t have a choice.

Never had a choice.

Thankfully, most of Katsuki’s thoughts were taken up by one question: What was Deku planning? Every other time they had gotten arrested, they had gotten out within 48 hours. Yet, Deku hadn’t given any word that they were to attempt to escape. When Deku took longer than usual to do something, it usually meant he was planning something really, really bad. 

Katsuki glanced at the guards outside. He feared for their lives.

~~~~~

“Kacchan….”

Goddammit.

“Why did you do it, Kacchan?”

“I-”

“Why did you have to kill me, Kacchan?”

“I didn’t-”

“YOU KILLED ME!” Deku suddenly appeared in front of Katsuki, brandishing a knife. Katsuki struggled to hold Deku back by his forearms. 

“Deku-”

“NO! No. You listen to me. I will get my revenge. I will destroy you.” The knife inched closer and closer to Katsuki’s throat.

“Deku, please!”

But it was too late. The knife sliced through Katsuki’s skin-

Katsuki woke up to a knocking on the glass wall. He didn’t recall falling asleep, but that kind of thing doesn’t matter in a maximum security cell. All Katsuki knew was that it was the middle of the day, and that Eraserhead was trying to talk to him.

“I’m interrogating you myself, today,” Eraserhead said, sounding like he was being forced to do so. “Get up. Let’s go.” Eraserhead tapped the panel outside the cell, causing an opening to appear in the glass. 

This confused Katsuki, as the cops usually interrogated him in the cell. Still, he stood and made his way through the opening, keeping his head down the whole time. Eraserhead led him down the hall, giving Katsuki a look at his associates. Eijirou was, in fact, in the next cell, leaning against the concrete wall, and Tenya was on Katsuki’s other side. Past Eijirou was Ochaco and Shouto; Ochaco was pacing and Shouto was sitting on the bed, staring at the wall across from him. When Katsuki passed by, Shouto gave him a murderous look that sent a shiver down his spine and made him walk faster.

Eraserhead brought Katsuki to a small room. In the center was a metal table with a metal chair on either side. There were cameras in each corner, and the mirror on the wall was clearly one-way. Katsuki couldn’t tell if someone was watching him from the other side, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

“Alright,” Eraserhead sighed as they sat down, “I’ll tell you what I already know, and you can tell me if I’m right or not. Ready?”

Katsuki didn’t respond. 

“Okay. I have been told that your leader is Midoriya, who is asking to be called Deku. Is this true?”

Katsuki nodded.

“And you are called Katsuki?”

Katsuki nodded again. 

“Great. Makes my life easier. Now, why are you here?”

Katsuki shrugged. 

“You don’t know?”

Katsuki shook his head.

“How do you not know? I’ve been told you are one of Deku’s right hand men, so to say.”

Katsuki shook his head again. “Shouto is his right hand man. I’m his pet.”

Eraserhead looked surprised that Katsuki answered at all. “His pet?”

“He…” Katsuki quickly looked around and whispered, “Can he hear me?” 

“Deku? No, not at all.”

Katsuki’s shoulders dropped slightly. “He only keeps me around to torture me.”

“Why?”

Why did you do it, Kacchan?

Katsuki shivered and frantically shook his head. 

“Okay, we’ll skip that. Is there anything we should be careful of? Anyone in particular?”

“Deku, Shouto, and Hitoshi,” Katsuki answered quickly. 

“Why?”

“They’ve lost all sense of remorse and humanity. They think murder is fun and they’ll do it to anyone whenever.”

Eraserhead tapped his fingers on the table. “How come you haven’t said a word during any of your other questionings, but you’re talking to me?”

Katsuki pursed his lips. “Because you’re the only hero Deku doesn’t want to kill.”

Eraserhead raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

“There’s not much to explain. His main goal is to get rid of every hero he thinks is fake. You’re pretty much the only one he’s never considered getting rid of. He’s actually talked kind of highly of you.”

Eraserhead’s lips formed a thin line. “I…don’t know how to feel about that.”

“You should be happy. You get to survive when shit hits the fan.”

“Right. So you’re only talking to me because Mi-Deku seems to like me. Does that mean that if I talk to him, he’ll tell me his plans?”

“Maybe, maybe not. And even if you knew every detail of whatever he’s planning, you probably won’t be able to stop it. He always has a bunch of backup plans, anyway. And if the switches still work…”

“The switches? What are the switches?”

Katsuki suddenly felt another set of eyes on him. He stared at the glass behind Eraserhead, desperate to figure out who was there. Eraserhead shifted to be in Katsuki’s line of sight, again. 

“Ba-Katsuki?” Eraserhead asked. “Is there a problem?” 

Katsuki swallowed dryly. “Deku is watching.”

“Katsuki, I can assure you that Deku is not able to hear or see you. He doesn’t even know that you’re talking to me right now.”

Kacchan …

Katsuki rocketed to his feet, heart pounding out of his chest. His eyes darted around as he backed into the corner, knocking over his chair in the process.

Eraserhead stood and cautiously stepped towards Katsuki, asking what was wrong. Katsuki didn’t have an answer.

I’ve said too much. He’s going to tear me to shreds. He’s going to make me kill everyone on my own. Fuck.

“Fuck,” Katsuki sobbed. He gripped fistfuls of his own hair and pulled.

Eraserhead grabbed Katsuki’s shoulders, but Katsuki refused to look at him. “Alright, the interview is over. I’m taking you back to your cell.” Eraserhead pulled Katsuki out of the room by his arm.

“I’m sorry,” Katsuki whimpered to the Deku in his mind. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Katsuki didn’t even realize when he got put back in his cell. His panic attack kept him from realizing it until he was given the last meal of the day. Even then, the residual fear that came afterwards kept him from sleeping all night.

Chapter Text

Another several days went by with Deku still not making anything happen. Katsuki was more on edge everyday, wondering when their grand escape would be; who they would kill. 

The better question is who we’ll keep alive.  

Eijirou scratched at the wall less often, now. He had figured out that he could still talk to Katsuki if he shouted through the glass. Ever since, Eijirou hadn’t stopped talking for more than a minute. Even while eating he was talking, causing himself to choke on his food, not that he ever noticed. Katsuki just leaned against the glass and let Eijirou’s ramblings turn into white noise in his brain.

Eraserhead returned to interrogate Katsuki two more times, but Katsuki said nothing new, so the meetings stopped. Eraserhead never interviewed anyone else, as far as Katsuki could tell, at least not successfully. Katsuki was sure that he had tried to talk to Deku at some point but nothing had come from it.

Katsuki was actually getting pretty used to being in his cell. The longest he had ever spent in one of these was a couple of days. Almost two weeks was pretty concerning. 

At least the guards and cops were being somewhat nice to them. Only because they didn’t know what the group had done or could do, no doubt. If they did, Katsuki was sure they would be torturing him and his comrades. 

As they should.

The next time a guard walked past his cell, Katsuki silently begged them for the torture. For an easy way out.

~~~~~

The one time Katsuki went to bed at a somewhat normal time, he was woken up in the middle of the night by faint footsteps and whispers.

“We can’t be here.”

“Why did you come, then?”

“To keep you idiots out of trouble. Clearly it’s not working.”

“I promise we won’t get caught. All the guards are asleep.”

“And how did that happen?”

“We don’t need to talk about that.”

Katsuki recognized the voices, of course. One of them was the other Denki-Kaminari, he had been called.

And I should hope I haven’t lost enough of my mind that I can’t recognize myself.

There was a third set of footsteps that Katsuki couldn’t place, and the sounds were getting closer. Katsuki wasn’t sure if anyone else was awake, but if anyone was, the students didn’t seem all that perturbed.

“I just want to see myself again,” Kaminari said quietly.

“You could’ve just looked in the mirror,” the other Bakugou replied.

“You know that’s not what I mean. He was so weird.”

“He was fucking insane. And so are you for deciding to come here. They’re fucking villains. They could have shapeshifting quirks or something just to get in your head.”

“You don’t know that. They could just be...us.”

“That’s worse.”

“Bakugou’s right,” a third voice said meekly. Katsuki immediately recognized him as the other Eijirou. No, not Eijirou; Kirishima. “We really shouldn’t be here.”

They were much closer, now, and not very quiet. Eijirou was scratching the wall, again, the noise moving from the back of the cell to the front. 

“Kat,” Eijirou loudly whispered, “did you say something?” 

Katsuki went to sit against the glass and responded, “No. Go back to sleep.”

“But I hear people.”

“It’s in your head, Ei. You know that.”

“But-”

“Just don’t answer them. You know they’ll just make you do things you don’t like, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then ignore them and go back to sleep.”

“Okay.”

A moment after Eijirou went quiet, the group of students found him.

“Kirishima, I think that’s you,” Kaminari said. His friend just hummed. Kaminari tapped on the glass and called out to Eijirou. “Hey. Hey, are you Kirishima? Hey, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

“Oi, it’s not a fucking zoo,” Bakugou growled. “Stop trying to instigate a fight.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I know when to start a fight. You’re just stupid.”

The two continued to bicker while the third stepped away. Katsuki watched Kirishima come into view and walk around a bit. He peered into Hitoshi’s cell, then turned around and met Katsuki’s eyes. They stared at each other for a minute, Kirishima looking slightly panicked, and Katsuki pretending not to be relieved to see an Eijirou that didn’t look out of his mind. 

“Bakugou.” Kirishima’s voice was barely audible through the glass.

“What?” Bakugou stepped over and followed Kirishima’s eyes. He snarled when he saw himself in a prison cell. Katsuki turned his head away. “Yeah, look away, bitch. Don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking doing villain shit.” Bakugou kicked the glass.

“Bakugou, stop,” Kaminari hissed.

“Oh, so it’s only a problem when I do it?”

“The concept of you as a villain is scarier than Kirishima as one.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Uh, I can assure you-”

“No. I know myself. The only reason I would be a shitty villain is if someone forced me to.”

“But it’s impossible to get you to do anything.”

“Exactly. Which means this Bakugou isn’t like me. This Bakugou is a weak, cowardly little bitch.” There was another kick to the glass, then Bakugou must have knelt down, because his voice was closer. “You hear me you piece of shit? You’re a weak bitch.”

You think I didn’t already know that?

Bakugou stood back up. “Probably weaker than fucking Deku.” He took a step away.

“I’m sure you’re weaker than him, too,” Katsuki muttered.

His counterpart stopped and slowly turned around. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t know what your Deku is like, but mine can and will kill you in a heartbeat.”

“As if. Deku wouldn’t kill me even if he wanted to.”

“You know what? You’re right. He’d rather keep you tied to a table for eight days straight, stab you once for every hour you’re there, then stitch up the wounds like a back alley surgeon so you stay alive for the rest of the torture.”

Katsuki got no response for a solid minute. The students’ expressions were full of shock.

Finally, Kaminari gingerly asked, “Did...did that happen?”

Katsuki lifted the front of his shirt, revealing a myriad of scars, all with varying causes. The skin on his torso-his entire body, really-was practically more scar tissue than anything else. He pointed at a few bigger scars and said, “That’s what these are from.” Katsuki covered back up before he could be asked about any of the other injuries he had previously received. “Deku doesn’t mess around.” Katsuki met his own eyes. “Especially not with me.” The muscles in Bakugou’s face twitched oddly. 

“Why would he do something like that?” Kirishima asked.

Katsuki never looked away from Bakugou. “Revenge.”

“For what?”

Katsuki got up and stood in front of Bakugou to talk to him directly. “I have a feeling we aren’t as different as you think we are.”

Bakugou scoffed, pretending not to be concerned. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. At least we were. When it comes to us and Deku, there’s only one thing that’s different between our worlds. At least as far as I can tell.”

Bakugou stepped closer to the glass. “And what’s that?”

“In my world, Deku jumped.”

The air became tense. Bakugou’s eyes widened as he took a small step back.

“What does that mean?” Kaminari whispered.

“Nothing,” Bakugou quickly said. “We’re leaving.”

“Why are you acting like you know? What is he talking about?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Yes, nothing.” Katsuki laughed a bit. This felt like every other conversation he had had with himself. “Bullying someone for a decade is nothing. Hurting him nearly everyday is nothing. Telling him to take a swan dive off the roof? Nothing at all. At least, it’s nothing to you, right? You aren’t affected at all until something actually happens to him and you start getting treated like the villain you are.” Katsuki didn’t realize that his voice had been raising. He forced it back down. “But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you really don’t care about that.”

They were all silent for a while again. 

“We have to leave.” There was no more bite in Bakugou’s voice. He grabbed Kirishima’s arm, but the redhead pulled away.

“Did you do all that to Midoriya?” Kirishima asked quietly.

“You’re really going to believe what a fucking villain says?”

“That’s why I’m asking you. Did you do that?” 

Bakugou’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he struggled to come up with an answer. He never gave one.

“Are you kidding me?” Kirishima ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I didn’t think you were fucking serious when you told everyone to die.”

“I’m not,” Bakugou spat out, sounding like it hurt to say it.

“I don’t know if I believe that.”

“I don’t,” Kaminari said.

“You-I-”

“No. You know what? You’re right. We need to leave.” Kirishima went to grab Bakugou’s arm this time, but was interrupted by a capture weapon wrapping tightly around the three of them. 

Eraserhead came down the hall, glaring at his students. “You do need to leave. You shouldn’t be here. Two weeks detention for all of you. Present Mic is outside waiting to take you back.” Eraserhead let the kids go, and they all walked away with their heads down.

Katsuki sat back down. “You were there the whole time, weren’t you?”

“Most of the time,” Eraserhead said. He looked at Katsuki closely. “I think I know what our next meeting should be about.”

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Eraserhead sighed as he sat in front of Katsuki at the interrogation table. “You’re going to do most of the talking today. I hope.”

“We’ll see.” Katsuki leaned back in the chair and scratched at the edge of the table, keeping his eyes down.

“Yes, we’ll see. I honestly don’t expect you to talk about some of this, based on how you’ve reacted to things before.”

Katsuki raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“How comfortable are you with talking about your past? How you got to this point?”

I didn’t mean it. I swear I didn’t mean it.

Katsuki’s eyes flicked up to meet Eraserhead’s for a split second. “Not very.”

“Okay. What about the others?”

“What about them?”

“Why are they villains? Can you tell me that?”

“Depends on who you want to know about.”

“Well, I can tell you won’t talk about yourself or Deku, so how about, I don’t know...Iida?”

“Tenya.”

“Yeah. The Iida I know would never do anything even moderately against the rules. Won’t even run in the halls.”

“Tenya wouldn’t do that either.”

“Then why-”

“Killed a guy.”

Eraserhead’s head jolted back in shock. “He what?”

“Killed a guy. I think it was technically an accident.”

“Who?”

“Stain.”

“Tenya Iida killed the hero killer.” Eraserhead did not sound convinced.

“Yup.” Katsuki popped the “p”.

“Why?”

“Well,” Katsuki shifted in his seat, “Stain fucked up Tenya’s brother, so Tenya tracked the guy down to get revenge, killed him before he realized what he was doing, then decided he couldn’t go back to his old life. A lot of us feel like that. Did something so bad that the only thing we can do now is be a villain.”

Eraserhead took a deep breath. “That was...a lot to take in. But that was an accident, you said; at least in some regard. That can be looked past in a sense.”

“So what if it wasn’t an accident? Because for some of us it wasn’t.”

“Well, then, I don’t know.”

“You just don’t want to make me feel bad.”

Eraserhead shrugged. “Tell me about Ochaco.”

Katsuki noticed the subject change and knew why it had happened, but as long as he didn’t have to talk about himself, he didn’t care. “She’s one of the ones who didn’t do anything by accident. Her family was always in financial trouble and she was worried that heroics wouldn’t work out the way she wanted, so she started robbing places. Pretty damn good at it, too. But when her parents figured out the money wasn’t coming from a normal job, they got disappointed, so she ran off. Deku got her to join pretty much immediately. He got everyone to join pretty fast.”

“Good intentions,” Eraserhead observed.

“Sure. But someone could say that about Tenya or Shouto. Or you could say they just wanted to kill.”

“What did Shouto do? I want to know about everyone.”

“He...I don’t know how similar his life is here compared to how it was where we came from, but...his father was a dick. Real abusive. Made his mom crazy-”

“Yes,” Eraserhead sighed, “I am somewhat aware of these problems.”

“Right, well, if one person snaps, it’s not that surprising if another one does. Shouto had enough one day, killed the guy in his sleep with an icicle. His sister called the cops, but Deku broke him out within hours of hearing the news. He has a thing for killing parents, I guess, because they’re fuck buddies, now.”

“I don’t know if that’s very important.”

