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Chapter Text

U.A. looms in front of Katsuki, shiny blue and crowded with students. It looks different like this, smaller, somehow, now that he knows he can go in. When he’d been younger, he’d walk up to the gates, sometimes, and look up at the walls of U.A. Imagine what it’d be like to walk inside every day, to sit and study and grow and win there.

So far, it all feels strangely uneventful. Katsuki feels strangely cheated. 

He hadn’t felt much when the results of the exam had been released, either. The number one hero in the world had told him that he’d come in first, first in the entrance exam for the best school in the goddamn country, and Katsuki had accepted it the same way he accepted green tea from his father before going to bed. 

Regardless of his annoyance at the lack of anything noteworthy, Katsuki heads straight for the stairs, bypassing the irritating clique of high schoolers reuniting with their old friends and making friends before even reaching the classroom. That’s not what he’s here for.

The alien matching pace with him doesn’t seem to pick up on that.

 “Oh, hey, Bakugou, right? You’re in my class! You’re crazy, dude, you got first in the entrance exam, didn’t you? It’s going to be so cool training with you!”

Winning hasn’t been a surprise in a long time. Katsuki isn’t egotistical enough to gloat over something considered an expectation. People don’t get medals for fucking breathing. Still, it’s good to know that everyone else recognizes it too.

“We’re kinda quirk buds, if you think about it, because I fight with my hands, too!” She puts out her hand, like he’s going to shake it after she said that. 

“Who the fuck are you?”

The alien just grins, unfettered by his disinterest. He’ll have to turn it up.

“Ashido Mina! My quirk is Acid, see?”

Liquid drips from her fingers with a sizzling noise, before it drops onto the ground and holy fuck , burns holes in the pavement. Katsuki’s not impressed. He’s not.

“I already know your name, obviously, because you got first place which is sick, really dude! The other top two were super badass too, don’t you think?”

“No.”

He’s walking away, but she’s keeping pace, bouncing beside him.

“What, you don’t want to know about your competition? The point totals were pretty close, you know.”

Close? 

His right foot stutters before hitting the ground. Ashido grins, all sharp teeth and smug confidence.

“Third place was this girl named Uraraka Ochako, she’s super cool! She’s got this super awesome gravity-manipulating quirk, and she’s really nice, too!”

“Don’t care.”

“I’m actually friends with the second-place winner, his name’s Kirishima Eijirou and, dude, he’s so cool, he was only three points below you, I think!”

Three points?

“What’s his quirk?”

Ashido’s grin widens.

“Hardening! He can harden his skin into this, like, full-body shield, you need to see it, it’s the coolest thing ever. He’s basically invincible. Your explosions are killer, dude, but they wouldn’t do anything to him.” 

“Ashido, over here!”

“Oh, hi! Bye, Bakugou, it was nice talking to you!”

And with that, Ashido skips away from him, seamlessly inserting herself into a group of students comparing their Student ID’s, leaving Katsuki to walk up the steps alone.

He walks through the door of U.A. 

There should be more to this. More than shitty conversation and squeaky doors and an indistinct hallway.

There isn’t.

Katsuki hates the concept of disappointment. People aren’t owed anything except what they’re willing to work for. If they’re willing to work for something, they’re going to get it. Regardless of the scenario, they’re either not entitled to disappointment or not going to experience it anyway.

The air-conditioned air raises goosebumps on his skin. 

(Even the sensation of cold is dulled.)

Katsuki’s homeroom teacher, Aizawa-sensei, is a man Katsuki can respect. He denounces the typical orientation within a moment of starting class, taking them instead to the grounds, where he announces the purpose of the quirk apprehension test. 

Katsuki listens to the drone of instructions and fucking kills it. He runs his eyes over his classmates, notes who is loud and who is quiet, who is confident and who is nervous. Who is strong and who is weak. Who made it in the top ten. He ignores Deku, who’s somehow weaselled his way into an already painfully-awkward-looking friendship with the third-place winner, Uraraka and her more incompetent sixth place companion, the discount-Ingenium.

Kirishima Eijirou is impossible to miss.

Raccoon Eyes must have been right when she said they were friends because the two of them stay stuck together during each of the tests, laughing and teasing and congratulating each other for achieving the bare fucking minimum. Kirishima throws the ball a decently far amount. Ashido throws up her hands like she’s got invisible pom poms in them.

You threw a fucking ball, Katsuki thinks. Calm your shit.

Deku, who was born with insultingly un-calmed shit, breaks one of his fingers throwing the ball. Aizawa rips into him for it and he looks appropriately cowed.

The whole thing is almost enough to make up for the fact that Ashido and Kirishima refuse to shut the fuck up. They keep up the whole act all the way up until Aizawa splits them up for the seating plan. 

“I probably won’t be changing these,” he says, sounding bored. “However, if you give me a reason to,” he stares at Ashido and Kirishima, “I will have no problem inconveniencing the rest of your classmates.”

The two of them smile sheepishly but, even with the warning, they turn their heads to each other constantly, smiling and laughing and distracting.

Katsuki learns to grit his teeth and fix his eyes forward.

(There is blazing red in the corner of his eye.)

Katsuki bites his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Homeroom ends. 

They rotate through the rest of the schedule, meeting Present Mic with his dumbass hair and Midnight with her creepy-ass whip and Cementoss with his dry-ass skin. Ectoplasm is the only teacher Katsuki can stand, if only because he actually has a degree in mathematics and isn’t totally fucking braindead.

(And throughout it all, Kirishima doesn’t stop talking. Katsuki can hear his voice rising above the din of each classroom, complimenting hairstyles and comparing fight styles and repeating the word “manly” until Katsuki wants to grab a toothbrush and a bottle of bleach and scrub the sound of the syllables from his mind.)

(Because here is the thing. Kirishima hadn’t demolished the test like Katsuki. He isn’t here to learn, to break himself, to bleed as red as his hair in order to win. He doesn’t hold a razor blade beneath his tongue, ready to cut anyone who distracts him from his objective. Kirishima isn’t Katsuki.)

(Three fucking points.)

(It’s a glaring sign of weakness, sending up smoke signals that draw predators' noses like blood. How weak is Katsuki, if he barely wins over someone so unmotivated? How strong is Kirishima, if he’s a hairbreadth away from winning without even trying?)

(For the first time in his life, Katsuki stands back.)

The school day ends and U.A. lets them leave, eyes tracking their backs like scientists analyzing migration patterns in the winter.

Kirishima and Katsuki head home the same way. They walk on opposite sides of the sidewalk.

The distance doesn’t falter throughout the course of the first week. Kirishima lounges across Denki’s desk, shares music with Jirou, abashedly discusses the scientific aspects of his quirk with Yaoyorozu, and pets Dark Shadow.

He doesn’t even breathe near Katsuki.

Katsuki watches him, sometimes. Watches the naivety of his grin and the red marks on his papers and the way he frowns and crumples them into balls at the bottom of his backpack before following his friends on the way to lunch. Katsuki watches the spaces where he should be (the library, the training gym, behind Katsuki) and finds him missing, the gap of his presence stark like a cardinal on a barren tree. 