“It kind of is. Apparently, the part of his brain that snapped is the one that controlled his ability to stop thinking about something. He’s literally obsessed with Deku. He’ll go all in on anything he thinks Deku wants. Including hurting people, especially me. He thinks I’m just as much his pet as Deku's. He’s threatened to kill all of us as soon as Deku gives the word. Thinks he’s above everyone just because he kisses Deku’s ass so much.” Katsuki rolled his eyes. “If he hears me talking about him like this, I’m dead regardless of if Deku wants it or not.”

“He can’t. Don’t worry.”

Katsuki exhaled. “Hitoshi says that he always wanted to be a villain. He’s never said otherwise, but he never talks about his past, so I wouldn’t really know. Supposedly he’s committed a bunch of crimes before, but I’ve never heard of any of it. I think what actually happened was that people said he had a villainous quirk, so he figured they were right. Same thing happened to...” Katsuki ran a hand down his face. “And then there’s Denki and Eijirou. They...I don’t think they ever know what’s going on. Eijirou says he’s been hearing voices since a particularly bad bout of bullying in middle school. He thinks half the things he does are in his head. Says that he feels like he’s dreaming all the time. He doesn’t even know that he’s forced to kill, and when he finds out, he has a breakdown. He shouldn’t be here. Denki shouldn’t either. His brain has been on the fritz since he got himself struck by lightning a few times in a storm. Thought his quirk could handle it, but all it did was keep him alive. Didn’t do anything to keep him sane.”

After a moment of silence, Eraserhead asked, “Is that all?”

“Yes. Besides Deku and I, but…”

“I know. I don’t want to put you in another panic attack.”

Katsuki shrugged. “I have them everyday.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.”

Katsuki scoffed. 

“Why are you telling me all of this? Why are you fine with talking about them all of a sudden?”

“Didn’t you already ask me this?”

“I’m asking again, because clearly something has changed.”

Katsuki slouched farther down in his seat. “I decided that if we’re going back to where we came from, which I assume that we are, you have no real hold in our world. You can do and say whatever you want to us, make me talk about anything you want, but none of it matters. Nothing I say will affect me when we leave. And nothing you say will, either.”

Eraserhead just looked at Katsuki for a while. Finally, he stood up and said, “We’re done for the day. Let’s get you back to your cell.”

Chapter Text

Deku got out.

Katsuki didn’t need to see him to know. He could hear the screaming and gunshots and hysterical laughter from all the way down the hall. It didn’t matter how Deku had escaped his cell, just that he was out.

But damn does he have balls to get out in the middle of the day.

Katsuki got off the floor and stood in front of the glass door. Hitoshi did the same across the hall, and Katsuki assumed the others did, as well. Dozens of guards ran down the hall, most of them rushing towards Deku and the rest stopping in front of the cells to prevent any other escapes.

They all knew how to get themselves out of all kinds of handcuffs. Deku had taught them how to do so without their quirks long ago, and they had had to do so several times. So when Katsuki saw the suspicious way Hitoshi was holding his wrists together, he knew what was about to happen.

“Hey,” Hitoshi knocked on the glass to get the attention of the guard outside. “This glass is bulletproof, right?” The guard didn’t respond. “Hey, come on. Answer me. You really think me knowing if the glass is bulletproof is going to be a problem for you?” 

A blood curdling scream ripped through the air, quickly followed by a disgusting squelching noise.

“Hear that?” Hitoshi continued. “I might help spare you from that if you answer me.”

After another moment, one of the guards, probably a rookie, said, “Yes, they’re bullet-” The guard next to him nudged him to try to shut him up, but it was too late.

Hitoshi pointed at Eijirou’s cell. “Open that door.” The guard moved to do so, but the others hurried to hold him back. Before they could get to the mind controlled guard, Hitoshi said, “Shoot anyone who comes close to you.”

Katsuki looked down as three shots went off in quick succession. He dared a look up when he heard someone shout to stay away from the controlled person. Everyone was holding their guns up, but they gave the controlled guard a clear path to Eijirou’s cell. Katsuki heard the loud pop of handcuffs being broken, the sound of the door moving open, the sound of childlike giggles.

No one tried to stop Eijirou as he walked down the hall. Katsuki was able to just barely see Eijirou punch the control panel on the wall a couple cells away. The door to that cell opened, letting Denki out. The blonde put his hand on the same control panel, and the lights went out. Katsuki and all the others opened the doors in the split second before the emergency power kicked in. When the lights turned back on, most of the guards were trapped in ice.

“That’s got to be a record, huh?” Deku appeared at the end of the hall, smiling wide. Blood covered his hands and face; some was even in his teeth. He had collected several firearms from the guards he had wiped out and had strapped them to his chest and back. 

One of the guards that had managed to repel Shouto’s quirk started rushing towards Deku. Deku snapped his thumb and ring finger, and Eijirou immediately launched forward, tackling the guard to the ground. Ochaco, Tenya, and Shinsou attacked the remaining guards in a flurry of motion.

Deku smiled down at Eijirou and the guard he had pinned. Eijirou looked confused as to how he had gotten where he was, but before he could realize what was about to happen, Deku caught his attention.

“Hey, Ei,” Deku cooed, “what’s your favorite color?”

Eijirou blinked a few times before smiling up at his leader. “Red, duh! You know that!”

“That’s right. Well, I thought you deserved a little prize for getting everyone out so quickly, so…” Deku held out one of his stolen guns and unceremoniously shot the guard in the shoulder. Eijirou flinched as blood splattered on his face. His chest began heaving in panicked breaths. 

He hated blood. 

Deku crouched down to point at the bullet wound. “Look, Ei. It’s red.” 

Eijirou’s hyperventilating abruptly stopped as his brain recalculated. The corners of his lips twitched. Katsuki always wondered what Eijirou’s voices sounded like in moments like this.

“If you use your quirk on these guys, you’ll get to see as much red as you want,” Deku said.

And Eijirou smiled.

He hated blood.

But, oh, how he loved the color red.

Katsuki couldn’t tell which was louder: Eijirou’s laughter or the screams of the innocent man he was tearing apart.

With everyone else busy, Shouto was able to leisurely walk down the hall to hug and kiss Deku, who happily accepted all his loving advances, “Izuku, my dear, I’ve missed you.” 

“I missed you, too, Sho,” Deku patted his lover’s cheek. “But you’ll have to wait just a bit longer to be with me, okay?” 

Shouto’s expression morphed into anger. “Why?”

“Don’t worry, baby. Just go on ahead with everyone.” Deku’s eyes slid over to stare at Katsuki. “I need to have a chat with Kacchan.”

A cold wave of shivers travelled down Katsuki’s spine. Only bad things came from “chats” with Deku. 

Shouto nodded and rushed the others out of the hall after they were sure that all the guards were incapacitated in some way. Deku wasted no time backing Katsuki back into his cell with a sour smile on his face.

“Kacchan…” Deku spoke as if trying to coerce a scared puppy out of its hiding place. 

Katsuki’s back hit the inner corner of his cell. “Wha-What is it?”

“You’ve been talking, haven’t you, Kacchan?”

All the breath in Katsuki’s lungs froze in place. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deku’s constant smile dropped. He slipped one of the larger guns off of his shoulders and bashed the butt of it into the side of Katsuki’s head, making the blond stumble and nearly fall to the floor. “Don’t play dumb with me, Kacchan,” Deku shouted. “We both know you aren’t so stupid to think I don’t always know what you’re doing.” Deku grabbed Katsuki’s neck and pulled their faces barely a centimeter apart. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you told them?”

“Just-just why the others are working with us,” Katsuki said in a strangled voice.

Deku’s grip tightened. “What did you say about me?”

“Nothing,” Katsuki gasped. “I didn’t say anything about either of us, I swear.”

“Are you sure?” Deku raised his other hand, thumb and index finger dangerously close together.

“Yes. Yes, Deku, please don’t- ”

Deku abruptly released Katsuki’s throat to instead grab one of his guns and aim it at the person who had appeared behind him. With a quick glance to the side, Katsuki could tell that it was Eraserhead who had caused the interruption. 

“He’s telling the truth,” Eraserhead said as he activated his quirk. 

Deku raised an eyebrow and slowly turned to face the hero. A smile crept onto his face. “Eraserhead. How has your day been?”

“Well, it’s shitty, now. Put down the gun.”

“Ah, cutting right to the chase, huh? Well, that’s no fun.”

“Just put down the gun, Deku.”

“Say, don’t you have a handful of escaping villains to take care of?”

Eraserhead shrugged it off. “All the heroes fighting down there already know how to deal with all your quirks. And you probably aren’t nearly as good at using your quirks as the versions of you that I know.” 

Deku gasped overdramatically. “I am offended that you think I don’t train my dogs. They’re much stronger than you give them credit for. Much more dangerous.”

“Sure. You wipe out a few untrained officers and now you think you’re all-powerful?”

Katsuki knew that it wasn’t just a few untrained officers that had been killed that day. There was no doubt they were highly trained, and Deku had far more than just a few guns. Eraserhead was bluffing, and if Katsuki could tell, Deku could, too. 

“Power. What an interesting word,” Deku purred. “People are so often praised for having ‘powers’. Things they’re born with that most don’t even try to improve. All that wasted potential and DNA. Yet I am the one considered powerless. Even though I could kill you-” Deku shot a hole in the wall inches away from Eraserhead’s head, “in less than a second.”

“If you wanted to kill me, you would have already,” Eraserhead said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you.”

“You don’t trust what your own teammates say?”

Deku’s head tilted to the side. “What does that mean?”

Eraserhead nodded towards Katsuki, who flinched. “The only things he said about you were that you were the leader of your little group, and that you supposedly don’t mind me too much.”

Deku pursed his lips. He turned back to Katsuki with narrowed eyes. “Is that right?”

Katsuki’s throat constricted. He struggled to move his head enough to nod under Deku’s gaze.

“Hm.” Deku turned back to Eraserhead, smile replaced by a bland expression. “Well, yes, I suppose you are the best of the worst. You don’t rely on your quirk like most heroes do. You know how to fight without it. You’re actually willing to die for people. Most heroes are terribly afraid of dying when it’s their turn.” Deku took a step closer to the hero and held his gun out farther. “Are you afraid, Eraserhead?”

The hero stuck his chin out. “Not in the slightest.”

“No? How about you prove it?” Deku’s smile returned. “Fight me. One on one. I’d be honored if you did.”

“Fight you, huh?” Eraserhead rolled his shoulders out. “Alright.”

“No quirks.”

“Fine. No weapons.”

“Fine. But that includes your scarf.”

“That includes him, too.” 

Deku followed Eraserhead’s eyes over to Katsuki. He smiled even wider and held his hands up in surrender, fingers spread wide. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Katsuki tried to back up even farther as the others dropped their weapons. Most of them, at least. Deku had managed to find a knife, and Katsuki saw the outline of it under the back of his shirt.

Calm down, Katsuki. He likes Eraserhead. He won’t kill him. 

Please don’t kill him.

They were both very fast. Deku launched forward in an attempt to hit Eraserhead’s gut, but the hero pushed him away with a left hook to the face. This caused Deku to spin around the man and end up in the doorway of the cell. They both threw a few punches, but most were dodged. Eraserhead tried to kick Deku’s legs out from under him, but the villain jumped and used his feet to push himself off of the door frame, giving him a momentum boost when he set off into a sprint across the hall. It could be assumed he was trying to escape, which is probably why Eraserhead was so quick to follow. However, Deku actually ran straight up to the cell across the hall and directly up the glass wall. Katsuki and Eraserhead watched him go up to the ceiling, take a few upside down steps, then drop down with a downward kick to Eraserhead’s skull. With the hero disoriented, Deku was able to push him down and pin his body to the floor just long enough to grab his knife and press it to Eraserhead’s neck.

Everything stilled.

Eraserhead made no attempt to push Deku off of him, most likely because he did not want his throat slit. Instead, he lay completely still, staring up at Deku, who was smiling just as wide as ever before.

“Oh, Eraserhead,” Deku sighed, “I thought you were smarter than this. You should know that a villain won’t always be honest about dropping all their weapons.”

“Yeah?” Eraserhead responded, “Based on how you talk about heroes, I would have assumed that you know that we aren’t honest about it either.” 

Eraserhead threw his head forward, and their skulls connected with a loud crack . Deku was clearly dazed, and the hero was able to free a pinned arm. He reached into a pouch on his belt, pulled out a syringe, and stabbed it into Deku’s side. Deku shouted in anger and tried to slice Eraserhead with the knife, but at the same time, Eraserhead pushed him to the side, so the knife only made a small incision. 

Eraserhead stood while Deku cursed and struggled to get to his feet. Before he could, Eraserhead landed a swift kick to Deku’s face. Deku shakily reached for the hero’s legs, probably slowed by whatever was in the syringe, but he took another two kicks, then slumped over, unconscious. 

Cuffs were put on Deku’s wrists, and his body was checked for any other weapons. Katsuki glanced down at the guns Deku had left in the cell, and he pulled a pistol towards him with his foot, hiding it behind him. Immediately afterwards, Eraserhead came in to collect the weapons. He gave Katsuki a look, as if he had known that he had taken a gun, then gave him the slightest of nods, which Katsuki couldn’t understand the meaning of. 

He was only more confused when Eraserhead left to assist the other heroes without putting him in cuffs, too. 

And so he was alone in his cell; gun at his feet; a bunch of dead, unconscious, or frozen guards strewn about the hall; and a knocked out Deku right outside the door.

It was weird, Deku just lying on the floor, completely defenseless. 

So weird that Katsuki did not believe it for a second. He cautiously stepped towards his leader’s body and knelt down next to it. “Deku?” Katsuki whispered. He gently tapped Deku’s shoulder, softly calling out to him again. When Deku gave no indication that he was awake, Katsuki jumped back up and scrambled away in a panic. 

Deku never, never let this kind of thing happen to himself. None of what had happened during this weird ass trip made any sort of sense, and Katsuki was terrified by their current standing.

Katsuki paced around the room as he tried to wrap his head around what in the hell was happening, and at some point he stepped on the gun. He jumped back and stared down at the weapon. His head was swirling. He didn’t know what was going on. He felt out of his own body.

He picked up the gun.

Deku’s presence burned in the back of Katsuki’s skull. He felt his breathing speed up as he turned to look at Deku’s body; a sitting duck, really. A guard could easily wake up or break out of the ice and get revenge on the villain. Katsuki took a few steps forward. Eraserhead could have taken Deku away or put Katsuki in confines, as well. Katsuki raised the gun. A lot of things could have happened, and yet they didn’t, allowing Katsuki to be right here, right now, with a weapon in his hands, and his tormentor prone on the ground.

All thoughts in Katsuki’s head were focused on other things. He moved as if he had done this a million times before; completely subconscious muscle memory. He held the gun with both hands, pointing at Deku’s head. His hands shook wildly. He could take a shot. He could stop everything right now. He could save the others. The only thing in his way was himself.

So why the fuck is nothing happening?

Katsuki couldn’t tell how long he had been standing there, paralyzed by fear or stress or who knows what. His face had grown wet at some point but he barely noticed.

Deku’s voice giggled in his imagination. “What? You gonna kill me again?”  

Katsuki dropped the gun.

He had no time to think about why, because a group of new guards rushed into the hall, shouting at him to get onto the ground. Katsuki quickly got on his knees and held his hands in the air. One guard put him in cuffs, shouting at him to stop screaming and crying. Katsuki didn’t think that he was, but they continued to tell him to shut up. Suddenly, something pricked his neck, and less than a minute later, his eyes fluttered shut, and he was dropped to the floor. 

The last thing he saw was Deku’s face, green eyes quickly snapping shut.

Chapter Text

Katsuki was back in his cell when he woke up. He felt worse than he had in a long time. He wasn’t sure if he was more upset that he hadn’t killed Deku or that the thought had even crossed his mind.

They had all been recaptured. Instead of regular quirk-erasing handcuffs, their arms were encased in what were practically just metal boxes. Inside of the box, Katsuki’s hands were forced into fists, so even if he could use his quirk, he would just end up blasting his own fingers off. Not that he would mind that too much; maybe then Deku would find him useless enough to be left alone or killed.

Eraserhead came by more often, but didn’t talk as much. He just stared at Katsuki and the others like a disappointed parent. And everytime he did, Katsuki felt...bad. He wasn’t quite sure what he felt bad about, but he still did. He also wasn’t sure what Eraserhead was disappointed about. Maybe their attempted escape. Maybe Katsuki choosing not to kill Deku when he had the chance. Maybe Katsuki being a part of this in the first place.

Eijirou had been scratching his box-cuffs against the wall all day long. Katsuki wouldn’t have been surprised if he eventually scratched a hole in the wall by doing so. 