At night, he lies so still his heart stutters in an effort to wake him up and the three-beat thump of it sounds like Ashido’s voice saying three points three points three points.

It’s too close.

And this, beyond Kirishima’s loud voice and ugly hair and irritating personality, is what irks Katsuki the most, what bites at the back of his heels and spurs him to run like a dog in the middle of the night.

If this is Kirishima at his baseline, if this is a Kirishima who does not try, who does not care, then, the way things stand right now, he would surpass Katsuki if he really tried. The idea of it gnaws at Katsuki’s stomach, coaxing bile out of its home and sending it up his throat. Who the fuck is Kirishima to stagnate his own growth? To decide that satisfactory is enough, to act as if Katsuki is not worth his effort, his competition, his rivalry.

Is he that arrogant? 

(Is Katsuki even on his radar?)

(Then again, why should he be? Katsuki’s explosions might as well be the blustering wind to Kirishima’s mountain, screaming for it to bow and weakening when it refuses to.)

The feeling grows and grows, until Katsuki is not wind but a tornado, knocking into Kirishima in the middle of Hero Training, with sparks spitting from his palms like tongues of fire.

“Fight me,” he demands. “Your weakass got second in the entrance exam and you shouldn’t have, so fight me.”

The gym quiets around him, the wary gazes of his classmates burning against the back of his neck. Katsuki doesn’t care. Kirishima is there, looking at him for the first time, his face contorted into a jarring glare, ridges emerging across his brow bone. The shock on his face quickly settles into steely determination.

“Bring it,” Kirishima growls, the register of his voice deep and angry.

Katsuki does.

He fights Kirishima like a beast untamed, like he’s still being suffocated by the sludge villain and all he can do is scream . He fights like spring heat chipping away at the mountain and waiting for the avalanche. At first, his explosions glance off Kirishima’s skin like a faulty match, all bark no bite. Kirishima hits him once in the jaw and it rattles Katsuki’s teeth, again in the stomach and it feels like death. He’s quick and strong and each hit leaves ringing in Katsuki’s ears like a begrudging thunderstorm.

But slowly, steadily, Katsuki eyes the shift in Kirishima’s shield, the trembling of his arms and the wavering of his breath. His skin begins to ripple like the coming of the tide, subsiding into nothing.

When the avalanche finally comes, it's glorious; the steady fall of plates and cracking of ice music to Katsuki’s ears. He can taste the snow at the back of his tongue, sharp and cold.

Kirishima’s pinned underneath him, his hardening worn away. In the grip of Katsuki’s lethal hands, he looks unsettlingly soft. His eyes flash red and he struggles for a moment, baring his pointed teeth. He snarls, looking caged and angry, before aggressively tapping his arm against the ground.

Katsuki doesn’t move.

“You won,” Kirishima says, like the words are corroding his mouth to say. “It’s over. Let go.”

Katsuki fixes him with a glare.

“I didn’t.”

“Bakugou,” Aizawa intones. “That’s enough.”

Katsuki stands up. The gym smells overwhelmingly of burnt sugar and smoke. 

His classmates flinch backwards as he stands, their gazes following him as he moves to the other side of the gym, far away from their judgemental glares. He practices solo moves in the corner, building up his recoil endurance, training his explosions to be bigger and brighter and better, strong enough to take down a mountain.

He didn’t win.

(It took too long.) 

Kirishima doesn’t try. He’s an amalgamation of everything Katsuki hates about prodigies, wasting his time with friends and petty hobbies, preoccupied with everything but competition. And still, Katsuki hadn’t taken him down. Hadn’t been able to find a chink in his armour. He’d had to abandon strategy and wait pathetically for Kirishima to call the match, wait for him to identify his limit and wave it like a white flag.

Ashido was wrong. Kirishima is not invincible.

But he’s as good as.

Things get worse after that. Katsuki hadn’t been expecting them to get better, but it’s still irritating.

The class tiptoes around him, shooting glances at his haphazard uniform and sparking hands and permanent scowl like they think Katsuki might bite them if they get too close. Normally, this wouldn’t fucking bother him, but the extras seem to think that Kirishima is some poor damsel in distress who’s being terrorized by the ugly dragon that lives in the pit of Katsuki’s stomach and breathes its own fire out of his mouth.

Katsuki enters a room and Ashido shifts to sit closer to Kirishima. Katsuki enters a room and all eyes turn warily to Kirishima. Katsuki enters a room and everyone in it tenses.

Kirishima is the bane of his life, but he is also the exception.

When Katsuki enters a room he glows. Raises his eyebrows, crosses his arms, strength rippling over his skin. Rematch? You’ll only lose again. Shifts infinitesimally closer to a fighting stance, ready to strip Katsuki of his dignity in the middle of the cafeteria. 

Katsuki snarls with his teeth. Kirishima bares his right back. Howling wind meets unyielding mountain. Katsuki rips all the trees out of the ground, relishes in the sight of their roots in the air, and practices. He has spent his whole life running and flying and doing. U.A. must be doing something right or, at the very least, something different because Katsuki has never spent so much goddamn time watching.

He watches the way Iida darts around Kirishima until he wears himself down and, only then, delivers the match-ending kick. How Todoroki buries him in ice, only for Kirishima to break himself out of it and run forward with renewed vigour. He watches the way Kaminari has to short Kirishima out with electricity, how Sero can only immobilize him with tape, how Uraraka needs to turn his strength and bulk against him with her quirk.

Katsuki can do many things with his quirk. Beating Kirishima is not one of them.

It’s an all-consuming frustration that takes hold of him. Not even Yaoyorozu, with her arsenal of weapons and martial arts and strategy can find a way past the impenetrable shield. A class of hero hopefuls and every single fucking fight is decided by Kirishima. He gives up, lays the winners belt at their feet, bows with a glaringly offensive charisma.

Who is he to determine the match?

It boils Katsuki’s blood.

How the fuck are they supposed to be the best heroes, heroes who know how to win because they’ve been raised on the high of it, if Kirishima is ruining the success of the entire fucking class? Katsuki can’t tell if he’s angrier that Kirishima gives up too early or that every fight against him is unwinnable.

It’s baffling, that the issue of Kirishima doesn’t seem to bother anyone else. No, the class has decided that Katsuki is the real threat to their livelihoods, and they shrink away from him like he’s diseased. 

Kirishima glares at Katsuki and people don’t react until Katsuki glares back. Kirishima gives up too early and throws the fight. Nobody calls him out on it but they do chasten Katsuki for refusing to accept Kirishima’s forfeit. Kirishima refuses to even pretend that Katsuki is, in any way, worth his time and everyone acts as if the sun is shining out of his fucking ass.

The hypocrisy, Katsuki is quickly realizing, is even extending to his teachers.

“How many tenses are there in English?” Present Mic asks them.

“Like… just past, present, future, or are you asking about–”

“Twelve,” Katsuki cuts in. “Obviously he’s not just asking about those three, dumbass. They’re each separated into four categories: simple, progessive, perfect, and perfect progressive. Twelve.”

Kirishima scowls.