Katsuki lay on his bed for most of the day, staring up at the ceiling. He felt numb. That would usually be normal for him, but it felt new, now. Almost as if he had recently been feeling something.

Eijirou started talking to himself. Katsuki could hear his mutterings through the concrete wall. 

Katsuki rolled over and huffed into the thin pillow. He just couldn’t understand. Never once has an escape attempt failed. Things have gotten thrown off track before, sure, but they had never completely failed to get out of a prison. And Deku getting knocked out like that...Katsuki had never seen him look so surprised by the events of a fight.

Eijirou must have started slamming his cuffs into the wall, if the loud thud, thud, thud was any indication. 

Katsuki rolled back over and sat up, kicking his legs over the side of the bed. He was starting to wonder if Deku hadn’t brought them here for a mass hero-genocide or to torture the group.

But that would make even less sense.

“Katsuki.”

The boy blinked out of his daze and followed the sound to the person across the hall. Hitoshi nodded for Katsuki to get closer, his expression saying ‘Hurry up’. So, Katsuki stood and moved over to the window and asked, “What?”

Hitoshi’s eyes were wide, showing an emotion besides annoyance for once. He nodded towards Eijirou’s cell. “I think he’s trying to take out his switch.”

Katsuki’s heart dropped. “ What? ” 

Eijirou screamed.

Katsuki darted over the few feet to the corner closest to Eijirou’s cell. Several guards rushed over, as well, weapons and quirks at the ready.

“What’s happening?” Katsuki frantically asked, “What is he doing?” None of the guards answered him.

“Pretty sure it’s clear that he’s breaking again,” Hitoshi said, sitting on his own bed, no longer caring about the situation.

A long, gurgling cry came from Eijirou’s cell, catching Katsuki’s attention again.

“Please, someone, tell me what’s happening,” Katsuki begged the guards. “He could hurt himself.”

“Too late for that,” one of the guards grumbled, the one closest to Katsuki.

Katsuki tensed even more. “He already-Well, then, he’s going to end up killing himself! Why are you all just standing around? Someone help him!”

“We don’t have the authority to open the door,” the same guard said. He sounded more like he just did not want to.

“Who gives a shit? You’re heroes or cops or whatever. You’re supposed to help people like that. So why aren’t you helping him?”

“We’ve already contacted the proper people. Just stop whining until they get here, will you?” The guard rolled his eyes and turned away. “The more you talk, the more this sounds like another escape attempt.”

The thudding noises from Eijirou’s cell started to sound wet. If he was trying to take his switch out, then that probably meant that Eijirou had not been slamming his handcuffs into the wall earlier.

Katsuki, however, would be. He raised his arms in the air, then quickly brought them down. The box-cuffs connected with the glass with a bang , but the strength of the thick glass forced the cuffs-and subsequently Katsuki-to ricochet backwards. 

“ Shut up! ” Eijirou shrieked.

“Eijirou,” Katsuki shouted through the glass, “don’t listen to them.” 

“I know , I know , I know ,” Eijirou rambled. Katsuki couldn’t tell if Eijirou was responding to him or to the voices in his own head. He slammed his cuffs into the glass again.

“Hey!” The guard shouted, moving in front of Katsuki’s cell, instead. “So, you are trying to break out, again.”

“ I am,” Katsuki grumbled, “because if you won’t do your damn job and help him, then I’ll do it myself.” He hit the glass again.

The guard raised his gun. “If you keep doing that, I’ll-”

“Do it.” Katsuki stared the guard down. “Shoot me. I fucking dare you. I’d rather be dead anyway. So if you have the authority to kill a kid, but not to save one, then fucking do it.”

The guard lowered his weapon and turned away.

“That’s what I thought, coward.”

But the guard had not turned away because he was not willing to shoot (although, that may have been part of it). Rather, almost all the guards turned to face down the hall as someone stomped towards them.

“Why the hell did I need to get called all the way over here in the middle of a school day?” Eraserhead grumbled as he joined the crowd of guards. Eijirou screamed again. Eraserhead quickly turned his head to Eijirou’s cell. The hero pushed through the guards to stand right in front of the cell’s glass. His eyes widened at whatever he saw. “ Holy -Did anyone call Recovery Girl, yet?”

The guard who had been arguing with Katsuki was the one to answer. “We didn’t have the authority to-”

“Authority my ass! Someone call Recovery Girl-or someone -right the fuck now.” Eraserhead pointed down the hall, and a few of the guards rushed in that direction. Eraserhead then got in the face of the guard he had been speaking to and growled, “Your authority-your job -is to help and save people.” The pro hero pointed at Eijirou’s cell. “Do you really consider it to be your job to just stand here and watch as someone hurts themselves that badly?”

“They’re villains-”

“They’re children .”

The guard had no answer to that.

“If you want to continue to not properly do your job, then you can leave and not come back.” Eraserhead turned to the rest of the guards, “And that goes for all of you.”

Through this entire argument, Eijirou had been shouting and talking and bashing himself against the wall. Eraserhead finally turned his attention back to the boy, and reached out to unlock the cell door.

Katsuki pressed himself against the glass of his cell, putting on his best puppy dog face. It was easy to do; he was already starting to cry. “Eraserhead, please.”

Eraserhead paused, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. 

“Please, let me in there,” Katsuki pleaded. “There’s something wrong in his head. He hears voices. But he’ll calm down with me around. It-It might take a little while, but...I deal with his breakdowns all the time, so-so please-”

Eraserhead stared at him for a second or two, then moved his hand to the keypad of Katsuki’s cell. “Don’t make me regret this, kid.”

The door to Katsuki’s cell opened, and Katsuki stumbled over his feet as he sprinted out of his own cell and into Eijirou’s. There, he saw that his suspicions had been confirmed: the loud thudding sound had not come from Eijirou’s cuffs, but rather from him repeatedly slamming the side of his head against the stone wall. He had his arms behind his head and used the edge of his cuffs to scratch at the back of his neck. He had practically carved a hole in his neck in his effort to tear the small box out of there. Thankfully, by the time Katsuki had gotten there, Eijirou had slowed in his endeavor to bash his head in. Unfortunately, it was clearly because of the exhaustion caused by pain and heavy blood loss. Nearly all of Eijirou’s upper body was the same color as his hair.

Katsuki gagged.

Still, Katsuki stepped forward and pressed his cuffs against Eijirou’s back, whispering, “Eiji? Can you-” Katsuki was forced to duck when Eijirou spun around, whipping his cuffs at where Katsuki’s head had just been. Before anything else could go wrong, Eraserhead’s capture weapon wrapped around Eijirou’s arms and torso, keeping him mostly still. A garbled yell came out of the bloody boy’s mouth as he tried to struggle against the scarf and his own head. Katsuki took the chance to lift his arms around Eijirou’s head, careful not to touch his cuffs against the still bleeding injury. Katsuki pressed his forearms to the sides of Eijirou’s face to force their eyes to meet.

“Eijirou, stop, please ,” Katsuki begged. He searched in Eijirou’s eyes for some kind of acknowledgement, some sign that Eijirou was here right now, but he was met with an unseeing gaze. As a second attempt, Katsuki leaned forward to speak directly into his false-lover’s ear. “Listen to me, Eiji. Listen to my voice. This voice is real. My voice is real. I am real, and I need you to calm down.” 

Of course, Katsuki knew that just saying it once, twice, three times would not be enough. So, he stood there for who knows how long, whispering about reality into Eijirou’s ear, tears mixing into the blood on Eijirou’s shoulder. 

Finally, finally , after what could have been ten minutes or an hour, Eijirou’s consciousness returned to him. The stutters in his breathing stopped, only to start back up again as he began to sob, “Ka-Katsu-Kat-“

Katsuki shushed Eijirou’s whimpers and gently kissed his face. “Can you hear me, now?”

Eijirou managed a small nod before his body was wracked with a loud cry. Katsuki tried to shush him again, continuing to mutter to him to keep his mind’s attention. They dropped to their knees to sit on the floor together. Eraserhead’s capture weapon subtly slipped away, giving Eijirou a chance to wrap his arms around Katsuki’s head, as well. 

“I’m sorry, Kat, I’m sorry,” Eijirou said through his tears. 

Katsuki shook his head. “It’s not your fault. You know-”

“Yes it is! I killed someone! Again! And-and then I hurt myself again and you always get upset when I do that but I can’t stop .” Eijirou looked at Katsuki with pleading eyes. “Why can’t I stop? Am I really that evil?”

“No,” Katsuki answered before Eijirou could finish the question. “You’re just a little bit messed up right now. Just...stuck in a bad place.” Katsuki hesitated, but he was sure of his next words. “I’m going to get you somewhere better, someday.”

Eijirou sniffled. “Is there anywhere better?”

Katsuki bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut to force tears out of them. “God, I hope so.”

They stayed on the floor for a while longer, quietly crying together. Recovery Girl was eventually brought in. She looked sad when she saw Eijirou and heard what had happened to him was self-inflicted. She gave Eijirou a kiss, and the boy was soon asleep against Katsuki’s chest. The healing hero hovered around Katsuki for a minute, but Eraserhead assured her that the boy was fine, so she left, promising to return the next day.