“You don’t need to be so condescending.”

Katsuki stares at him.

“The fuck? You, of all people, are getting on my ass for being condescending?”

“Bakugou, that’s enough,” Mic-sensei says sharply. “That’s not how we speak to our classmates.”

The lesson moves on, Mic quickly agreeing with Katsuki's answer before shifting the focus to the simple future and asking the class president to pass out worksheets.

Kirishima’s still frowning in Bakugou’s general direction like he thinks Bakugou’s is making all this shit up, as if he hasn’t been looking down on everyone in their goddamn class since his first day. It’s rich, that Kirishima will refuse to give anyone a fair match, that Kirishima doesn’t push himself because nobody really challenges him, that Kirishima patronizes everyone with his sheer presence, and, yet, Katsuki is the one that gets scolded for pointing it out.

Does nobody else see Kirishima’s blatant superiority complex? If they don’t, that just makes him all the more dangerous. The only other option is that they do see it and, for some reason, are okay with being beaten and looked down upon and being cheated out of heroism because Kirishima finds it fun to slack off.

Katsuki thinks it’s the first. The thought of it only makes Kirishima that much more irritating. Katsuki gives his all and the entire fucking world hates him; Kirishima is preventing their entire class from moving forward and the idiots celebrate him.

He’s not here for fucking friends, or whatever. He doesn’t need to be worshipped as a hero or looked up to by the extras. Maybe Katsuki’s just a narcissist. Or maybe Kirishima is very, very good at bothering the fuck out of him.

The cherry on the cake happens at the end of the first week. 

Katsuki’s heading back for homeroom to barter over his 99.5% with Aizawa, the asshole, when he hears Kaminari and Kirishima’s voices from inside the room. He’s not into fucking eavesdropping, but the door is ajar and Katsuki, for some inexplicable reason, waits.

“Dude,” Kaminari says, “you can’t let Bakugou of all people distract you!”

“You’re right,” Kirishima replies. There’s a certain steadiness in his tone, so much so that Katsuki can almost hear the hard set of his jaw. “He’s not worth my time.”

Kaminari cheers at that and says something else. Kirishima responds. Katsuki doesn’t register any of it, too caught up in the confirmation that Kirishima thinks of him as nothing. Less than nothing, even, so weak and incompetent that he’s not even worth the time of day. 

They’ve fought each other for less than a fucking week and Kirishima’s already realized that Katsuki isn’t anything substantial in the face of his stupidly powerful quirk. Has already decided that Katsuki is good but he’s not a prodigy, he’s not on Kirishima’s level, and anything less than equal footing is virtually equivalent to invisibility.

Kirishima’s quirk is built to overcome Katsuki’s and he’s finally realized it. Katsuki will have to work harder than he’s ever had to, if he wants to surpass Kirishima. It’s almost pleasant to think about, to imagine the burn of his muscles and the bruises on his skin and the way he’ll have to shatter every physical limit in order to break the unbreakable.

He can do it. He has to.

(Katsuki doesn’t talk to Aizawa that day.)

Kirishima’s newfound revelation makes itself known throughout the course of the next week, when he becomes one of the only people to agree to spar with Katsuki in Hero Studies. He meets Katsuki for every explosion, every outburst, every curse with his steady quirk and cocky grin.

I beat you once, Katsuki thinks. I can do it again.

And he pins Kirishima, chars his skin, drops him against the ground from ten feet in the air. Each time, Kirishima wins, calls the match. Katsuki isn’t worth his effort, his fury, no matter how hard he fucking fights.

Katsuki practices his explosions until they’re strong enough to bring down walls. Kirishima practices until he can withstand them. 

It’s infuriating.

After each match, his classmate’s eyes grow more and more unforgiving. More disapproving. More scared.

It’s incredible that any of them think they’re worth his time.

Kirishima, who was three points behind in the entrance exam, who was created to serve as an obstacle to Katsuki’s path to becoming number one, who laughs in the face of every fucking thing in his way; he is Katsuki’s competition. 

And god, does Katsuki make sure he knows it.

He starts to develop a new attack, a Howitzer’s Impact, something strong enough to burn the sky. Every use of it overpowers the gym with the scent of sugar and Katsuki practices until his nose becomes numb to it. He researches guns, cannons, bombs, blades. He spends two weeks with Kirishima and he makes those two weeks hurt.

It’s not enough.

Katsuki loses again and again and again.

“Second in the country!” Eijirou’s ma cheers, fists in the air. “Who knows how many students and my baby boy got second in all of Japan!”

He grins, rubbing at the back of the neck. 

“Ma, are you going to do this the entire way there?”

“Yes. Eijirou, you’re only going to do your first day at U.A. once, alright? I can embarrass you for other things later! This material has a deadline.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” He’s laughing, though, and she can see it, pulling him tight against her side as they approach U.A. 

The school gates loom above him, tall and foreboding, the entire student body behind them; old friends reuniting, new students staring up in wonder. Does Eijirou look that dumbstruck? That awed? He hopes he does. It’s something to share with everyone else. A mainframe of wonder that they can all plug into. A way for them to communicate a dizzying myriad of images and encouragement and community.

We did it.

His ma dials his mom and hands him the phone.

“Eijirou? Are you guys there yet?”

“Yeah, Mom! I’m actually right at the gates!”

His mom sounds like she’s tearing up.

“That’s incredible, baby. I’m so proud of you, do you know that?”

“‘Course I do!”

“And I’m so sorry I couldn’t get a damn day off of work to celebrate your first day but I already know you’re going to do amazing, okay?”

“Mom, seriously, it’s alright! I got Ma with me and we’re doing awesome. I’ll see you when I get home, yeah?”

“You sure will! Good luck, sweetie. I love you!”

“Thanks, Mom. Love you too!”

He hangs up and hands the phone back to his ma, who’s earnestly blinking up at the sky.

“You’ve got your backpack? House keys? Wallet? Water bottle?”

“All of the above. Seriously, Ma, stop worrying. I’m going to be alright.”

She smiles and gathers him in one more hug. His ma is huge, close to six feet, and she always smells like sugar and soft things, from the bakery. It makes her an optimal hugger, which she’s definitely living up to now.

“I am so, so worried. You can’t stop me from doing that,” she whispers. “But, Eijirou, I’m even more excited. You’re going to blow them away, kiddo.”

“Love you too!”

And with that, Eijirou swipes his ID through the gates and steps onto the grounds.

Having Ashido in his class is something close to a godsend. 

He’s confident now, he really is, but her bubbly, high-flying personality pulls him along, into conversations with people like Kaminari and Sero and Jirou, all of whom Eijirou is excited to learn beside.

His teacher, Aizawa-sensei, on the other hand, he hasn’t quite made his mind up about. The quirk apprehension test is super manly in that Aizawa’s already letting them showcase their strength instead of having to bear the boredom of orientation. But failing whoever comes in last? They’re here to improve, isn’t that the whole point of school? The kid that comes in last needs U.A. the most.

“This is the ball throw,” Aizawa deadpans. He sighs. “Throw this ball.”