Katsuki stayed silent as Eraserhead brought him back to his cell. He went without a struggle, his job completed successfully. The crowd of guards had dispersed, and they all avoided looking at the hero and the villain. Just before locking the cell door, Eraserhead opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but he decided against it, closed his mouth, locked the door, and trudged away.

~~~~~

Night fell before Katsuki expected it to. He lay in the bed, but could not sleep, like usual; too worried about Eijirou’s mental and physical state. It didn’t help that he was once again imagining Deku’s voice in his head. 

“Tick tock, Kacchan. How long are you going to wait?”

I’ve apologized a billion times, Katsuki thought to himself. How long do I have to deal with his punishments?

“Do you really think you’ve made up for what you’ve done, yet, Kacchan?”

Have I?

“Kacchan.”

Katsuki sat up in bed as quick as lightning when Deku’s voice was no longer just in his head. His eyes darted around the room, but he was still alone, officers still standing guard outside. 

“Calm down, Kacchan,” Deku’s voice whispered. “They don’t know that I can talk to you, yet, and I won’t have much time. Just act natural.”

Katsuki slowly lay back down and stared up at the ceiling with wide eyes. “How are you even...you shouldn’t be able to use the switches in these cuffs.” He scoffed slightly, “Not unless you-”

“I dislocated my fingers a couple hours ago.”

Of course he did. “What is it? Are we actually getting out soon?”

“Not exactly. I need you to talk to Eraserhead again. Tell him the story about All Might.”

Katsuki gulped. “Why? You said-”

“Never to talk about our past, yeah, yeah, I know.” He let out a frustrated sigh. It was then that Katsuki realized that he sounded...different. The usual creepy and unnatural excitement was nonexistent. “Just...tell him about it, alright? You need to hear it, too.”

“For some new plan, right? A fear tactic? Are we going to kill their All Might, too-”

“Would you just fucking talk about it?” Deku hissed. “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out. Just tell him and think about it and shit before I change my mind on this.”

“On what, exactly?”

There was a pause, then, “They caught me talking. I have to go. Do as I say, and we might finally be able to leave.”

And then Deku went silent.

Katsuki didn’t sleep at all that night.

Chapter Text

When the lights turned on in the morning, Katsuki was still in the same position on the bed. He stared at the fluorescent light above him for a while, halfway hoping to go blind. He looked away eventually, however, when Eraserhead returned. 

The hero had never come in so early in the morning, and on a weekday no less. A large group of people followed him in, mostly new guards that Katsuki had not seen before. Recovery Girl was also there, and soon after being let into Eijirou’s room, she was escorted back out. The new guards replaced the old ones, and the old ones were led out by Eraserhead, who began to reprimand them on their performance the previous day.

The new guards were nicer, for whatever reason. They were more gentle about giving the prisoners their food, while the old ones would occasionally throw the tray on the ground. The new ones would also speak nicer, as if they were handling toddlers. 

It was extremely annoying.

But Katsuki couldn’t focus on that too much. His mind was swirling once again, this time about the past he had been forced not to remember.

Eraserhead returned a couple hours later and brought Katsuki to the interrogation room. Neither said a word until they got there. Even when they did get into the room, they just looked at each other for a few minutes, as if neither knew what to say at all.

Finally, Eraserhead said, “Nice work with Eijirou yesterday.”

Katsuki shrugged.

“How often does he get like that?” 

“Pretty often,” Katsuki said. “Comes with having an unmedicated disorder, I assume. But more specifically, he has a breakdown just about every time he realizes he was forced to kill someone. Feels real shitty afterwards.”

“Understandably. Is it always that bad?”

Katsuki thought back to the sheer amount of blood he had seen yesterday. “No. That was the worst I’ve seen. It’s definitely not the first time he’s hurt himself, though.”

“And you always deal with it the same way?” 

“Yeah.” Katsuki bit his lip as his leg started to bounce under the desk. “Why are you asking me about this so much?”

“I’m just curious.” That was a lie. There was a look in the hero’s eyes; it was somewhat similar to the look he had had when he left Katsuki alone with a gun, but now it seemed more smug. “How come he calms down so easily with you?”

“He loves me or whatever. I think it’s just that I’m the only one who’s really cared about him since he joined us, so he thinks it’s love. But it’s not.”

“You don’t feel the same?”

“I mean...he’s nice, but...I’m not really interested in thinking about a relationship when I’m stuck in my worst nightmare. I’m not likely to just forget about that, no matter how many times he tries to by ‘thanking’ me for helping him-” Katsuki cut himself off with a huff and a shake of his head.

“I...won’t ask.”

Katsuki took a long breath to try to calm himself before changing the subject. “Deku talked to me last night.”

Eraserhead nodded. “So I was told. Because of that and what Eijirou did, we think we finally figured out what the ‘switches’ that you keep mentioning are. You all have them in you?”

“Attached to something important. Our brain stems or something.”

“So you’ll die if you try to take them out?”

“Or get horribly injured. Deku has a lot of contingency plans.”

“What can they do?”

Katsuki went to count on his fingers, but sighed when he remembered that his cuffs did not allow for that. “Track us, knock us out, wake us up, force our bodies to attack, listen to what we say, and allow Deku to talk to us, apparently. He can probably do more with them, but those are the important things.”

Eraserhead just nodded and gave Katsuki an expectant look. Katsuki knew what he was waiting for.

“Is your All Might still alive?”

Eraserhead’s eyebrows furrowed. “Barely, but yes.”

“I figured. I think Deku might want to kill him.”

“Why? The Deku I know-”

“Loves All Might so much it’s kind of creepy?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. My Deku did, too. But then…” Katsuki took another deep breath. “He wants me to tell you what happened. What-well, part of what started all this. What made him turn to villainy.”

Eraserhead tilted his head in either confusion, intrigue, or both, but gestured for Katsuki to continue. 

Katsuki took one more breath, then dove into the blue. “So, Deku was obsessed with the guy. The biggest All Might fanboy you’ve ever seen. His biggest dream was to be a hero just like All Might, but he was quirkless, so...you know. Not likely that he would get to such a high level.

“We were in middle school when it all happened. Deku was already doing pretty bad with his mental health, which was mostly my fault, because I was being such a dick all my life. But he was still sane and still wanted to do good in his life. It was the only thing he wanted in his whole life; to do good and help people however he could. He never wanted to hurt people.

“But one day, a villain attacked the city-attacked Deku. No one was around, he could have died, but at the last second, All Might showed up and saved him. Deku managed to follow the guy when he tried to leave, and a couple things happened. Apparently, All Might revealed to Deku that he was a complete fake. He could only use his quirk in bursts, because he was losing his power fast. And then, at some point, Deku asked All Might if he could be a hero, too, even if he had no quirk. And you would expect such a highly respected and seemingly kind hero to say ‘Yes! Anyone can live their dreams if they just set their minds to it!’

“But All Might said no. He said no, and it destroyed Deku. Any hope he had left just...shattered. And All Might left him there, broken and alone. It fucked Deku up so much, I was surprised that he still did what he did next.

“Somehow, because Deku had followed All Might, the villain from earlier escaped. He ended up attacking me, coincidentally. I tried to fight, but his quirk prevented him from being affected by mine, so all I managed to do was start a bunch of fires, which made it difficult for any heroes to get to me. Deku noticed the fight, and saw All Might in the crowd, just standing there, doing nothing . So Deku ran in to help me, instead.

“He wasn’t able to do anything, of course. He had no quirk and no muscle. But it distracted the villain just enough to keep me alive, and it made the heroes standing around look real shitty. All Might didn’t like that some quirkless kid was doing his job better than he was, so he finally stepped in and stopped the villain. Afterwards, Deku was reprimanded for ‘getting in the way’, even though he was the only one who even tried to help. So the one time Deku acted like a hero, he was treated like a villain. If he wasn’t already long gone, he was, now.

“That night, Deku and I got into an argument, and I knew that something was wrong, but I didn’t realize just how bad it was, so I didn’t do anything about it. After that, Deku ended up seeing All Might again. The guy started acting like what he had said before was just a joke or something. He backpedaled real hard and tried to say that Deku actually could be a hero all of a sudden. He offered to train Deku himself, and to give Deku his quirk somehow. But it was too late by then. Deku just walked past and said, ‘No thanks. I think I’m going to die tomorrow.” Katsuki tried to wipe his teary eyes on his shoulder. “And if anyone could recognize that someone needed help, it should have been All Might. He should have done something. If someone says something like that, you should know and help , not just let them walk away.”

Katsuki silently wiped his eyes for a minute. “All the real shit went down the next day, and then a while later, I joined Deku as a villain. One of the first things we did together was track down All Might and kill him. It was surprisingly easy to do when he couldn’t use his quirk for an extended period of time, and was also asleep. After Deku told me everything that had happened between them, I decided that All Might was the only person I didn’t mind killing.”

After Katsuki did not speak for a few minutes, Eraserhead realized that the story was over. The hero exhaled heavily as if he had been holding his breath. “That’s...quite a lot to take in.”

Katsuki nodded at the table. 

“Although, I can’t say I’m surprised by some of it.” Before Katsuki could ask what he meant, Eraserhead continued, “Why did Deku want you to tell me all that?”

Katsuki shrugged. “I figured it was because he wanted us to kill your All Might, too, but...there must be something else that I’m missing. He said that I needed to hear the story. So the best explanation I can come up with is that he wanted to remind me yet again how he used to be happy and hopeful before I fucked him up.”

Eraserhead tapped his fingers on the table. “I have a question for you.”

Katsuki met the hero’s eyes. 

“You said that Deku wanted to be a hero more than anything. You made it sound like he would never give up on that dream, no matter what happened.”

Katsuki couldn’t see where this was going.

“So, I guess my question is, did you think he could have done it?”

Katsuki blinked, his brain stalling. “Did I think he could have been a hero?”

“Yeah.”

“I…” Well, did he? He didn’t know. Deku was quirkless, after all. All his life he had been quirkless and weak. He couldn’t have fought any of the big villains that attacked and win. That being said, he had successfully become a villain, hadn’t he? Not only was he strong enough and skilled enough to fight, but he was able to kill . He successfully fought and killed and manipulated-well, technically led-a whole team. He was doing everything a hero could do, he just had to do it in different ways because of his lack of a quirk. So, maybe Deku could have been a hero, and maybe Katsuki believed it now, but the question was if he had always believed it. 

He didn’t like that some quirkless kid could do it better than he could.

“Yes.” The word had simply slipped out of his mouth. “Yes, I did. I knew that he could and that he could probably do it pretty well, but that scared me and made me feel weak so...so I fucked him up, and it blew up in my face.”

Eraserhead grinned faintly for just a second, almost as if he had been expecting that answer. He leaned back in his seat and said, “I have a guess as to why Deku wanted you to think about all this. I think it’s exactly what you guessed.”

“Wow,” Katsuki drawled, “Thanks for that helpful information.”

“Oh, just listen to me for a second, kid.”

Katsuki froze mid-eyeroll.

“I think, yes, Deku wants you to remember how he was before: happy and hopeful and hero-bound. But I don’t think it’s for the reason you think. I’m wondering if he recently-maybe before you even came here-Deku remembered who he used to be, who he wanted to be, who he could have been. Maybe he remembered that, and maybe he misses it. Maybe he finally regrets what he’s done since everything went wrong, but he doesn’t know how to get out of it. Maybe he sees you as his way out.”

Eraserhead’s words echoed in Katsuki’s head. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Usually, Katsuki would beg for a maybe-way-out. Any maybe he saw he would see as a shining light in the darkness.

But not this time.

Katsuki snorted. “Yeah, right. Deku is too far gone for that.”

“Yeah? Then tell me why you’re still here.”

“Probably because-”

“Tell me why Deku let you all get captured without a fight.”

“Because he-”

“Tell me why you have only attempted to escape once in all the time you’ve been here.”

“Maybe-”

“Tell me why Deku purposefully lost a fight against me, and then pretended to pass out after I stabbed him with a syringe full of water.”

“So he could-he what? ”

“There was no sedative in that syringe. It was just some sterile water. That doesn’t do anything to the human body. And I’ve been fighting people all my life; I know when they aren’t trying to fight. He let himself lose, and he let himself be in a position where you could shoot and kill him.”

Katsuki’s mind was racing. He started to hyperventilate as the pieces fell into place.

Eraserhead leaned over the table, and said with a smirk, “I think Deku has been testing you even more than I have.”

Katsuki’s wide eyes met Eraserhead’s. It made sense. It hurt how much sense it made. Why else would Deku have done any of the confusing things he had been doing lately? Eraserhead was right. Deku needed a way out, and that way out was Katsuki.

Of course, this was all a maybe. Maybe Eraserhead wasn’t right. Maybe this was all just a hopeful guess.

But Katsuki would only know if he tried, and the smile Eraserhead had told him that he should.

“What do you think?” Eraserhead asked. Surely he already knew the answer, as he seemed to with everything else.

“I need to talk to Deku,” Katsuki whispered. “Now.”

Chapter Text

All men are not created equal. 

Bakugou Katsuki learned this at a very young age, when he was blessed with an incredible gift. A power that was strong since its formation, a quirk that would be perfect for the top job of the day: heroism. So, a pro hero he would be. The best pro hero, in fact. Number one. He was not the only one to be sure of this future, either. His family, friends, teachers, everyone around him constantly reminded him that he was absolutely incredible. Eventually, he just assumed that it was an indisputable law of nature for him to be better than everyone else.

How wrong he was.

Of course, not everyone had such incredible power. In fact, some had no power at all. Namely one Midoriya Izuku. In childhood, he and Katsuki were friends. The weakling followed the alpha like a chick to its mother, as weaklings always do. Surprisingly, though, Izuku was not phased by his weakness. He had nearly as much confidence as Katsuki did, and believed just as much that he could be a hero, too.

But the world would not allow for it.

As they grew, Izuku was faced with a growing prejudice against him. Constant shouts of “Quirkless! Quirkless! Quirkless!” followed him wherever he went. Yet, for some strange reason, his confidence was not lost. He still swore up and down that he would make something of himself, maybe even break the concepts of society by becoming a hero without any real power. 

On the other hand, Katsuki began to further recognize just how much of an advantage he had over his peers, and his inflated ego was not willing to let that go. By allowing such a weakling to stick around him, he would be seen as a weakling himself.

Katsuki wasn’t a weakling.

So Katsuki began to push Izuku away. He shouted at and mocked and beat Izuku for so much as looking at him, often at school where everyone could watch. Still, Izuku’s belief that he could be a hero stayed in his head.

The problem was, Izuku actually had a bit of a chance. He was smart. Too smart for Katsuki’s tastes. If anyone would find a way to be a quirkless hero, it would be Izuku. Katsuki couldn’t stand the thought of someone weaker than him even thinking they were on his level, let alone them actually getting there.

So Izuku had to be knocked down a peg, then knocked a few more times. Katsuki amped up his bullying year by year. Eventually, it started to wear on Izuku. He gave up on following Katsuki around, then gave up on speaking to him without being spoken to first. Katsuki, however, did not give up. His aggression continued, and he started to find it fun to laugh at Izuku’s weakness.

The first time he made Izuku cry, he felt bad. But he told himself not to. That feeling bad was a weakness. He couldn’t let himself sympathize with the enemy. Besides, he was in too deep. 

Izuku usually tried his best, but Katsuki noticed him start to falter. He stopped speaking up in class, stopped eating full meals at lunch, hell, he stopped staying awake during lectures. Katsuki did not stop.

Izuku barely got dressed some days. He barely did his homework some days. He barely looked alive some days. Katsuki barely let Izuku breathe some days.

Then, the slime villain attacked, and Izuku had the audacity to try to save him. After the heroes let them go, Katsuki followed Izuku home, shouting at him all the while. 

“Why the fuck did you do that, Deku ?” Katsuki yelled. The smaller boy barely flinched at the name anymore. 

“I didn’t want you to die,” Izuku sighed, voice numb. 

“You just made it worse!” That was a lie. “You just got in the way and got me even more fucked up because of it. Now everyone thinks I’m a damn idiot because of you! You always do this shit!”

Izuku just nodded and kept walking. 

“What? Got nothing to say? Why don’t you take some responsibility?”

Again, Izuku said nothing, which only made Katsuki angrier. 

Katsuki got in Izuku’s face and shoved him, asking, “Why aren’t you responding to me?”

Finally, Izuku spoke again. “Isn’t this what you want from me?” He asked in a quiet voice. “For me to stop trying? Well, here you go,” Izuku gestured to himself. “There’s no point in fighting anymore. I’m done.” He side-stepped Katsuki and continued to trudge home with his head down. 

Katsuki stayed in place, dumbfounded. He had no clue how to react to whatever that was, so he just muttered, “Good,” and walked the other way. 

He knew that something was wrong, but he didn’t realize just how bad it was, so he didn’t do anything about it.

He should have done something. If someone says something like that, you should know and help , not just let them walk away.

Katsuki was dreading going to school the next day. Based on strangers’ reactions after the villain encounter, he was expecting his classmates to try to mock him for getting attacked and not being able to get out on his own. 

It was raining as he headed to school that morning. The people commuting around him kept ranting and raving about the latest All Might fight and the kids that were involved. Katsuki wished he had worn a jacket with a hood so he could hide his face. 

It got worse when he got on school grounds. He kept his head down as he got close, but he still noticed the crowds of students, gathering together more than usual. They were talking and talking and talking, surely all about Katsuki. Katsuki was in the middle of planning sassy retorts to any questions when he bumped into someone standing in front of him. He finally looked up and noticed that no one around him was even looking at him, and they certainly were not talking about him either. Katsuki followed the eyes of his classmates up to the roof of the school, where a boy stood, four stories above the ground.

Someone said Izuku’s name.

And suddenly, Katsuki’s entire life caught up to him and hit him in the face like one of his own explosions. 

He had no time to think, to wonder why this was happening, although he already knew the answer. No, he had no time to think, because moments after he saw Izuku, Izuku stepped forward into the open air. 

He fell in slow motion. If Katsuki listened close enough through the gasps around him, he could hear the wind whipping against Izuku’s clothes. Down, down, down, Izuku went. Four stories, three stories, two.

Katsuki’s body moved on its own.

He pushed through the crowd, propelling himself forward with his quirk. Faster, stronger, push it, come on, make it, fucking make it, please-

Crack.

Katsuki was forced to stop short when Izuku hit the ground right in front of his eyes.

Too late .

Katsuki did not breathe. 

Neither did Izuku.

Katsuki fell to his knees, but he couldn’t feel it. He was too in shock to even cry. Blood began to seep out from under Izuku’s head. Katsuki touched it, trying to prove to himself that this wasn’t real, but when his fingers came back red, he still refused to believe it. He then reached out towards Izuku’s chest, but quickly pulled his hands back. Those very hands had caused all of this. He couldn’t let them do anything worse.

Ambulances eventually arrived; Katsuki had no idea how long he had been sitting there. He stayed frozen on the pavement even as they carried Izuku’s body away. Paramedics brought Katsuki to the other ambulance and wrapped him in a blanket. 

“It’s all my fault,” Katsuki whispered at one point.

One of the paramedics heard him and patted him on the shoulder. “Hey, no,” the man said, “you tried to save him, right? You did the best you could. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

Katsuki just shook his head. This man had no idea. 

Bakugou Katsuki had killed Midoriya Izuku. 

It only took two days for the note to be released to the press. It only took a few hours for all of Japan to know who was to blame.

“ Sometimes I feel like I’m a failure, ” the news reporters would read, but Katsuki always heard it in Izuku’s voice. “ Like there’s no hope for me. I have to work harder than anyone else to make it. I’ll never catch up otherwise. But with what I have, what I don’t have, no matter how hard I work, there’s no foreseeable way for me to make my dream into a reality. I know that, now, thanks to you, hero. So, I’m leaving. And Kacchan, I hope that you’re happy. I have done what you wanted me to do. I’m not going to be your punching bag anymore. I am less than that to you, aren’t I? I am worthless. I am Deku. ”

Katsuki had the whole note memorized after hearing it just once. To make it worse, the police dropped off a copy of it to his house. Katsuki kept it in his room.

His parents were pissed, of course. They knew just as well as he did who was to blame. His mother was not usually so quiet about her disappointment. She usually yelled and smacked him but now, all she did now was avoid looking at her son. Katsuki could not blame her; he had unequivocally ruined the family name.

Because everyone else knew, too. Katsuki’s school was shut down for a few days, and Katsuki stayed home for a few more. He never wanted to go back, but he couldn’t stand disappointing his parents any further. He regretted it as soon as he stepped foot on school grounds. Unlike the day , the crowds of students were staring at and whispering about Katsuki, this time. They pointed at him, asked each other “did you hear what Midoriya said in his letter?” 

“Yeah. I mean, I could’ve already guessed why he did it, but calling Bakugou out like that is a whole different level of revenge.”

“Guy had it coming, though. He’s a total asshole. Glad he finally got knocked down a peg.”

Katsuki hid his head behind his arms as his classmates laughed at his pain. They were right, of course. He had killed someone. He shouldn’t be able to get away with it.

But he did.

Izuku’s mother, Inko, refused to press charges, even though Katsuki practically begged her to. It wasn’t like she was unaware of what Katsuki had done to her son. Even if she didn’t know before, she did now. Still, she just gave Katsuki a patient smile whenever the Bakugous visited her.

It made Katsuki want to cry.

He stopped paying attention in school. There was no point. No good hero school would take him with this track record. The only reason he had not been kicked out of his middle school was because the staff in the school were nearly as responsible as he was. Everyday, Katsuki just silently sat at his desk with his head in his arms, rarely even getting up to go to lunch. He often cried once all of his classmates went to the cafeteria. The boy stopped doing homework altogether and did not care in the slightest when his grades plummeted. Occasionally, he would fall asleep at his desk, because he barely slept at home, but nightmares of Izuku’s fall always shocked him awake.

Every time Katsuki entered the school grounds, his gaze went up to the roof of the building, fully expecting to see Izuku there every single morning.

The other kids started to make fun of him. They would express their disgust for the killer right in front of his face, and when he told them to stop, they no longer took him seriously.

“And what if I don’t stop?” They’d say, “You gonna kill me, too?”

Katsuki gave up on asking them to stop early on.

His life was already ruined enough; there was no point in trying to make it better.

And then Izuku woke up.

See, Izuku had never actually died. He had survived the fall, astonishingly, but his head injuries kept him unconscious for just under a month. Inko frequently gave the Bakugous updates on his condition, and Katsuki never admitted that he was happy to hear them. Katsuki’s mother, Mitsuki, always tried to get him to visit Izuku in the hospital, but Katsuki always refused to face his personal nightmare. He always expected Izuku to die in that hospital, and Katsuki did not want to be there to see it happen. 

But it did not happen. Izuku woke up, and he asked to see Katsuki.

Katsuki nearly threw up when he heard that.

But, finally, he agreed to go to the hospital. The hospital was louder than he expected; a lot of beeps from machines, and nurses running around and talking to each other. Katsuki kept his head down the whole time. His urge to turn around and run grew stronger with each step closer to Izuku’s room, but he kept going. 

The room was eerily quiet. Katsuki could not even see Izuku in the bed at first, the bandages covering him making him blend into the sheets. Most of Izuku’s face was bare of bandages, though, so Katsuki could see Izuku’s eyes following him as he moved into the room. When Katsuki got close enough to see just how utterly numb Izuku’s expression was, he fell to his knees in next to the bed and burst into tears. 

They stayed like this for a few hours, Katsuki sobbing and frantically apologizing and begging for forgiveness. Although Izuku had apparently asked to see Katsuki specifically, he did not say a word the entire time. He just silently watched Katsuki cry until Katsuki and their mothers left.

They went to a cafe, then, so the women could discuss Izuku’s state. 

“He hasn’t spoken at all since he woke up,” Inko said. “Not even to the doctors, apparently. Except for yesterday morning when he told a nurse that he wanted to see Katsuki. I was expecting him to say something today because of that, but…”

Mitsuki waved it off. “He’s not the one who had to say something.” She gave her son a pointed look, but he did not respond, just stared solemnly at the table.

“He’s been so emotionless, too. He just…stares all the time. I suppose I know why, but…” Inko wiped her eyes as she tried to force a smile, “it’s still so upsetting.” 

Mitsuki nodded. “Katsuki has been the same way,” she said as if her son wasn’t right next to her. “He’s stopped doing school work, sleeping, or eating. I’m really starting to worry that he’ll end up in the same situation he started.”

Katsuki flinched slightly and lay his head down on the table in an attempt to hide away from the conversation. 

They visited Izuku a few more times before he got out of the hospital. Every visit, Katsuki tried again and again to apologize, to get Izuku to say something, anything. But Izuku never did, which made Katsuki feel even worse than when he thought Izuku was dead.

The days went by slowly. Even though Izuku was alive, Katsuki still found himself staring at the roof of his school building every morning. Eventually, he started imagining himself standing up there, instead.

Inko decided to homeschool Izuku once he was released from the hospital. Katsuki was thankful he did not have to see the boy at school, but he secretly missed him. The Bakugous stopped visiting the Midoriyas nearly altogether now that everything was deemed alright. 

Everything was not alright, it turned out. 

After the visits stopped, Mitsuki eventually stopped contacting Inko as often, not thinking it was necessary. Nearly another month went by before Katsuki was called downstairs to watch the news.

“ Katsuki! ” His mother screamed from downstairs. Katsuki ignored the shout and how panicked it sounded. Less than a minute later, Mitsuki shouted, “Katsuki, it’s the Midoriyas!” Katsuki immediately ran out of his room.

Katsuki made it into the living room just as the newscaster on the television said, “ -body of Midoriya Inko was found in her kitchen this morning after neighbors complained of a terrible smell. Mrs. Midoriya had been stabbed several times in the front and back of her torso with what was believed to be a kitchen knife. Investigators say that she had been dead for about ten days, and that there was no sign of struggle. However, they did discover a picture of what appears to be an evil rabbit, drawn in Mrs. Midoriya’s blood. ” The television showed an image of this drawing, and it looked almost like a bastardization of All Might. “ Mrs. Midoriya had a son named Izuku, who only recently got out of the hospital after a failed suicide attempt. No traces of Izuku were found in the home. His room was found in disarray, yet investigators say that it does not appear that this state is a sign of a kidnapping. If anyone has any knowledge of Izuku’s whereabouts or of the potential murderer…”

Katsuki stopped listening. At some point early in the message, Katsuki dropped onto the nearest surface, his legs no longer able to hold him up. At the end of the report, the television displayed two pictures. The first was of Izuku’s room. Books and magazines all about heroes were strewn about across the floor, some pages ripped out. The numerous posters of heroes on the walls, mostly displaying All Might, had been torn and drawn all over in marker. Katsuki was surprised that the news channel said nothing about the obvious targets drawn on the heroes’ faces.

The second picture was of Izuku. It was an old school photo, one where he was smiling, and seemed legitimately happy, albeit a bit nervous. Katsuki’s shock turned into tears.

What the fuck did I do?

There were two prevailing theories about Izuku’s disappearance: he had either been kidnapped or had managed to escape the killer by running away from home. During the search for him, Katsuki’s parents went on the news, saying that if Izuku could hear them, he was open to live with the Bakugous for as long as he needed. Katsuki could not fathom why Izuku would want to live with his murderer. The search for him amped up when the nation was reminded that Izuku was at a high risk of suicide. This brought another wave of hate upon Katsuki, but he had worse things to think about, now. 

The drawing of a rabbit that had been found at the murder scene looked strangely familiar to Katsuki. At first he thought it was reminding him of All Might, but he later realized that that wasn’t it. He had seen it somewhere else, in a different hero’s costume or in a notebook somewhere.