“Well don’t look too excited or anything,” Kaminari mutters. Eijirou snickers. Aizawa sends them both a cutting glare, before handing the ball to the angry blond in the front of the group. Eijirou hadn’t caught his name, not that he’d ever given it to anyone.

The guy winds up his arm and drives it forward. The ball flies out of sight.

“Wow,” Eijirou murmurs. “Who is that?”

“Oh, that’s Bakugou!” Ashido says. “He’s the one that got first in the entrance exam! Totally cool quirk, he can make explosions from his palms!”

“Sorry,” Eijirou says, still mentally re-booting, “that ball throw was without his quirk?”

Ashido nods.

“He has to be crazy strong. I mean, my acid dries out my skin so his explosions have to affect him too, right? There’s gotta be a recoil or something.” She grins at him. “You guys should fight sometime! As awesome as his explosions are, they’re no match for your quirk!”

“Yeah,” Eijirou says, eyeing the way Bakugou stands apart from the rest of the class. “Yeah, you’re right, we should fight sometime.”

Aizawa makes them do toe-touches, sit-ups, and a long-distance run. Bakugou comes close to top in every single one.

If this is him without his quirk, how good is he with it?

They don’t spar for the first two hero training classes. Aizawa spends that time developing their own individual strengths and weaknesses and developing specific plans to help them improve. Eijirou decides that he’s a good teacher after all.

It’s dizzying, being surrounded by so much talent. Yaoyorozu rises above all of them, pulling anything from swords to bombs to entire lengths of rope out of her body. Every time Jirou uses her quirk, Eijirou freezes up, unable to hear anything but the blood roaring in his ears. He learns exactly how Uraraka won third in the entrance exam after she floats him into the air and sends him crashing down.

Bakugou isn’t the best in the class, but he is the most captivating. 

His explosions are almost as loud as Jirou’s quirk and he coaxes them from his hands with the same ease as breathing. Eijirou watches him blow any obstacle in his way to pieces, watches the satisfied grin on his face as he steps over crumbled rock and shattered glass and demands Aizawa-sensei for more.

In the light of Bakugou’s explosions, Eijirou’s own quirk looks weak and unimpressive. He would take him down in one fell swoop, Eijirou knows. Does Bakugou even know him? Does he even know how close Eijirou came to beating him?

It’s a bitter thought. Eijirou is never going to be able to beat Bakugou.

Bakugou’s always looking at him, though, with a brittle look in his eyes, like he can’t believe that he and Eijirou have somehow made it in the same class. Bakugou looks at Eijirou and sees all his faults and flaws laid bare. Given the chance, he’d show the rest of the class what Eijirou already knows: that Bakugou is capable of breaking him.

Eijirou isn’t proud of it, but he avoids Bakugou.

It’s easy to do.

Bakugou doesn’t take part in class conversations. He doesn’t sit with the rest of them at lunch or ask to compare quirk strategies or hero merch. Eijirou preoccupies himself with the company of his other classmates and allows Bakugou to fade into the background of his mind.

The latter bit isn’t as successful. Even without all the screaming, Bakugou is loud. His presence electrifies something in Eijirou, sets alight his core, demands look at me look at me look at me. Eijirou holds no reservations that he has anywhere near the same kind of magnetic pull.

The rest of the class feels it too, and they hold themselves back accordingly. Bakugou looks like he’ll cut anyone that goes too close. Maybe if they had different quirks, Eijirou would make the leap, would take it upon himself to bring Bakugou into the budding community the rest of the class has formed.

Bakugou would chew him up and spit him out. He’s got a razor blade beneath his tongue and his quirk was built to overpower Eijirou’s.

His entire existence is a challenge, Eijirou realizes. If he’s ever going to be a hero, he needs to be able to overcome Bakugou. 

So when Bakugou approaches him on the third day of hero training, when Bakugou calls him weak and demands that they spar, the answer tumbles out of Eijirou’s mouth before he even finishes his sentence.

He’s good.

He’s more than that, he’s more than anything Eijirou had been able to take in from his solo training. Bakugou fights like he was born for it, like he came out of the womb kicking and screaming and nobody has ever told him to stop.

Eijirou hardens his fists and gives it his all, lands jaw-breaking punches one, two, three times. Bakugou shakes each one off and continues to burn like a wildfire, chasing all the oxygen out of Eijirou’s lungs.

The shift in his muscles comes gradually. Everything stops coming through numb. The sting of Bakugou’s explosions is harsher, the flashes brighter and the sounds more pronounced. Eijirou becomes faster the less he hardens but he isn’t a match for Bakugou, who’s got agility in spades and a quirk to match.

Eijirou falls.

Bakugou’s got him pinned underneath his hand. 

(Eijirou can’t stop looking at his eyes because they’re red like Bakugou’s blood is simmering hot and he needs everyone to know, because they’re red and angry and they’re focused on him.)

(He’s seen Bakugou angry before, but not like this. Never the cold, quiet, analytic anger that’s taken ahold of him. He’s voluntarily in Eijirou’s space and he won’t stop looking like he’s searching for something and the answer is inside the boy who knows nothing.)

You won’t find anything here, Eijirou thinks. Not in me. Not when you’re you.

“You won,” he says, instead, trying to explain, to get Bakugou to understand that he doesn’t need to lorde his victory like this, that Eijirou already knows how incompetent he is, how much of a failure he looks like beside the maelstrom that is Bakugou. “It’s over. Let go.”

Bakugou doesn’t move. He’s not listening, which makes sense but still feels like another punch to the gut, another explosion to the face.

“I didn’t,” he growls.

“Bakugou,” Aizawa intones. “That’s enough.”

And at that, Bakugou stalks off to his corner. He throws himself into his draconic training regimen, letting off explosions that shake the roof of the gym like the fight hadn’t taken anything out of him. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t look back, not at Eijirou nor any of their gobsmacked classmates.

“Dude,” Kaminari breathes. “He’s a beast.”

Their classmates agree, moving closer, chattering about the match, about Bakugou’s violence and his anger issues and the way they’re all craving something sweet, now, even though there’s still way too much time left in class and most of them are going to have to start diet plans, anyway.

All Eijirou can hear is the unspoken.

Don’t feel bad about losing to him. How could you win? How could you, of all people, win against someone so powerful? Don’t feel bad about losing to him. 

(Don’t get ahead of yourself.)

“Hey, Kirishima, you did really good,” Sero says, nudging his shoulder. He’s smiling, bright and wide, and Kirishima tries to return it.

“Thanks, man! I’m going to get better.”

“Yeah, you are!”

And Sero fistbumps him and Aizawa barks at all of them to go back to sparring or quirk development and all Eijirou can think of is Bakugou.

(I didn’t win.)

(You didn’t give me anything to win. You didn’t give me anything but failure.)

(I didn’t win.)

(People win fights. This was a slaughter. I didn’t win, I conquered.)

(You lost. But I didn’t win.)

Bakugou lets loose with another explosion. Eijirou can’t smell anything but smoke.

The first two weeks of school pass by in a blur of highs and lows. Eijirou feels like a pendulum; swung up and struck down in the same stroke of the day. He walks into U.A. and breathes in the air of the grounds and thinks I made it and he looks at his test marks and his classmate’s quirks and he thinks but can I stay?