Another month went by. The search for Izuku eventually slowed to a crawl, with most assuming that he was dead. Katsuki had a strange but sure feeling that he was very much alive. 

During this month, a new villain began to emerge. A few civilians and minor heroes were found dead with slit throats and stab wounds, with rabbits drawn on the walls nearby. The villain moved across the country quickly, with seemingly no pattern, and no clues as to who they might be. Heroes were stumped and frightened as to how pro heroes were being killed by a simple knife. Meanwhile, villain attacks increased as if egged on by the mysterious rabbit villain. Some villains came forward claiming to be the rabbit villain, trying to gain popularity, but then another murder would occur, bringing the investigation right back to the beginning.

It all came to a head when children were killed. Two students from Katsuki’s own class, the two who had been previously considered Katsuki’s friends, were found in their rooms with butcher’s knives in their necks. They were almost completely decapitated.

Katsuki vomited as soon as he heard.

Riots ensued. Killing people was one thing, but killing children was a whole different level of evil. Civilians were demanding that the rabbit villain was found and executed for their crimes. How dare they do something so terrible to two innocent children?

They were not innocent. Not according to their killer.

By now, Katsuki had realized why the rabbit looked so familiar to him, and it frightened him greatly.

His fears were substantiated when the rabbit was found painted on the side of Katsuki’s school building. Classes were not cancelled, for some reason, but they were given heightened security. This security was only a few police officers, so Katsuki felt no more safe. 

This was also the first time a message came with the picture. In green spray paint, next to the rabbit, read, “ Do you know me, yet? ”

Yes. I know.

Two days later, while Katsuki was sitting in class, he happened to look out the window. He then immediately jumped in his seat when he saw a person standing outside, staring up into his classroom. The person was wearing all black, a hoodie, a facemask, a backpack, and not an inch of the person themselves could be seen from under their clothes. But Katsuki could take a guess as to who they were and what they were here for. 

After staring at the person for a solid two minutes, Katsuki turned away from the window for just one second to try to warn the teacher. In that one second, a brick crashed through the window, nearly hitting a student in the head. The girls screamed and ran to hide in the corner while the boys crowded around the brick as if it was a UFO. Katsuki looked back outside, but the person was gone.

“Oh, god, it’s the rabbit!” One of the boys shouted, sending some of the girls into fits of tears.

Katsuki focused on the brick, seeing that the brick had a folded piece of paper tied to it. On the top of the note was, indeed, a drawing of the rabbit.

“We’re gonna die!” One of the girls cried out. A few of the boys swore that they would fight the villain themselves while the teacher called for the police. Katsuki was the only one who stepped forward to grab the note. He was sure that it was for him, afterall.

Katsuki unfolded the note with shaky hands and read to himself, “ What goes up? When the sun goes down. ” He instantly knew what he was being asked to do.

A few people were asking what the note said, but Katsuki stayed silent. Instead, he dropped the paper, then bolted out of the classroom, out of the school, and all the way home. Once there, he locked every window and door, and barricaded himself in his room. 

Only two hours later, Katsuki read on the news that one of the school’s cops had been found dead inside the school . 

As the sun went down, Katsuki left home, telling his parents that he was taking a walk. They asked him not to with such a dangerous villain targeting his school, but he left anyway. 

He knew exactly where to go, but he was unsure of how to get into the school when it was locked up at night. More than that, the building had been investigated all day after the murder, so Katsuki expected police to still be patrolling the area. However, no one was there. No one good, anyway. Katsuki was surprised to find that the first door he tried, the back door, was unlocked. In fact, every door he tried was unlocked. Odd, because even before Izuku’s “incident”, the door to the roof was always locked up tight.

It was almost as if someone wanted Katsuki to be up there.

Ha.

The cold night air made Katsuki shiver and tighten the strings on his hoodie. He had never come up on the roof before, and in the past months, the idea of doing so made his stomach churn. Even so, he knew exactly where to go. 

Right at the front of the school building, precisely where Izuku had stood weeks before, stood the villain Katsuki had come to meet. Their back was to Katsuki, but Katsuki had a feeling he did not need to announce himself.

They stood there for a minute or two, the only noise being the wind whistling around them. Then, slowly, very slowly, the villain turned around to face Katsuki. They were obviously smiling under their mask.

“Hi, Kacchan.”

Katsuki sucked in a breath. It wasn’t like he was surprised; he had always known, but the sound of Izuku’s voice was terrifying. He sounded...off. Too okay.

Katsuki tried his best to calm himself before he spoke. “Where have you been?”

Izuku let out a short laugh. “All over the news, apparently.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked off into the distance. “People seem very intrigued by my little exploits.”

“No…. No, you can’t be that-that villain -”

“Would you have come here if you weren’t sure that I was?”

Katsuki swallowed thickly, but shook his head. “No, you would never kill anyone. Your own mother-”

Izuku’s head snapped back to face Katsuki, his expression angry. “The person you used to know is dead , Kacchan. You should know this by now.”

“Dek-uh-Izuku-”

Izuku smiled again. “Oh, no, please, Kacchan. Why stop using the name you’ve used for years?”

“I’m sorry,” Katsuki said without thinking.

Izuku acted as if he did not hear the apology. Instead, he turned around and stared out at the city. “Kacchan, I knew you were smart enough to figure out who I was, but I was hoping you would be smart enough to know what exactly I was doing.”

“Yeah, you’re killing people. Civilians and our classmates and heroes and your moth -”

“Civilians who were domestic abusers or money hoarders. Classmates who bullied someone to death and felt no consequences for it. Heroes who are only in it to get rich and famous, and who don’t actually care about saving people.”

“And your mo-” Katsuki froze when a small knife flew past his head, an inch away from his face.

“Stop fucking bringing her up,” Izuku grumbled. He had not even needed to face Katsuki to aim for his head. His hand went up to his face, seemingly to wipe his eyes. “She didn’t need to see what I’m doing.”

“So you recognize that what you’re doing is terrible, then.”

“What I am doing is what needs to be done, Kacchan.”

“Being a villain is ‘what needs to be done’?”

Izuku spun back around. “Let me ask you a question, now, Kacchan. How is it that I can succeed so well as a villain, killing even professional heroes , and yet people believed that I would never be able to be a hero, myself? How is it that I am smart enough, strong enough, and skilled enough to be a villain, but not a hero? How is that, Kacchan?”

Katsuki had no explanation. 

“I-a quirkless, worthless, nobody - killed pro heroes !” Izuku laughed hysterically. “Isn’t that incredible , Kacchan? I’ve realized that everyone who said I could never be a hero was wrong. They were completely wrong! I could have been a hero; I just have to do it all differently.”

“So why aren’t you sticking to heroism, then?” Katsuki asked, now desperate to negotiate.

Izuku scoffed and turned away to lean forward against the roof’s railing. “Because heroism is such a dreamy sort of job. So overrated and overstated. People like to believe that heroics is full of generous, courageous, strong people. But in reality, heroes are all greedy, cowardly, weaklings . I had learned that long ago, but now that I have seen heroes right at their moment of death ...now I know for sure. Villains, on the other hand, they understand. Almost all of them have faced just as much discrimination as me.” Izuku looked away from the city and took a few steps towards Katsuki. “And they like me, Kacchan. Can you believe that? I’ve been contacted by some of them, and they’re so impressed by my abilities. They ask me how I can so easily get in and out and not leave a trace. They compliment me. I don’t need or want to be a hero, anymore. I have a new goal, a new plan. A plan to prove to the heroics industry-to Japan-to the world that they’re all wrong ! They’ll see what they need to change, but the only way to make them see is through death. Then, the world will finally be fit for us ‘villains’. For me.” Izuku met Katsuki’s eyes directly. “And you aren’t going to stop me.”

Katsuki didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. His mind was swirling, so he forced himself to focus on one thing: Izuku’s final threat of a sentence. “So...So, what? You’re going to tell me your big evil monologue and then kill me?”

Izuku giggled, shook his head, crossed his arms, and leaned his back against the railing. “I’m not going to kill you, Kacchan. I want you to join me.”

Katsuki might as well have been struck by lightning. “Join you?” He whispered.

Izuku nodded. “I know what’s been happening to you since my death, Kacchan. You’ve been mocked and bullied and hated for something you technically aren’t at fault for. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Katsuki felt as if the joints in his neck had rusted over when he tried to nod.

“You can’t be a hero, anymore; they won’t let you. A civilian job is so boring and won’t give you the fame and excitement you want so bad. Your family is disappointed in you. No matter who you meet, they will eventually find out about what you’ve done. You won’t be able to find a partner. You’ll gain no friends. Any friends you thought you had have either left you or lost their heads.” Izuku had to force down the laugh that bubbled up after his ‘joke’. “You have nothing and nowhere to go, except to me. And the best part is, you know that I’m right.”

“I...no…” Katsuki tried. Izuku was not listening.

“If that doesn’t convince you enough, then think of it as an apology to me. We both know how desperately you want to do that. Come with me and do as I say and maybe that will make up for everything you’ve done to me.”

They returned to silence for several minutes.

“I’ll be at your house in two hours.” Izuku climbed over the railing and set his feet on the slim bit of roof on the other side. “Pack your bags lightly and be ready to run. I would rather get out of there without getting your parents involved.”

Katsuki took a step forward and called out, “What makes you so sure that I’ll come with you?”

Izuku held onto the railing with one hand and used the other to remove his mask, finally letting Katsuki see his sickening smile. “What other choice do you have?”

And then Izuku let himself fall off the roof. 

On instinct, Katsuki sprinted to the railing, not willing to let Izuku die this way, again. However, when Katsuki looked down, Izuku was nowhere to be seen.

Katsuki ran his hands through his hair and paced around the roof, panting and shaking his head to himself. There was no way. No way a quirkless kid was a villain. No way Midoriya Izuku had killed people. No way he was asking Katsuki to be a villain with him. No way Katsuki was going to agree.

The giant clock on the nearby wall chimed just loud enough to catch Katsuki’s attention. How long had he been standing there? How much time did he have left? Two hours was not much. He sprinted home.

He was followed home, he was sure of it. He could feel eyes on him and hear faint footsteps. He just ran faster. 

When he got home, he nearly broke down the front door with how fast he threw it open and slammed it closed. He rushed to his room as his parents asked him where he had been and why he had not answered his phone. He did not respond. He just locked himself in his room and began throwing his clothes and necessities in a backpack as if it was a normal thing to do.

His mind was running wild, yet he did not think at all. His body simply moved on its own to pack his bag before Izuku arrived to take him away.

Finally, just as he was zipping the bag up, an idea broke through the haze. 

Why the hell are you doing this?

Katsuki stilled, kneeling on the floor. He stared at the wall in front of him and took in a shaky breath. “Why the hell are you doing this?” He whispered to himself. “This is insane. He’s insane.” He stood up and smacked his forehead a few times as he began to pace. “Call the police. Just call the police. You have a quirk, dammit. Use it. You can take him. Why the hell aren’t you doing anything right? Come on, Katsuki, do something good for once. Why can’t I just do something good for once?”

“Because what you want to be good isn’t actually good.”

Katsuki spun around to find Izuku outside his now open window. Katsuki had no time to wonder how Izuku had gotten to the second floor or broke the window lock, because Izuku was already climbing inside.

“And I wouldn’t consider myself the insane one if you’re the one talking to yourself.” Izuku stepped towards Katsuki, who took a few steps backwards. Izuku stopped and smiled, “Are you ready to go, Kacchan?”

“I…” Katsuki glanced down at his backpack, then back up to Izuku. “I can’t…”

“Kacchan,” Izuku drawled, “Would you rather live a worthless, terrible life where everyone hates you, or a life where people love you for helping to change the world for the better?”

“No, that’s not-”

“Don’t you want to apologize to me, Kacchan?”

“I have-”

“This is your last chance to do it, Kacchan. I want you to help me. To be my friend again. It would make me so happy to have you as my partner in all this. Don’t you want me to be happy, Kacchan?”

Katsuki squeezed his eyes shut to prevent any tears from escaping. 

“Your life will be so much better with me, Kacchan. I’ll be so grateful for your help.”

“Please, I-”

“I want to forgive you, Kacchan. I really do. But...I just don’t think I can unless you prove that you actually want to repent.”

“I do, but-”

“Great! Then let’s go.” Izuku went back to the window and climbed halfway out. He held out his hand to Katsuki as if he was trying to help.

He had a choice, Katsuki. He knew he did. There were a thousand better ways he could live his life. He didn’t have to do this.

But it sure as hell felt like he did.

Footsteps moved down the hall outside. Mitsuki called out, “Katsuki? Are you alright?” It sounded like she really cared.

“They’ll never forgive you regardless of what you do, Kacchan,” Izuku said. He sounded so sure. “But I can.”

Katsuki’s mother kept getting closer. “Katsuki, we’re really getting worried about you.”

“You can change the world with me, Kacchan. It would make me so happy.”

Mitsuki was right outside, now. “Katsuki, please talk to me.”

“It might make me want to forgive you.”

The manipulation was obvious, but still, Katsuki wanted it to be true more than anything else.

Katsuki grabbed his bag and took Izuku’s hand. Izuku grinned and yanked him out of the window. Katsuki felt pain in his legs when he landed on the ground, but he ignored it. Izuku was running, and he followed. He only looked behind him once to see the rabbit already painted on his old home.

And so it began. Katsuki followed Izuku like a dog on a leash, giving in to his every command in the hopes that he might one day be forgiven. The rabbit villain officially introduced himself as Deku when he killed All Might only a month after Katsuki’s disappearance. The villain “Kacchan” was introduced, then, too. 

Deku and Kacchan terrorized the nation with no sign of stopping, and Deku terrorized Katsuki just as much. Katsuki realized quickly that he was not going to be forgiven, that this was a mistake, but he continued on. Maybe there was still a glimmer of hope. It was too late to stop, anyway. 

They gained new members left and right, each seemingly happy to join after Deku spoke to them. Deku grew stronger and smarter with every passing day. He constantly had new ideas, new, crazy plans to change the world. These plans led Katsuki all over Japan. They led Katsuki to kill. They led Katsuki into prisons, and led him to break out of them, too. They led Katsuki into a different world or dimension or whatever it was. To a situation he did not know how to handle. To a hero who treated him kindly and wanted to help. To a miniscule hope that maybe, just maybe, Katsuki could get out and finally do something good with his life. 

And now, Deku had led him to his place in solitary confinement, and with just one look at Katsuki’s face, he smiled and said, “Oh, good. You remember."

Chapter Text

“Oh, good. You remember.”

The room was bright, but one fluorescent bulb flickered in the corner every so often. A glass wall split the room in half, and behind the wall was Deku. He was tied to a chair with chains and metal bars, his box-cuffed hands pulled down between his legs. 

He was smiling, but it looked different.

Four guards stood at the sides of the room, heavy guns in their hands. The red lights of recording cameras shone in several places; there were surely more cameras that Katsuki could not see. Eraserhead brought a chair over so Katsuki could sit in front of the window as he spoke to Deku. 

“Yeah,” Katsuki sighed. “I remember a lot of stuff.”

Deku nodded mockingly. “You wanted to talk to me, clearly. Talk. I’m sure you have something to ask me.”

“Yeah, I do. A few things, actually.”

Deku attempted to gesture for Katsuki to continue, but the cuffs and chains held his arms down tight. 

Katsuki sucked on his tooth and looked at the floor, following the lines between the tiles. He could ask the obvious questions, the ones Deku wants him to ask, or he could take a risk and ask something that Deku might not expect.

“Why haven’t you accepted my apology, yet?”

Deku certainly did not seem to expect that one. The look of faint surprise vanished as soon as it had appeared, covered up with a mask of disgust. “Do you really think you deserve that?”

“Yes,” Katsuki quickly said. “Yes, I do.”

Deku allowed the shock to stay on his face this time. “Oh, really? And why’s that?”

“I’ve literally killed for you, Deku,” Katsuki said, already exasperated. “I’ve murdered dozens of innocent people for you. I’ve let you torture me in every way imaginable and I’ve apologized a billion times. I don’t know what else you could want from me.”

Deku rolled his eyes. “Do you really think a few months of being with me could make up for the years of what you did to me?”

“The years of what I did to you are kind in comparison to what you’ve done to me.”

Deku scoffed, but before he could respond, Katsuki continued, “You’re not an idiot, Deku. We all know that. You’re not a sociopath, either. You know that what you’re doing is horrible and much worse than anything you’ve punished someone for doing. I don’t get why you’re still acting like this. How many more people do you need to kill for you to stop? Hundreds? Am I one of them?”

“Oh, Kacchan,” Deku said as if assuring a crying toddler, “you know that I don’t want to kill you.” 

“Do I? Because you seem pretty damn excited to get close.”

“Kacchan, you’re the one who needs to-”

“Did you know that I tried to save you?”

Once again, Deku was caught off guard, but he did not speak this time.

Katsuki tried to brush his bangs out of his eyes. “I don’t know if anyone ever told you. I didn’t like talking about it because I had failed, but...I tried. I always knew in the back of my mind that what I had done to you was so wrong, but it only really set in when I saw you up there. So I tried to save you, but I was too late. I think that if I could have gotten just one hand on you, maybe you wouldn’t have hit your head. Maybe you wouldn’t be like this.”

Deku said nothing for a minute, his expression unclear. Finally, he muttered, “What did you really come to ask me?”

Katsuki no longer felt hesitation. “You don’t want to be a villain anymore, do you?”

There was another long pause, then Deku looked up at Eraserhead. “I want them out,” Deku said, nodding at the guards. “You, too.”

“I can’t just leave you two alone in here,” Eraserhead responded.

“I’m not talking about this with anyone else in the room.”

“There would still be cameras on you, you know.”

Deku made a weak attempt to show his trademark creepy smile. “It’s the principle.”

Eraserhead sighed, but led the guards out of the room without any further argument.

And then there were two.

“So I’m right, then,” Katsuki said.

“‘ Right ’,” Deku snorted. “There is no right or wrong, anymore. The world is fucked, Kacchan. All worlds are fucked.” He looked truly distraught for once.

“Isn’t your whole plan to fix it? Or have you realized that killing a ton of people isn’t going to do anything?”

Deku’s expression became solemn. “You never truly understood, did you, Kacchan? Why I had to do all this.”

“To get back at the people who wronged you, yeah, I got it-”

“Because I had no other choice, Kacchan.”

It was Katsuki’s turn to be shocked into silence.

“I didn’t have any power. My only strength wasn’t physical and most people just found it creepy when I analyzed things. I couldn’t become a hero like you could have, but I couldn’t just sit around and watch as the world went to shit. I tried to do good things, but I kept getting shot down. This was my only option.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Katsuki retorted. “You could have done something- anything else with your life. You might have had to deal with some boring office job or something but that would have been miles better than this. Don’t you get that?”

Deku huffed, shook his head, and mumbled, “Maybe it was a bit of revenge…”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “You never answered my question. I would like a response.”

Deku raised an eyebrow, the usual stern look returning to his face. “And I would like you to stop thinking that you can demand things from me.”

“I’ve served my time by now.”

“You don’t decide that.”

“I think I have the right to.”

“Oh, please, Kacchan.”

“I think I at least deserve an answer, Deku.”

“You don’t deserve anything unless I say so, Kacchan .”

“I think that’s a fucking stupid rule, Deku .”

“ Kacchan- ”

“ Izuku .”

Deku flinched as if it were the first time he had been the victim to name-calling, but he quickly got his expression under control. They glared at each other for a minute or two, hardly blinking.

Finally, Deku quietly said, “I never wanted to be a villain, Kacchan.”

“I know. You shouldn’t have become one. That doesn’t exactly answer my question, though. Do you want to stop being a villain or not?”

“Why do you want to know so badly?”

“Because I bet you want me to be the one to get you out of it.”

Katsuki did not miss the way Deku’s lips twitched into a quick smirk.

“We leave tomorrow,” Deku said. “The warp gate will reopen where we entered.”

Katsuki sighed at the sudden end to the conversation. “Okay. What plan are we using?”

“K.”

“K? How are we supposed to do that with…” Katsuki trailed off when he noticed the red lights all over the room go out.

“I have a feeling you know where to get some help.”

Before Katsuki could question the plan any further, Eraserhead returned alone and locked the door behind him. 

“Time’s about up,” the pro hero said.

“Your cameras turned off,” Katsuki pointed out.

“Yeah.” Eraserhead failed to stop a smile. “Someone spilled coffee on the system.”

“Interesting,” Deku grinned.

“Indeed.” Eraserhead pulled up a chair and sat in it backwards. “I’m curious; what does this ‘plan K’ need to be successful? I need to make sure you don’t get that.”

Katsuki gaped at the hero, astonished, shocked, impressed.

He laughed before he realized he was going to.

“Some different handcuffs would be nice.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki felt a buzz when he got up the next morning. He had never felt so excited to escape a place before. He would much rather be locked up for life like he deserved, but now, he felt like he deserved it less. Not much less, but it was an improvement. According to Eraserhead.

Speaking of, Katsuki had new handcuffs. They were small, useless little things, now, even weaker than the cuffs he had been given when he first got here. They would be snapped with very little effort later, but that was later.

There was a new set of guards in the hall. They were awful to the criminals-or, as Eraserhead liked to call them, the children. The new guards were rude and aggressive and kicked Katsuki when he was brought food. Only the worst people Eraserhead could find would be subject to another escape attempt.

Eraserhead came in that morning. He did not speak to Katsuki, just gave him a quick glance as he walked towards Deku’s cell. Katsuki did not see him again for hours.

Katsuki paced in circles all day, which was certainly the most exercise he had gotten in a while. The guards outside his cell were suspicious, but there was nothing they would be able to do.

When Eraserhead returned, he stopped by Katsuki’s cell and pushed the guard aside. Katsuki stopped pacing to look at him.

Eraserhead opened his mouth a couple times before finally saying, “I’ll come back to talk with you later.”

Katsuki nodded, knowing that this would not be true. 

Another hour or so went by before Katsuki heard the tell-tale signs of food being brought to the prisoners. Cell doors started to open and guards began to grumble and throw metal trays on the floor. Katsuki’s own cell door opened, but he did not look at the guard who walked in. Instead, Katsuki faced the other direction and kept his eyes on the tiny, red camera light in the corner. 

“Here’s your fucking food,” the guard said. 

Katsuki did not respond. 

“Hey, the hell are you doing?” The guard stepped closer and jabbed at Katsuki’s shoulder. 

The camera light turned off.

Just a quick pull against the knee and the cuffs snapped off. The guard had no time to react before a hand was in front of his face and an explosion blew it off of his head. Katsuki went into the hall, held his arms out to his sides, and let loose on the other guards in the hall. 

His shoulders hurt like hell because of the force of the blast. He had only ever used such a strong explosion a couple of times in his life, and it was always hard to move his arms afterwards. The guards that were far enough away to survive the explosion began to rush forwards, but Tenya and Eijirou appeared at Katsuki’s sides to defend him. Shouto covered the ceiling with icicles, and Ochaco launched them down at her enemies. Katsuki grabbed Denki and shoved him towards a group of guards coming from farther down the hall. Denki smiled and shouted “Pa-a-arty!” when the guards’ bodies danced with electric shock. The betas took the opening to rush away to help get Deku out, leaving Katsuki with the little crazies and Shouto.

As soon as they were somewhat alone, Shouto got up into Katsuki’s face and quietly asked, “What are you doing?”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “Escaping.”

“You’ve been talking to the hero too much.”

“It’s not my fault he wanted to interview me so many times.”

“You’re up to something.” Shouto took a second to freeze a few more people, probably just to try to intimidate Katsuki more. “Izuku is going to find out.”

Katsuki narrowed his eyes instead of cowering. “I assure you, he already knows.”

Shouto did not seem to know how to react, but he did not need to. The betas returned with Deku. He needed no words-they all knew what to do. Their formation was tight around Deku and Denki as they made their way down and out of the building. The group encountered dozens and dozens of guards and minor heroes. Their survival rate was low. 

The villains had to go through just a couple more floors before they were free. Katsuki was in the back of the group, which made it incredibly easy for Eraserhead’s capture weapon to wrap around his arms and head and yank him into a side hall. The hero had a finger to his lips, so Katsuki stayed quiet and still.

Eijirou was the first to notice the missing person, of course. He cried out Katsuki’s name, but Deku told the group to ignore it and keep going; Kacchan would surely catch up. 

Eraserhead waited until the villains’ footsteps had faded away before letting Katsuki out of the scarf.

“I told you I was going to talk to you again,” Eraserhead said.

“I’m not surprised,” Katsuki responded.

Neither spoke for a few seconds.

“Katsuki…” Eraserhead hesitated more. “Are you really going to go through with this?”

Katsuki bit his lip. “Yes. I have to. Eijirou and Denki have to get out of this.”

“And what about you?”

“I...I know what you think, but...I’m still at fault. I can’t say I was just following orders or something. The two of them can. The rest of us deserve some kind of punishment.”

Eraserhead frowned but nodded. He put a gentle hand on Katsuki’s shoulder. “Please...please promise me you won’t change your mind, even if Deku does.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me you’ll get yourself out of there.”

Katsuki nodded stiffly. 

“You need to go.” The hero led Katsuki through a series of side halls with virtually no one else in sight. Anyone they passed by was under the impression that Eraserhead had recaptured the villain; the hero even kept his quirk activated as much as possible. The two went down and passed by a back door. Eraserhead subtly gestured up at a red light in the corner of the ceiling.

“Right,” Katsuki said.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks. And…” Katsuki met the hero’s eyes. “Thank you. Seriously.”

Eraserhead grinned. “Of course.” He blinked.

The camera would not be able to tell, but this explosion was weak and would barely cause more than a headache. Eraserhead was a good actor, leaping backwards as if from the force of the blast and hiding a smile under his scarf. 

Katsuki ran back to the door and out of it. He winced at the orange sunlight that hit him for the first time in weeks. Several meters away, at the prison’s fence, Eijirou was using his quirk to break through. Denki saw Katsuki first and began to jump and wave. Katsuki sprinted across the lawn as quickly as he could while the others crawled through the hole in the fence one by one. 

Then, just a few feet away, a searing pain shot through Katsuki’s upper arm, a pain he knew well. He collapsed but did not scream because of months of “training”. Cops were shouting behind him, shooting wildly. Shouto, Ochaco, and Tenya helped the others get away, leaving Katsuki on the ground, struggling to get up with a throbbing, bleeding arm.

“ Katsuki! ” Someone was coming back for him, ignoring the bullets whizzing past. Katsuki looked up, and with his dazed vision saw Deku, younger somehow, worried, reaching out a hand. 

Katsuki took it without needing to think. He was lifted to his feet, then off the ground and into strong arms. Katsuki glanced down at red sneakers getting a head start before sliding on a trail of ice. Guns were still firing, but neither Katsuki or Deku were getting any more hurt.

“Katsuki, what happened? How did you get caught like that? Are you okay?”

Ah . It was not Deku, of course, but Eijirou. Katsuki did not respond.

They caught up to the others fast. Katsuki was handed over to Tenya as they passed through back alleys and side streets with sirens and lights behind them all the way. Katsuki could see the warp gate before they got to it, glowing purple and swirling on the side of a run-down building. Deku was the first one through, then Shouto, the little crazies, and the betas with Katsuki in tow. The warp gate closed, and they were back in their own world.

Katsuki was set down and stared at by everyone around him. After a moment, Deku stepped forward and grabbed Katsuki’s arm, squeezing the bullet wound. 

“Kacchan,” Deku said without a smile, “let’s have a talk.”

Home sweet home.

Chapter Text

A few more hours. A few more days. A few more weeks. Just a few more before Katsuki could work up the courage to do something. Just a few more, he swore to himself.

It would have been sooner, surely, if Deku had not continued to make life a living hell. He had not smiled since they returned from the other world. No crimes were committed outside of home base, but Deku kept tearing Katsuki apart. However, Katsuki was sure that it was all weaker than usual, almost like a front.

It still fucking hurt, regardless. 

~~~

The room Katsuki shared with the little crazies was no more than a glorified closet. Three cots in a row with flat pillows and thin blankets. At some point in their time back home, Eijirou did what he often liked to do: he rolled off of his own cot and onto Katsuki’s to cuddle.

“Kat…” Eijirou whispered in the darkness.

Katsuki did not flinch at the arms around his waist. “Hm?” 

“ Kat… ”

“ What? ” He already knew what Eijirou wanted.

“Can we play ?” Eijirou began to tug at Katsuki’s shirt and kiss his ear.

Katsuki sighed. He usually just shrugged and let it happen, too mentally exhausted to care about what happened to his body. But this time…

“No.”

Eijirou’s whole body froze.

“What?”

“No, Eijirou. Not anymore.”

“What-What do you mean-”

“No.”

It took a moment, but Eijirou eventually let go and rolled over. He did not see Katsuki silently crying over having done and said what he wanted for the first time in forever.

~~~

A few days later, Deku told Katsuki to take the little crazies out shopping. Usually, the betas were the ones to get groceries because they were less conspicuous, but it was not terribly uncommon or odd for Katsuki’s group to go instead. So, Katsuki, Eijirou, and Denki covered themselves with hoods and masks and got ready to go.

Deku stopped them on their way out with a hand on Katsuki’s still unhealed bullet wound.

“Kacchan,” Deku said lowly, green eyes meeting red. Deku was pale and tired and did not seem interested in answering questions. “Don’t fuck it up.”

Katsuki maintained eye contact, searching for a meaning and finding the one he hoped for.

“I won’t.”