Bakugou seems intent on proving that to him which, Eijirou can admit, is something of an unmanly move.

Why is he so intent on hammering in the fact that Eijirou doesn’t belong? Eijirou already knows that he made it here on accident, that he isn’t meant for greatness the same way the rest of them are. For some reason, Bakugou feels the need to reiterate the message and Eijirou is tired of it. 

Bakugou glares at him and Eijirou sneers right back, baring his teeth and relishing in their sharpness. If his classmates are surprised by this new side of him, they don’t say anything. Bakugou seems to bring out the worst sides of everyone, though he doesn’t push anyone’s buttons in quite the same way that he pushes Eijirou.

They spar every day in class now, like they’ve got something to prove. Bakugou’s explosions never waver in their strength and power. Eijirou learns to count the bruises that accumulate after his quirk fails. He’s got one on his jaw, from Bakugou sucker-punching him. Two on his arm, from explosions that had burned more than they’d hurt, but had done the job and forced the last dregs of his quirk out of his system. A full-body ache from the time that Bakugou had propelled them both into the air and dropped Eijirou in a more aggressive mimicry of Uraraka’s fighting style.

Eijirou tries to hold on.

He learns to identify Bakugou’s different explosions, their timing and preparation, the way Bakugou needs to stand to get them just right. He’s a perfectionist. If Eijirou can just figure out what he considers perfect maybe he’ll stand a chance.

It’s a childish strategy at best, built on hypotheticals. Over the course of two weeks, Bakugou beats him again and again and again.

Eijirou learns the bitter taste of failure and tucks it beneath his tongue like a vial of poison.

He’s a nice person, he thinks. Or, at least, he tries to be. And yet, whenever Bakugou speaks to him, Eijirou can’t help but spit back in defence.

“It’s funny,” Bakugou says, “that you think you’re ever going to beat me.”

He punctuates this with a small explosion, even though the match has already been decided in his favour, just to be an asshole. (Eijirou’s never described someone as an asshole, before. Never seen anyone as harsh enough to fit the title. It makes sense that Bakugou’s the first.)

“I must be doing something right,” Eijirou says, “if you’re still fighting me.”

He doesn’t mean it, not really, but it’s fun to get underneath Bakugou’s skin and watch him throw a tantrum at the idea that someone as lowly as Eijirou could ever consider himself as being anywhere near Bakugou’s level.

“I’ll kill you,” Bakugou tells him, and there’s something deadly in his voice. Behind them, Kaminari inches away, looking close to calling Aizawa-sensei over and scheduling Bakugou for counselling.

“You can try,” Eijirou responds. 

(How pathetic is he, that Bakugou can feel secure enough to say that to him? To tell Eijirou that he’ll end his hero career before it’s even started, that he’s not worthy of any of the things he’s accomplished, that he’ll die forgotten and alone and afraid?)

(How pathetic is he, that Bakugou can see each of his fears tattooed on his sleeve and throw them back in his face?)

Bakugou’s ire knows no boundaries. He picks on Eijirou’s gelled hair, insults his meat-loaded lunches, and snickers when Eijirou’s quirk acts up involuntarily and rips his shirt. It’s superficial until it isn’t. Until he laughs at the way Eijirou is overly polite with his teachers, calls him a “people pleaser.” 

“You’re just bitter that none of our teachers like you,” Kaminari shoots back. Eijirou notes how Kaminari doesn’t actually dispute Bakugou’s claim.

Ectoplasm hands out the grades for their first math test of the year. Eijirou’s paper has a bright red 63% on it and he bites his lip. He curses the moment his brain catches up with the action, because the pain is inconsequential compared to the embarrassment that comes soon after.

“Shit, Kirishima, are you bleeding?”

Ashido’s peering at him, concerned, worrying at her own lip. Her heart’s in the right place, Eijirou knows it is, but his other classmates are crowding closer and this is exactly what he doesn’t want–

“Just bit my lip!” He smiles, trying to reassure them. “I forget, sometimes, that I have, y’know, these.”

Kaminari laughs, shaking his head.

“I don’t know how you can forget that you’re a literal shark, dude, but alright. Hey, what’d you get on the test?”

His bright 67% mollifies Eijirou a little but it’s still hard to tug the “ah, not great,” out of his larynx. 

Bakugou raises his eyebrows, clipping his own perfect score into his binder.

“Well, what did you expect? You’re a damn prodigy, but even you need to study.”

Eijirou flushes.

“Imagine not being an asshole for once in your life,” Ashido says, eyes hard. Jirou rallies behind her, as do Kaminari and Sero.

“You’re good enough on your own,” Eijirou grits out, “you don’t need to put me down to bring yourself higher.”

Kaminari’s still chewing Bakugou out but he’s looking at Eijirou, a small smirk playing on his lips.

Eijirou hears the message, loud and clear: It’s incredible that someone as stupid as you would ever hope for more.

Interacting with the class is harder, after that. They must all be seeing the same thing Bakugou is, if Eijirou is that obvious. He can’t decide which he prefers: Bakugou’s knife at his throat, or the rest of his classmates, tip-toeing on eggshells.

They move to protect him whenever Bakugou nears him, whether they realize it or not. Like there isn’t a universe where Eijirou is a match for Bakugou. A universe where he can hold his own against him and gain his respect.

This is probably why Eijirou fights with Bakugou again and again. Learns to build himself up against the burn of the explosions until they’re no more harmful than raindrops. Like rainstorms, though, the cold eventually begins to seep into his bones and Eijirou loses again and again and again.

He’s only known Bakugou for two weeks and he already knows that he always wins.

His frustrated quirk doesn't have the same capabilities and Eijirou spends more time than expected in the infirmary, nursing swollen joints and overstressed limbs. Recovery Girl hands him ointment for the stiffness in his joints and Eijirou finds himself wondering if, maybe, some things are just meant to be out of reach. 

The Unforeseen Simulation Joint is, objectively, sick as fuck. Katsuki feels the familiar excitement rising inside him, the same kind of buzz that anticipated summer heat; the way his entire body thrums with the promise that he’s about to go absolutely fucking nuclear.

Thirteen is slightly less sick as fuck but they still have a powerful quirk and Katsuki listens to them describe the importance of the simulation. Aizawa doesn’t look like he wants to be here, but he explains the rules and objectives with an impressive amount of clarity.

“Absolutely under no circumstance are any of you to start fighting,” he says, abruptly turning to face Katsuki. “Am I understood?”

Kaminari snickers. Katsuki has to hold himself back from immediately proving Aizawa’s due diligence necessary.

“Alright,” Thirteen says, “we should be good to… go…”

There’s a purple mass of mist growing larger as they watch.

Jirou yelps “What the fuck is that?”

A hand, gnarled and nicked with blood, claws through the mist, making way for yet another creepy-looking hand, only this one is attached to–

“Is that a face,” Kirishima says, his voice comically high. “Is that hand attached to a face.”