~~~

Katsuki had often wondered why Deku could not just do this all himself. If he truly wanted to stop being a villain, then he had no reason to uphold his reputation and make Katsuki do all the work instead.

And he could certainly do the shopping every once in a while.

They only ever got their food at a small, run-down store in the bad part of the city. The store was too desperate for money to be suspicious of the hooded figures who occasionally came in and paid only with cash. They had even given up on asking Ochaco to not shoplift or telling Denki that he had to pay for the snacks before eating them.

Speaking of, Denki was in the child harness that he had to wear when they went out. Eijirou held the other end of it, his quirk keeping any shocks from hurting too much. Katsuki was the only person to trust the crazies even a little bit, so he felt mostly comfortable letting them gather food while Katsuki looked for something else.

Katsuki found a small section of the store with a measly selection of office supplies. He grabbed a notebook-he hated looking at notebooks, that weirdly specific PTSD of his-and opened a package of pencils. 

He stopped.

He felt like he was being watched.

He started to write. 

~~~

It had to have been five minutes at least; he had a lot to write. He could have put more on the page if not for Eijirou finding him.

“What are you doing?”

Katsuki hurriedly shut the notebook. “Are you done?”

Red eyebrows furrowed. “...Yeah.”

“Great. Let’s go.” 

Eijirou asked no more questions. Katsuki led his companions out of the store, tossing a stack of thirty thousand yen onto the register-far more than what their cart of food cost. When the store clerk shouted at him to wait, come back, get his change, Katsuki told the worker to keep it. He would not be returning.

~~~

Katsuki let Denki ride in the cart with the food. He had never been allowed to before, and it was either now or never.

Eijirou’s fingers were rapidly tapping on the handle of the shopping cart while they walked. He wanted to ask what was going on, Katsuki knew, but if he had not been given an answer in the last ten minutes, he probably would not get one now.

The confusion was not unfounded, of course. Instead of going back to their base, Katsuki led the crazies in the completely opposite direction. Denki did not notice, precious soul, but Eijirou did. They were not supposed to go this way. It was only a matter of time before they were stopped.

Just a block away, they left the shopping cart on the side of the street. Denki was upset, but Katsuki promised him something better. He promised that they were all going somewhere better.

“Katsuki…” Eijirou whispered as he started to realize. 

Katsuki just gestured for Eijirou to keep quiet. He opened the notebook to the first page and held it close to his chest. He stopped when he got to the door of the building he had been looking for, took a deep breath in, out, in.

One step forward, and Katsuki would be done. They would all be done. Just one step.

Katsuki took it.

~~~

He thought it would be more...dramatic? It was, in a way, but Katsuki imagined some slow motion and lens flares.

In reality, it was a very much normal, undramatic police station. A few officers and secretaries rushed around, a few civilians sat in the waiting area, and a lady behind the front desk picked up the ringing phone to say “Kamagasaki police, how can I help you today?” Barely anyone even noticed the trio of suspicious kids.

Eijirou was shaking, and Katsuki was sure he was, too. Denki immediately tried to get away from his leash to grab at every little thing he saw, but Eijirou held him back.

“Kat-”

Katsuki held up a hand to silence his friend. “Don’t say a word. Just stay calm.”

“But De-” Eijirou frantically looked around at the other people in the room. “ He is gonna know that we’re here-”

“Shut it. It’s already over.”

The woman at the desk hung up the phone and looked up at the whispering group. “Um, did you need something?”

Katsuki took a long moment to respond. “Uh...yeah.” He stepped forward and handed the notebook over to the lady.

Maybe it was that Katsuki and his friends were dressed so strangely. Maybe it was the creepiness of bringing a note to a police station. Maybe it was that, at the top of that note in big, bold, underlined letters were the words “We work with Deku. We are turning ourselves in. You don’t have much time. This is not a joke.”

Whatever it was, something tipped the lady off enough for her to press the panic button under her desk. She explained what she already knew to the cops that rushed in and who quickly took out their guns and handcuffs.

Denki passed out and collapsed before he could be detained. Eijirou went into hysterics, sobbing and screaming, “No more! Not again! Katsuki I don’t wanna do it aga-” His voice caught in his throat as he fainted, too. 

Katsuki was the only one to be put in cuffs while still standing. The cop behind him asked, “Anything you want to say?”

Katsuki blinked the tears out of his eyes. In less than two seconds, the switch in his neck would activate, and Katsuki would fall unconscious as well. However, before that, Katsuki whispered a weak but happy “...Thank you.”

And then his body jolted and his vision went dark.

Chapter Text

“Will you please state your name for the record?”

“Bakugou Katsuki.”

“And what were you called as a villain?”

“Kacchan.”

“Can you please explain to the court why you are testifying today?”

He had said all of this ten times already. All of Japan already knew his name and face by now, if they did not already know it from before the trial. Hell, even news groups in Korea, China, Taiwan, and the Philippines had talked about him: one of the most terrifying villains west of the Pacific was turning in himself and his entire group in the trial of the century. 

After the first three were arrested, it only took a few more days to catch the others. (Of course, it would have taken much longer had Deku actually tried to get away.) In the notebook handed over to the police were the real names and quirks of every person in Deku’s group. Not only that, but Katsuki had written addresses and drawn maps to help the police and heroes find all of Deku’s hideouts. Katsuki had asked to watch the live recording of Deku getting arrested. Deku barely put up a fight. 

Katsuki had been in jail for those few days, but he spent more time in an interrogation room than a cell. He spoke nonstop for hours everyday, explaining in extreme detail how Deku’s group had formed, why they committed every crime they did, and how it was all Katsuki’s fault. 

He was not allowed to see any of the others while in jail, but he asked for Denki to be handled with care and for Eijirou to be kept on sucicide watch. He asked for Deku to be kept as far away from them as possible. As far as he knew, Katsuki’s instructions were followed. 

The trial was meant to start weeks sooner than it did. The switches became an issue. Not only would it likely help them plan an escape, but they might be able to communicate during the trial, which could potentially ruin the trial. Unfortunately, only Deku knew how to shut them off or remove them, and he was not very trustworthy.

Katsuki offered to be the test. Deku had given complicated directions on how to remove the switches, but if he was lying, a death would occur. No one else offered, so Katsuki did. He went into a panic attack when they brought out a needle of anesthesia; not because he was worried he would not wake up again, but because all anesthesia in his past had led to a bout of torture. In fact, Katsuki did not expect to wake up again, and had no feelings towards or against that thought.

He did wake up after the surgery, of course. Surprisingly, Deku had told the truth. It only took a few more days for all the switches to be removed. 

Eijirou was the next to get his switch removed, per Katsuki’s request. They let him recover in the same room as Katsuki, and he did not stop crying. He incessantly thanked the nurses who came to check on them, constantly saying that because of them, he could not be forced to hurt people anymore.

The cops started to interrogate Eijirou a little more after that. 

A few people still died during the surgeries, tragically. Katsuki swore he could hear the screams and smell the burning flesh even though he was halfway across the hospital recovering. That and the power kept going off.

Katsuki had tried to tell them to be careful with Denki. Still, it took them three tries to be successful.

Denki was put in a specially made, mostly rubber room while he recovered. Katsuki was just happy to know he was okay.

Katsuki was not told much about any of the others. He knew that they were alive and in jail, but that was about it.

After the hospital, he went back to jail. He was meant to be given a lawyer weeks prior, but even court-appointed lawyers refused to represent him or his companions. Finally, though, Katsuki was introduced to two lawyers, a husband and wife team. They told Katsuki that they had heard that he wanted to help Eijirou and Denki get out on pleas of insanity. The couple agreed to represent the three of them in order to get to that goal, and to help Katsuki prove some semblance of innocence, as well.

They were the kindest people Katsuki had ever met. Every time Katsuki met up with them, they brought him snacks and sodas, even though Katsuki never took them. They listened to him intently when he spoke. They tried to be cheerful and smiled often, but also tried their best to comfort him whenever he broke down. 

Finally, the trials began. Everyone was to be tried separately due to Katsuki’s accusation that Deku had manipulated everyone into stealing and murdering; the judges were to decide if any of them had committed these crimes of their own volition. Katsuki testified during every single case.

Denki was first, solely because everyone knew how quickly it would be over. The trial lasted a day, and the media let out the headline “ First to be Tried in the Deku Trials Found Legally Insane. ” They tried to ask Denki to testify, but not one question was given a straight answer. They gave up trying to swear him in after ten minutes of Denki just laughing and interrupting with questions about why everyone was dressed up so nicely. Besides, the psychiatric evaluation he was given while in jail was enough to prove his near-innocence. He was sent to a mental institution for criminals for as long as necessary and was not brought back for any of the following trials. Katsuki could not keep from crying when the verdict of not guilty was read to the courtroom.

Next was Eijirou. His trial took three and a half days. Unlike Denki, Eijirou was able to answer most questions that were asked of him, besides a couple of minor episodes in which he could not help but cover his ears and mutter to himself. The results of Eijirou’s psychiatric evaluation were not as definite as Denki’s. Yes, Eijirou was found to have a serious mental disorder, but whether or not it was enough to consider him free of punishment was more difficult to be determined. Eijirou and Katsuki’s lawyers worked their asses off, begging and practically screaming at the judges to give the kid something . Katsuki wanted to literally scream during his testimony, but his lawyers advised him not to. 

The judges deliberated for two whole days, barring time for sleep. Katsuki had never prayed before, but he did then.

A court ordered several months' stay in the criminals’ mental institution, mandatory monthly check-ins with a psychiatrist after that, and a year’s worth of community service hours that would take a minimum of three years to work off. No time in prison.

Katsuki cried even harder this time.

Here, Katsuki felt that everything he had to worry about was over. He got what he wanted-Denki and Eijirou were practically free-so Katsuki was done fighting. His lawyers, however, kept asking him to keep arguing for his own freedom. There was a lot of work to be done, they said.

All of Japan was outraged. Deku’s group of villains had tormented the country for nearly a year, destroying homes and killing innocent people, and the first two of the group tried were let off with basically no punishment. Japan demanded retribution. Some demanded death. Barely anyone had considered that these were broken children who wanted out and needed help, and these few considerations only appeared after Denki’s and Eijirou’s trials.

Apparently, though, Katsuki was helping. Some people-certainly not most-believed what Katsuki said. They gave credence to the idea that he was just a kid-they were all just scared kids. They had dug themselves into a hole, and when they realized they were too deep to climb back out, they just kept digging.

There was one picture of Katsuki, his cheeks covered in tears and his hand gripping his shirt as he begged the courtroom for understanding, that was plastered on every newspaper and online article. Katsuki was allowed to read some of these articles and the comments on them too. Many people were surprised that none of the villains were older than seventeen. No one seemed to know how to feel when that news broke.

The betas went to trial next. They also shared a team of lawyers, because they all became villains for roughly the same reason. They had all done something that they had felt bad about, and when they were hated for doing whatever it was, Deku preyed on their sadness and fear. Unfortunately, their excuse did not get them as off the hook as the little crazies. Hitoshi, Ochaco, and Tenya were given twenty to life in prison, depending on their behavior.

Shouto was next. He was tried twice; once for the crimes he committed as Deku’s right hand man and once for the murder of his father. Surprisingly, the results of his psychiatric evaluation were similar to Denki’s. It was not clear if he really knew that what he had done was a problem. In the end, though, it was decided that he did and was given twenty to life in his first trial.

In the second trial, his family showed up.

That was the worst part of all of it. The families. While the criminals were driven and walked between the jail and the courthouse, hundreds of people flocked the streets, screaming, crying, throwing trash, all in the name of the people they had lost. Katsuki had never realized just how many people...how many parents and children, husbands and wives….

And then there were their families. Denki’s parents, Ochaco’s parents, and Eijirou’s mom sobbed and wailed and pleaded for a chance to hold their children. Tenya’s parents and older brother stayed quiet, simultaneously relieved to see their family member alive and well, and ashamed to have a villain in a known family of heroes. Hitoshi’s father barely said a word.

Two of Shouto’s siblings were brought in to testify during the trial for the murder of Endeavor. Shouto’s mother was brought in as well, straight from her home in a mental hospital. When she walked in, Shouto’s face showed an expression Katsuki had never seen from him before.

The news now had a second big thing to talk about, what with an entire family’s worth of abuse allegations. Shouto’s mother’s medical records lined up with the results of his psychiatric evaluation. His siblings were sure that Shouto’s actions were likely caused by his childhood trauma.

Shouto was to spend time in the mental institution as well.

Deku had no family show up. He had no family left. Someone asked how he felt about this, and he did not answer. In fact, Deku barely spoke during any of the trials, even his own. Katsuki told the story for him, though, and Deku never refuted anything that was said. Katsuki assured the nation that he was the reason this started, that he had been a terrible person from the start, unlike everyone else. Katsuki swore he was the one to mess up Deku’s mind enough that he decided to act the way he did. 

Deku’s mind was, indeed, messed up. Even though he hardly spoke, he was still given an evaluation. He was considered a “curious case”. He was certainly sane in most senses, but something in him was still deeply disturbed. The trial was set to only last a few days until Midoriya Izuku’s hospital records were found. The trial lasted two and a half weeks, having to start over repeatedly due to the judges’ inability to come to a unanimous decision.

The country was angry and confused. Villains were running more rampant than usual in some kind of solidarity for the children who were ruined by a broken system. Heroes were laying low with everyone so upset that they could not stop a bunch of kids. Schools assured that they would do their best to prevent any more children from feeling so betrayed that they have to resort to villany.

Eraserhead spoke during one of these announcements.

Most people seemed to think Deku was let off easy, that his sentence was too nonspecific. A small portion of people thought he got just enough. Some time in prison, a lot of time in the institution.

Because everyone was a child, they were all going to be retried when they got older. If it was then determined that their villany was just teenage lashing out, their sentences would be greatly shortened. Katsuki was happy for them; he knew most, if not all of them would be able to leave sooner than originally planned.

His lawyers kept asking him to stop acting like he was not going to be given a trial, too. Katsuki knew that he was going to trial, he did, but he did not care. He did not feel the need to try. His work was done. 

“Can you please explain to the court why you are testifying today?”

“My lawyers are pleading not guilty for me, but I don’t think that’s right. I’m going to prove that I’m as guilty as it gets.”

The country was on the verge of rioting. Deku, the leader , was barely given any punishment for all he had done. Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to be put in prison for life or killed. There were dozens of life sentences, hundreds of years in prison, all staring Katsuki down.

And Katsuki was ready to take it.

Chapter Text

This prison was far different from the prison in the other dimension. This one was always so dark and dusty. People were always shouting from down the hall. Everyone gave Katsuki weird looks, either because he was a kid in a maximum security prison or because he was Kacchan, one of the most fearsome villains of the past year. 

Katsuki was kept in those annoying box-cuffs again. His arms were always so itchy in those. Katsuki had expected to be perfectly fine with it all, but there was always some nagging anxiety in the back of his head, as if Deku was going to return and demand another round of fun .

And then it actually happened. 

Katsuki did not know how or why, but Deku appeared outside of his cell with a grin and a promise of escape.

“No,” Katsuki cried, “not again. We can’t do this again.”

But Deku already had the door open and was already holding out his hand. “Come on, Kacchan. It’s time to go.”

Katsuki took a step back. “ No . I’m done . Stop, Deku, please .”

Deku grabbed Katsuki’s arm and pulled. “Come on, we need to get the others.”

“ NO! ” Katsuki desperately tried to get away, to no avail. “Leave them alone! Leave them alone! ”

And then Katsuki awoke with a jolt in his bed. The sheets were covered in sweat and his heart was pounding, but the popcorn ceiling above him reminded him where he was.

He had been out of prison for a while now, and Deku had never shown up to break him out. Katsuki had only spent a few years in prison, having gotten out early for good behavior. That, and his original sentence was shockingly short in the first place. Apparently giving piles of information to the police was part of a bargain, so he got off pretty easy. He was not happy about it, but his pleading to get more time was not listened to.

Katsuki was twenty or so now, maybe a bit older. He had stopped keeping track back when he was a villain. When he got out of prison, he was sent to live with his parents. He moved out a month later. His parents did not speak to him, did not want the shame anywhere near them, so Katsuki took the shame and left. 

The courts, prison workers, and lawyers helped a lot. Katsuki was able to get a GED and a job practically right after being released. It was a low paying position at a crappy thrift store that was desperate for workers, but it was something. Katsuki saved every penny in the month living with his parents, and he got just enough to start renting a tiny apartment in a bad part of the country. It was basically just a bedroom with a kitchen along one wall and a miniscule bathroom on the side.

Katsuki loved it. 

The bed was not comfortable, but that meant it was always easy for him to get out of bed right when he woke up. He often woke up abruptly, as he regularly had nightmares involving his past. Today, like most days, Katsuki stretched, sat up and went the few steps over to his stove to start some tea.

Katsuki went through his simple morning routine. He checked the calendar on the wall. Saturday. Katsuki got weekends off of work to do as he pleased, with supervision, of course. He usually spent all of his free time visiting his friends, but today he was going to be a bit more busy.

He walked out of the building while his hero supervision was distracted. He had multiple heroes watch over him everyday in shifts, and six in the morning was one of the shift changes. The Saturday morning hero was young, having only gotten out of school four or five years ago. He was very excitable, and always got distracted talking to the other heroes. When the young hero noticed Katsuki walking down the street alone, he shouted and rushed over. Katsuki could not help but laugh.

“Stop doing that!” The hero whined. 

“Stop getting distracted,” Katsuki responded with a small grin.

“You’re doing it on purpose.”

Katsuki shrugged. “Can’t help it, I guess. Still got the villain brain.” He tapped his temple.

The hero pouted. “Stop saying that! You don’t have villain anything!”

Katsuki always had trouble remembering this one’s name. Lemon-something or other. He had a face vacant of thought and liked to tell awful jokes and laugh too loud at them. Katsuki liked him more than most of the other heroes who came around. Every Tuesday and Saturday morning and every Wednesday evening, Lemon-something showed up with a big smile and an exhausting personality. Some of the other heroes stayed stoic and refused to acknowledge Katsuki, but this one offered conversation and help. Some of the other heroes got bored and stayed on their phones, but this one was always mostly alert to any potential danger to himself or others. Because of that, Lemonhead occasionally had to rush off to stop a robbery or a kidnapping or something of the like, and Katsuki would always wait where he was left until the hero was done. 

Every so often, a person would come up to Katsuki on the street to shout and shove. Katsuki would always just try to ride it out, but Lemonade always made the experience much shorter. The hero’s overly positive personality was great at calming civilians and keeping them from hurting Katsuki too much.

If only Katsuki could remember his stupid name.

“The meeting is still a go, right?” Katsuki asked as they walked to the train station.

“Yeah! Well…” Limoncello rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled. “He usually does what he can to avoid doing things, especially on weekend mornings, but I think he’s still up for it.”

“Hm.” Katsuki did not speak for the rest of the trip. Lemonlime did not stop talking the entire walk to the train nor the entire train ride. Everyone else on the train was annoyed, but not at Katsuki, so he did not mind. 