“I guess U.A. is at the top for a reason,” Uraraka says, ruefully. “I don’t think any other school would put this much effort into their simulations.”

Katsuki turns to her, incredulous.

“Are you fucking stupid? This isn’t a simulation.”

She glares at him.

“Would it kill you not to be a colossal–”

“Bakugou’s right,” Aizawa-sensei says, lowering his goggles. “Thirteen, get them out of here.”

And Katsuki, alongside the rest of the class, proceeds to learn exactly how Aizawa got his teaching credentials as he proceeds to absolutely slaughter an entire army of villains.

“He’s incredible,” Hagakure murmurs. “That’s. Wow. He’s incredible.”

“We need to go,” Thirteen urges. “Everyone, follow me!”

They're all heading for the exit when the same mass of mist materializes in front of them. Someone screams. Katsuki’s own internal voice isn’t doing much better.

“We mean you no harm,” rumbles the apparently-sentient mist. A teleportation quirk, then. Basic as fuck. “My name is Kurogiri and I am a member of the League of Villains. We are simply looking for All Might. Tell us his location and we will leave peacefully.”

It’s fucking ridiculous, that the hand fucker and this glorified evaporation cycle think that they can take control of this stupid field trip and ruin Katsuki’s chances of moving up higher in the class ranks. He’s completely condescending, too, like he thinks the demands he’s making are something the rest of them believe.

“I can see that you hesitate,” the villain says, and he sounds almost soothing, like he’s trying to calm down a nursery full of toddlers. “I can promise you–”

Katsuki’s done hesitating.

He leaps forward, dragon fire erupting from his mouth and explosions crackling at his fingertips. There’s a powerful force beside him, someone shouting just as loud, someone keeping pace with Katsuki. The flashes of Katsuki’s explosions are pushing Kurogiri back, the mist recoiling like startled garden snakes.

“Unfortunate,” Kurogiri says, softly.

And even as the mist begins to surround them and their classmate’s distress fills the air, Katsuki can’t find it in himself to be angry. Kurogiri’s got a teleportation quirk, sure, but Katsuki’s built to kill.

Everything goes black.

Eijirou blinks.

He’s nowhere near the exit. Scratch that, he’s nowhere near his class. The villain was a textbook teleporter, which means that he’s split their class up.

Eijirou feels himself grin, despite the situation they’re in. He’d come to U.A. to learn and grow, yeah, but he’d also come to fight and it’s like the universe is handing him this moment on a silver platter. He’s not going to pass it up.

His blood is already thrumming, woken up from leaping at the villain. Every aspect of his existence had rubbed Eijirou wrong. How dare he attack their classmates? How dare he make demands, how dare he even assume that any one of them would be disloyal enough to offer up their teacher to a group of villains?

Eijirou hadn’t been able to stop himself from attacking. Even now, separated from his classmates, Thirteen, and any visible exit, he can’t find it in himself to regret it. 

He’s in the Ruins zone. Eijirou remembers this place from Thirteen’s speech. It’s meant to emulate an already-damaged urban location and it sure as hell looks the part, dark and cloudy as it is. Precariously-standing buildings make up the zone, ominously creaking. Eijirou looks uneasily at the slabs of concrete on the ground and the shattered glass inches away from his feet.

The villains, Eijirou is sure, are not supposed to come with the ruin. Still, they make it look all the more accurate, lurking out from behind buildings, steadily advancing with menacing grins on their faces.

Glass crunches underneath someone's foot. There’s a classmate here with him.

Eijirou meets eyes with Bakugou, who immediately tenses and sneers at him. The both of them are surrounded by monsters and, somehow, Bakugou is still the person in the room that irritates Eijirou the most. 

He jumps against the nearest mutant quirk to distract himself, hardening his fists and beating the villain back until they fall to the ground, unconscious. Eijirou steps over them and beckons the others closer.

Does Bakugou consider these villains worthy fighters? Are they worth his respect, at least in a fight? Will Bakugou consider this battle a victory, as opposed to a waste of time?

The answer seems to be yes, because Bakugou is screaming and detonating and winning, declaring his triumph so loud that everyone in the USJ must be able to hear it.

Eijirou isn’t doing too shabby, either. Any villain that comes near him is met with powerful punches and kicks. A villain brings a sword down behind him. It shatters against his back and the force of the collapse throws the villain backwards. Eijirou grabs them by the arm and swings them at two emitter quirks approaching him. The three villains bowl over backwards.

Bakugou’s quirk is better suited to long-range attacks and he’s realized this, using his explosions to provide distraction and cover while Eijirou goes in and incapacitates the villains. Someone shoots a literal fucking gun at Bakugou and Eijirou’s throwing out his arm before he can register the movement. The bullet lands snug in his palm.

Eijirou makes direct eye contact with the villain and crumples the bullet into dust. The villain blanches. Eijirou grins back, feral and unhinged. 

And the two of them fight together, for the first time since, ever, really. They cover each others’ blind spots, making up for each other’s weaknesses and supporting the other’s strengths. Bakugou shoots from a distance and Eijirou deals the final blow. Whenever Bakugou goes close range, Eijirou is shielding his back, the unwavering wall.

Before long, the ruins are quiet, only punctuated by the distant noises of fighting.

Eijirou looks at Bakugou. Bakugou looks back. 

Red eyes meet red eyes.

The gunman is approaching Bakugou from the back, clearly harbouring a grudge that his bullet hadn’t reached its target. 

“BEHIND–”

Bakugou twists around with an almost inhuman speed and detonates against the villain’s head. He drops with a dull thud.

They stand still, for a moment, just breathing. There’s dust rising from the remnants of the fight and it tastes gritty at the back of Eijrou’s mouth. They did it. They’d taken out a whole squad of villains.

Bakugou bares his teeth, but the smugness in it comes from triumph, rather than something cruel and mocking. 

“Let’s go,” he says. “I’m going to find that fucking mistfucker and murder him.”

“No,” Eijirou says firmly. “Our classmates need our help and your explosions don’t work against him, you know that. We tried once and it didn’t work out. Let’s go somewhere we know we can help.” He grins. “I mean, I was pretty badass.”

Bakugou glares.

“The fuck you mean, you were pretty badass?” He doesn’t disagree with it, though, just picking an issue with the fact that Eijirou hadn’t included him in it. 

Eijirou blames his next words on the adrenaline: “Fine. We were pretty badass.” He thinks it over for a minute. “Our classmates have probably finished around the same time we did. Wherever they are, Kurogiri’s going to be as well. Two birds one stone?”

Bakugou smirks.

“Fine. Let’s go, you fucking tortoise.”

Eijirou’s already moving.

“Try and keep up!”

(Bakugou gets his chance to get a good hit in on Kurogiri.)

(Eijirou deals a similar fate to Shigaraki.)

(The villains got away. Eijirou knows this. Still, there’s something inside him that’s screaming with victory. Whatever it is, Bakugou looks like he’s got the same thing inside him too.)

Chapter Text

The difference between regular school and hero school is that students are taught to compartmentalize early. Katsuki remembers the way his teachers had called home after the fucking slime villain incident, asking if he was okay, if he needed counselling, if there was anything any of them could do. The calls were sent less because they were worried about Katsuki, he knows, and more because heroes will sometimes send courtesy gifts to everyone who they think deserves it and his bootlicking middle school teachers think they deserve it.

Aizawa-sensei is nowhere near as sensitive. 

The day after USJ, he walks into homeroom wrapped up in bandages. Even blinded, he gives off the impression that he can see each of them down to the atom.

“Morning,” Aizawa deadpans.

“Sensei, should you be in right now?” Tsuyu asks. “You were… really hurt in the battle.”

She was there, wasn’t she? Katsuki has hazy memories of Aizawa and Tsuyu and a Nomu and Tsuyu screaming like someone had ripped out her tongue. There’s guilt overpowering her voice so his memories have to have some merit.

Why the fuck does she feel guilty about a hero risking their life for her? That’s the fucking job, the job that they’re all training for. It’s hypocritical to feel guilty for the very thing she’ll be telling civilians not to feel in a couple of years.

Aizawa sighs.

“Listen to me now, because I will not be repeating this. All Might told you that there has never been a first-year class to fight villains so early in their training. This is true and it means that you will have to learn a very important lesson early on. As heroes, the safety of others will almost always come first. Each of your livelihoods has been entrusted with me. As a hero and as your teacher, I cannot take a day off. This is the job that you are all training for.”

Everyone is silent in the aftermath of his speech. Katsuki can see Deku’s hand twitching, itching to raise itself in the air and unleash a litany of questions. Thankfully, the nerd seems to have learned a modicum of tact because he hurriedly sits on both of his hands and waits for Aizawa-sensei to speak again.

“However,” Aizawa says, after a long moment, “you all handled the situation exceptionally well. I will no longer be accepting any of you slacking off now that I have seen your abilities in action.”

“Were you accepting that in the first place?” Dunce Face grumbles.

Aizawa’s face snaps in his direction.

“I was allowing you all to settle in. The penalties will be harsher now.”

And Katsuki is looking at Dunce Face shaking in his boots which means that his eyes pass a little farther past him, to Kirishima, whose Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Is he fucking nervous? 

(Of course he’s nervous. Aizawa, unlike Katsuki, is actually someone Kirishima feels that he needs to impress. Someone who scares him, who challenges him, who pushes him to go forward.)

Kirishima turns to him and Katsuki turns to face the front. 

(He knows that Kirishima can tell how much he bothers Katsuki. He knows that Kirishima knows, knows that Katsuki feels incapable and weak and unsure beside him, things he’s never been in his fucking life, not even when he was choking on slime in an alleyway surrounded by heroes because at least then he was fighting but Kirishima doesn’t even see him as a worthy opponent.)

(Katsuki doesn’t see the use in making it any more obvious.)

“Moving on,” Aizawa tells them, “it would be in your best interest to fully dedicate yourself to your training, as the Sports Festival is coming up. This is an opportunity to get noticed by heroes for your internships. Take advantage of it. Expectations are high.”

Kirishima raises his hand.

“Do the heroes expect a lot from us?”

 “Yes,” Aizawa says. “I do.”

(Katsuki watches his classmates train. He’s going to fucking win but the second and third place winners are going to be in his class, he knows, because nobody in 1-B or General Studies or Support is a match for a class full of kids that faced the League of Villains a few weeks into training.)

(He watches the way Uraraka floats through the air as easy as breathing. He works on controlling his explosions to make his flight more streamlined.)

(He studies Todoroki’s raw power and fine-tunes his Howitzer, strong enough to shatter a mountain of ice.)

(He analyzes Hagakure and Ojiro’s fights and brushes up on his hand-to-hand, punctuating every punch with an ear-ringing blast.)

(He doesn’t bother looking at Kirishima. Katsuki doesn’t have anything to beat him with.)

Challenges start popping up around the school. Todoroki tells Deku he’s going to beat him, like that’s a fucking surprise to anybody. Some Gen Ed kid is going around ripping into the heroics classes, which Katsuki only knows because Hagakure won’t stop threatening to beat his ass if he keeps being so rude.

Kirishima, like the fucking bandwagoner he is, jokingly challenges his friends. Tells Ashido that he’s going to beat her, tells Kaminari to accept defeat, tells Sero that second place isn’t an awful place to be, especially if Kirishima’s taking first. He doesn’t approach Katsuki.

(Why would he? Kirishima winning a fight against Katsuki is a fact, not a prediction.)

Katsuki doesn’t challenge anyone. He lets the results of his training speak for itself. In class, he triggers an explosion, watches the dust rise up and smother his classmate’s shocked expressions. They cough out their admiration and Kirishima, who fought beside him at USJ, hangs at the back of the group, not saying anything.

Katsuki doesn’t need recognition from people.

He doesn’t.

He doesn’t need recognition or acknowledgement or rewards or any of that bullshit, it’s all insignificant in the big picture and the only people who chase after these things are fucking weak. 

When the day of the Festival finally rolls around and he’s selected to represent Class 1-A as the highest points-earner in the Entrance Exam, Katsuki waits for the satisfaction of victory to simmer in his stomach. It doesn’t come.

He stands on the podium and surveys the crowd in front of him. The audience members, waiting with bated breath, for… for what? A motivational speech? 

“I pledge to be number one,” Katsuki says.

Eijirou rolls his eyes.

Everything with Bakugou is two steps forward, two steps back; static motion, at odds with itself and somehow the only thing he can seem to manage.

After USJ, Eijirou had thought that they’d overcome the animosity that rears its head between them. Bakugou and he had fought together and they’d done well, at that. Had finished quickly enough to join the rest of their classmates and fight the villains like proper heroes.

Instead, Bakugou had shoved Eijirou even farther down, refusing to challenge him like Eijirou still hasn’t proven his worth after he quite literally caught a bullet for Bakugou. 

Had Bakugou even noticed? It had all happened so fast and Eijirou is pretty sure he’d notice if someone was shooting at him but maybe Eijirou is just invisible to Bakugou, not even on his radar. Maybe Bakugou sees him and turns the other way out of embarrassment for someone so beneath his level. 

He looks up at Bakugou on his podium, already number one, already at the top, and makes a little pledge to himself: he’ll beat him, finally. He’ll force Bakugou to see him.

He has to. Because the other option, the reality where he is unseen and unheard and unimportant is one where he cannot be a hero. If Eijirou wants to make it to the top, wants to cement his place amongst his capable classmates, it’ll take more than fighting beside Bakugou in one small battle.

He needs to win against him. 

Eijirou doesn’t, at first, because the Obstacle Race relies on speed and his quirk has never been known for that. Todoroki ices the entire cohort and Midoriya decapitates a robot and, when the dust has settled and the chasm has been crossed, Bakugou’s clawed his way to third place. Eijirou lags behind them but he still manages to make it over the finish line ahead of most of the other students.

Midnight cracks her whip, her white grin visible from across the stadium.

“The top forty-two of you have qualified for the second event. Congratulations to those of you who made it!”

The audience cheers. Eijirou breathes heavily. He’s safe for now, at least, but he had been nowhere close to beating Bakugou.