~~~

“Are you sure this is it?”

“Yeah!”

Katsuki could have sworn that this meeting was meant to occur in a hero agency, not some random office building used by several different businesses. When he voiced this concern to Lemontree, the hero just laughed and led Katsuki inside.

“Would you expect anything else from a hero who hides so much?”

Katsuki shrugged. “I guess not.”

They went into an elevator-everyone else in the elevator moved as far away as they could-and went up. 

“To be honest, I didn’t even know he had a whole agency,” Lemonblossom laughed. “I don’t think he actually uses it.”

“What do you think he’ll say?” Katsuki asked. He was not super nervous, but he was certainly worried he would not get the answer he wanted.

But Lemonpeel smiled widely and said, “I’m sure he’ll love the idea!”

Halfway up the building, halfway down the hall, there was a plain looking door without a plaque to list what was inside. Lemongrass knocked and rocked excitedly. Katsuki stayed still. 

After a minute, a voice grumpily called out, “Come in,” as if the person speaking had only just remembered that people were meant to visit. Lemonzest opened the door and gestured for Katsuki to enter first.

It was not much of an office. It was incredibly small; just a pull-out couch, a table, a desk, and walls lined with shelves. Everything was covered with stacks of paper, some of which looked like case notes, and some of which looked like graded homework. A sleeping bag lay in the corner, and a recently awoken hero stood in the middle of the room.

Katsuki held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eraserhead.”

The hero did not move for a while-he simply stared at Katsuki in thought. Katsuki did not budge, as if trying to gain the trust of a cat. For a second, after peering at the hand outstretched to him, Eraserhead’s hair began to float, but he deactivated his quirk as soon as it started. He gingerly shook Katsuki’s hand. 

“Sure.”

Katsuki smiled. “Sorry. I know you don’t like having fans.”

“Yeah.” Eraserhead vaguely waved towards the couch, so Katsuki sat. The hero brought the desk chair over to the other side of the table. “What’s this about?”

Katsuki folded his hands in his lap. He had not used his quirk in years besides accidental pops when startled. Still, he did not want to let anyone think they might be attacked. “I’m hoping you’ve heard about what happened before I turned us all in.”

Eraserhead looked up at the ceiling to think. “Yeah. Something about another dimension, right?”

Katsuki nodded. “There was a hero there who helped me. I…never mentioned his name, because I didn’t want people to hate him, but...”

There was silence for a moment. “Me?” 

“Yes.”

“Huh.” Eraserhead glanced at a pile of papers marked with red.

“I don’t know how you feel about that, but it’s true. You-the other you-helped me realize that I-none of us-had to be villains anymore. You helped me get out. You understood me. All of us.”

“So you want me to help you again.”

Katsuki shook his head yes. “I understand if you don’t want to; I have no idea how similar you are to the other you. But what I do know about you tells me that you might have a bit of a soft spot for the people I want to help.”

Eraserhead visibly cringed and Lemonseed laughed at him.

“So, I have a proposition for you,” Katsuki continued. “I want to start a sort of rehabilitation program for villains. People get rehab for drugs and alcohol, but never for villainy. I think everyone just assumes that there’s never any real reason someone might turn to doing bad things. Some people make mistakes, get cheated by the system, get bullied, or seriously don’t understand the difference between right and wrong. Those people, I think, deserve another chance. I think more people should recognize the problems that create villains and see that most of them are not purely evil.”

It was so small, so faint, but Katsuki saw it: Eraserhead grinned, just like he had when he was helping Katsuki get out of jail.

Katsuki went on, “The problem is, not many people listen to me, especially not heroes, and I certainly won’t be able to get enough resources to get this program together.”

“So you want someone who trusts you to give you money.” It almost sounded like a genuine question.

“I need someone to lead with me.”

Eraserhead leaned back and crossed his arms. His eyes bored into Katsuki, but Katsuki was not frightened. He waited patiently for the hero’s response, keeping as much eye contact as he could.

“That’s quite the heroic idea, isn’t it?”

Katsuki shrugged. “I don’t like to think of it that way.”

“You don’t like to think of yourself that way.”

Katsuki did not need to respond, they all knew that that was the truth.

They were silent for another few minutes. Eraserhead’s expression changed from a thoughtful look to a glare. It was a front, so Katsuki did not flinch.

Eventually, Eraserhead said, “I’m pretty busy.”

Katsuki smiled. “So am I.”

Eraserhead smiled back. A piece of paper was torn off the top of the nearest stack and quickly written on. “I assume you have a phone?”

Katsuki had been given one, yes. Everything he did on it was heavily monitored, but he was sure Eraserhead could guess that, so the answer was a simple, “Yeah.”

Eraserhead handed over the paper, on which he had written a couple phone numbers, along with an email. “Just don’t bother me too much on school days, alright?”

“Sure.”

“And I don’t know who else has to look over you, but try to only bring Lemillion with you whenever we meet up.” 

Lemillion? Katsuki glanced over at his young hero supervision. Oh. That’s his name? That’s kinda stupid. 

Katsuki nodded.

A few more words were exchanged before Katsuki and Lemillion left. Katsuki was beaming. He had been for a while.

~~~

The psychiatric hospital had a cute little cafe next to the entrance where visitors could meet with the patients. They knew Katsuki well by now, so they checked him in with a smile instead of with fear.

Eijirou sat at a small wooden table in the corner, close to the shelves of board games and children’s books. His hair had grown past his shoulders and was black again; he still liked red, just not as much as before. Besides, it was easy for angry civilians to notice him when his hair was the color of a firetruck. 

He had not been in a hospital all these years. He stayed in the criminal’s hospital for a handful of months after his trial, then was allowed to go home. Unfortunately, he still had PTSD (they all did, of course) and he still heard voices, so he returned to a more normal hospital every so often to calm down or get a new, hopefully better anti-psychosis medication. The last time Eijirou had been here was almost a year ago-the longest he had gone before his medication stopped working again and he had another big breakdown. Katsuki had gotten so used to seeing his friend at home by now that it felt odd to see Eijirou laying his head on the hospital’s table, covering his face with his arms.

Since Eijirou had trouble trusting sounds he could not see, Katsuki gently tapped his shoulder to get his attention. Eijirou flinched and looked up, smiling as soon as he saw who was in front of him.

“Hey, Kat.” He sounded tired. He looked tired, too. He always hated when he broke down.

“Hey.” Katsuki sat across from his friend and smiled back. “How’s it going?”

Eijirou shrugged. “I’m back in the hospital, so…”

“Yeah.”

Eijirou looked down at the table and followed the swirls of the wood with his finger. He had bandages on his arms and neck again. Katsuki did not ask.

“They put me on a new medication again,” Eijirou eventually said.

“I figured. How’s it treating you?”

Eijirou shrugged again. “I’ve been really tired, but it’s been working so far.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s your mom?”

“She’s alright. She doesn’t like when I have to come back here. I...it scares her a lot.”

Katsuki took Eijirou’s hand before he could start crying. “Have you thought more about working?” A few meetings ago, Katsuki had suggested that Eijirou try to find a job, something to take up his time and distract him from himself. Maybe he could even make some new friends.

“Yeah. Well…” Eijirou began to mess with Katsuki’s fingers, curling and uncurling them. “I don’t know. It’s hard.”

Katsuki nodded. “Is there anything you want to do?”

“Something easy?” Eijirou laughed the tiniest bit, so Katsuki did, too. “I want to be outside more. Maybe with animals.”

“So a zoo or a park maybe.”

“Maybe. There’s a lot of people in zoos. And parks are so big and empty, Mom’s scared I’m gonna do something.”

Katsuki frowned. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. I’ll help you look, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lemillion had gone to buy some pastries and hot chocolate for everyone, and when he returned with the sweets, Eijirou smiled again. Eijirou and Denki loved when Lemillion came around. He treated them well and made them laugh, even though he spoke to Denki as if he was a child.

Katsuki looked around and found Denki sitting on the floor nearby, playing with a toddler’s shape sorting toy. He stayed in the hospital a lot more than Eijirou did, considering his quirk made him largely unsafe to be around. Denki was usually fully covered in rubber-lined clothes and a seizure helmet, but today, he only wore a regular t-shirt and jeans. Not only that, but instead of his usually joyful personality, Denki was pouting as he tried to stuff blocks of assorted shapes into a circular hole.

Katsuki leaned down and waved at Denki. “Hey, bud. I know you know they won’t all go in the circle.”

Rather than asking what Katsuki meant or for help like expected, Denki threw the toys aside and crossed his arms. 

Katsuki’s eyebrows furrowed. “What’s wrong, Denks?”

Denki did not answer. Instead, Eijirou tapped Katsuki’s arm to regain his attention. “He’s been really upset this whole week.”

“Why?”

Eijirou’s eyes darted around. It was unclear if he was listening to someone else or just did not want to explain. “They…” Eijirou leaned forward and dropped his voice into a whisper. “They took his quirk out.”

Surely, Katsuki’s face looked as shocked as he felt. “They what?”

“They took his quirk. They had to. He wouldn’t be able to get any better otherwise, and it was too dangerous for everyone else.”

Katsuki did not know what to say. “Why didn’t I know about this? They’re supposed to tell me-”

“You might not have agreed.”

Katsuki’s mouth opened and closed a few times. Eventually, he settled on placing his hand on Denki’s head and holding it there.

They were mostly quiet for a while, snacking on their treats. Lemillion started to talk to Denki, trying his best to cheer him up. Katsuki kept checking the time, and Eijirou eventually pointed it out.

“Are you doing something else today?”

“Uh...yeah,” Katsuki said hesitantly. “Sorry, I know I usually stay all day….” He considered not explaining, but he had nothing to hide, anymore. “Izuku asked to see me.”

It was Eijirou’s turn to be shocked. “ What? ”

“I know.” 

Indeed, Izuku (Katsuki no longer felt comfortable calling him Deku) had once again asked to see Katsuki while in a hospital. One of Izuku’s caretakers was the one to contact Katsuki about it, and the message nearly gave Katsuki a heart attack. Of course, it brought back horrible memories of the first time this happened, and Katsuki was riddled with anxiety and panic attacks all day. However, he got over it after a day and agreed to meet.

“What do you think he’ll say?” Eijirou asked.

Katsuki shrugged.

Eijirou started to tremble. “Do you think he’s going to try to-”

“No. He shouldn’t. If he wanted to do that stuff again he would have by now.”

Eijirou fidgeted with the bandages on his arms again. Katsuki forced him to stop. “Well, what else would he want?”

“Maybe he wants to apologize.”

“ Apologize? ”

“Sure.”

“But he-”

“You didn’t know him before he was Deku. He was never truly evil deep down.”

“You always say that…”

“Hey.” Katsuki held Eijirou’s cheek. “You and everything else is going to be alright.”

Eijirou leaned into the touch. “If you’re so sure…”

“I am. I trust him.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Not that much.”

Eijirou laughed a bit. “I guess you aren’t in here, huh?”

“Well, we’ll see what Izuku says.” Katsuki stood and patted Eijirou’s cheek as a goodbye. As he was stepping away, Eijirou grabbed his hand to stop him.

“Hey, um…” Eijirou bit his lip and looked at the floor. “Do you think, soon, you and I could-”

“No, Ei.”

Eijirou asked the same question every few months, and he always teared up when he got the same answer. “Okay.”

They said their goodbyes and promised to meet next week, then Katsuki and Lemillion left. 

~~~

Izuku and Shouto were still being kept in the hospital for criminals. They had not improved much since they were first admitted, but the past several months had brought something.  

Shouto had stayed aggressive through the years, still thinking that he was to follow Deku’s plans, even if no instructions were being given to him. Only about nine months ago did Shouto start to understand that Deku was no longer Deku and their era of villainy was over. Two months ago, Shouto had begun to cry; it was the most emotion he had shown since his childhood, according to his family.

Katsuki got on great with Shouto’s mother and sister, and got on well enough with his brother. Katsuki brought them homemade dinners every few weeks, even when they insisted that he did not.

Shouto usually did not want Katsuki to visit him, but in the last few months, he tolerated short hellos. Today, Katsuki stopped by Shouto’s room to smile and wave. He only got a nod in response. That was perfectly fine.

Lemillion waved excitedly at the hero guarding Izuku’s room. They knew each other, apparently, and immediately got distracted talking. Katsuki could not help but think that his supervision was not very good at supervising. 

Katsuki stood in front of the door for a solid minute without moving. He did not think he was nervous, but his body said otherwise. He was sweating and his throat had gone dry, so Katsuki did what his therapist said and took a few deep breaths. 

He knocked on the door. There was no response. He knocked again and called out, “Izuku? It’s Katsuki.”

The voice that came back was so incredibly quiet that Katsuki had to just assume that it said, “Come in.”

The door creaked when it opened. The room was dark, the window’s curtains almost completely closed. Still, Izuku was easy to see. 

He was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, knees pulled up to his chest, staring out what little bit of the window was not covered. 

Katsuki had not seen Izuku since their trials because Izuku had always refused the visit. Even so, Katsuki was barely surprised by what he saw. Izuku was very pale with huge, purple circles under his eyes. He wore a medical gown, and the rest of his body was covered in clearly self-inflicted scars. His hair was matted as if he never bothered to bathe. 

He looked afraid. Katsuki was sure he understood why: Izuku had nothing and nowhere to go. 

Except for Katsuki. 

“Hey,” Katsuki said gently. “I…heard that you wanted to see me.”

Izuku said nothing.

“I guess that’s pretty obvious, huh?”

Still, no response. 

“Izuku,” Katsuki let out a breath, “was there something you wanted to tell me?”

Finally, Izuku turned to face Katsuki, tears welling in his eyes. “Katsuki…” Izuku whispered. “I…I...”

Katsuki smiled softly. “I know. Let’s just try to move past it, yeah?”

Izuku nodded frantically. He tried to speak, but only sobs came out.

Katsuki stepped inside and opened the curtains, letting in the sunlight. “I’m happy to see you again. Middle school was a while ago.” He sat next to Izuku and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I have so much to tell you.”

But Katsuki did not speak, yet. Instead, he held Izuku and looked out the window, watching the future begin.