“The second event in this festival is the Cavalry Battle!” Midnight announces. “All of you must form teams of two to four students and you will earn points by grabbing headbands from the other teams. Although the number of points that each of you is worth is proportional to your placement in the obstacle race, the first place winner is worth ten million points.” She winks at Midoriya, who blanches.

“This event will last fifteen minutes,” Midnight explains. “Each team’s points will be calculated at the end; the total value of each of the stolen headbands. The headband can only be worn by the team’s rider and only around the head or the neck. Quirks are allowed but anyone who uses them for violent or malicious moves will be disqualified!”

Kaminari snickers, elbowing Bakugou, who detonates in his face, scowling.

Midnight raises her eyebrow at them.

“And remember,” she says, “even if your team crumbles, even if your team loses their headband, that team is not out of the game! You have fifteen minutes to choose your teams!”

The timer starts counting down and Eijirou surveys the groups already forming. He’s friends with Midoriya, really, but he doesn’t love the zeroes attached to the guy’s headband. He has to win this battle or, at the very least, make it far enough to beat Bakugou in the Tournament.

The lightbulb goes off in Eijirou’s mind as he looks at Bakugou, surrounded by classmates who clamour for his attention, untrusting of him before they were sure he could offer them victory. If he wants to get to the Tournament, he needs to get through the Cavalry Battle, and the best way to do that is to partner with someone whose name is synonymous with victory. 

Setting his shoulders, Eijirou walks towards Bakugou.

“I’m joining your team,” he says. It sounds hard in his mouth, callous and unfeeling. Kaminari is eyeing him warily. The others fall silent, their eyes going from him to Bakugou. Back to him.

You’re still here?

Eijirou lifts his chin and waits.

“You’ll pull your fucking weight,” Bakugou barks. “I won’t have slackers on my team.”

Eijirou grins, his wolf’s teeth on sharp display.

“I’ll be the best horse in this battle,” he declares.”You’ll have to try and keep up with me!”

“If you slow me down–”

“I won’t.”

And Bakugou pauses. Nods.

“Shut up. Fine.”

The other teams form quickly, after that, the potential of him and Bakugou throwing down right there in the middle of the Festival no longer a guarantee. Todoroki is with Yaomomo, Kaminari, and Iida. Midoriya’s team is filled with heavy hitters too; Uraraka, Tokoyami, and the scary girl from the Support Department. Eijirou and Bakugou are joined by Ashido and Sero.

“Hey, Bakugou, are you going to give us another inspiring pep talk?”

Bakugou glares down at Ashido.

“I’m going to win. What more is there?”

With a loud ring, the timer resets and the battle begins.

Ashido shrugs, looking at Eijirou.

“I dunno what I was looking for.”

“Fucking move,” Bakugou yells. “We need to fucking kill Deku!”

Eijirou smirks, charging forward. Bakugou works off of his momentum, lunging forward to attack Midoriya, but Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow blocks him. Wincing, Sero uses his tape to haul Bakugou back into the formation.

Bakugou’s ever-snarling expression deepens.

“Again–”

Faster than Eijirou can blink, one of the 1-B teams is blitzing past them, hands outstretched. Bakugou’s headband is there. Gone. Sighted, again, but in Monoma Neito’s hand, one of the ruder students who Eijirou distinctly remembers repeatedly cutting 1-A members in the lunch line.

“Your pledge was arrogant,” Monoma yells, cackling. “Our class has been observing yours while you’ve all been focused on moving forward. You know nothing about us but we know everything about you and now we’re going to use that information to win!”

Bakugou charges forward and Eijirou coughs his way through the smoke.

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Bakugou Katsuki,” Monoma sneers, “I understand your anger. It might be humiliating, being a villain’s victim every year. Maybe one day you’ll even be your own worst enemy!”

Eijirou freezes. Monoma’s tone is mocking but real. He means it. He means that he thinks Bakugou is a… 

“Villain,” Ashido whispers. “He just called Bakugou a villain.”

“Listen up,” Bakugou yells, “we’re wrecking this punk’s shit and then we’re murdering Deku!”

“We’re behind you, Bakugou,” Sero says, face steely.

Nobody on this team really even likes Bakugou, not even Ashido, who befriends the worms on the sidewalk. Still, they know enough to know that he’s a hero student like the rest of them and anyone who threatens that is facing the wrath of Class 1-A.

There’s a commotion on the other side of the stadium. Eijirou smells smoke but it’s not sweet-smelling like the kind that Bakugou’s explosions generate. He doesn’t have time to focus on that, however, because Bakugou is throwing their team against Monoma’s.

Bakugou detonates against Monoma’s arm and he’s blocked by a matching explosion. 

Sero blinks.

“What the–”

Eijirou feels a graze against the top of his hair. Bakugou explodes again, larger this time, and Momoma matches him by hardening his skin, sharp ridges roiling down his arms and up his neck.

“What the hell,” Eijirou murmurs. “That’s my quirk.”

Above him, Bakugou laughs, loud and harsh.

“I can’t believe you called my life humiliating when your quirk is just stealing what others are born with! You’re as good as quirkless.”

“Whatever you think of me, I’m still winning!” Monoma shouts back. “The war between our classes is because of your arrogant pledge, this is all on you!”

“You’re right,” Bakugou says, launching himself into the air. “I’ll beat everyone and that victory will be mine!”

His trajectory is blocked by a solid air wall but Bakugou, never one to be outdone by someone else’s quirk, breaks through and wraps his smoking hands around two headbands. Sero quickly uses his tape to bring him back onto the warhorse and Eijirou leads them to retreat.

“We got our headbands back!” Ashido cheers. “Operation: Ten Million Win This Thing in session!”

“No,” Bakugou growls. The timbre of his voice is startlingly low. When Eijirou looks up to meet his eyes, he’s almost knocked back by the raw ferocity there. He hadn’t known Bakugou took things like this to heart. 

(Would it have changed anything, if he had known before?)

“It’s not enough,” Bakugou says, the headbands shaking in his hand. “I’m not stopping until that fucker’s six feet under.”

Sero, Ashido, and Eijirou look at each other. In the end, it’s an easy decision.

Eijirou turns to Bakugou.

“What do you need?”

Bakugou smirks and it reminds Eijirou of the grin he’d sported back at USJ, when he’d beaten villains into the ground.

“Horns, we’re using your slime to get there faster. Tape Face, use your tape to bring them closer. Shitty Hair, you’re making sure they can’t touch our shit. Clear?”

“Clear!”

The plan works perfectly to a point.

Ashido’s slime has them almost skating across the stadium and Sero’s tape gives their team the boost they need to take Monoma’s team by surprise. 

“Come for a rematch?” Monoma’s laughing until he sees the two headbands around Bakugou’s neck.

Grinning, Bakugou mercilessly rains hell down upon the opposition in the form of explosions and curses that must have his ancestors blushing. Monoma is a formidable opponent, his previous knowledge of their quirks definitely paying off, but Bakugou is a machine who fights against his quirk almost as well as he fights with it.

“Here is the downside of your dumbass quirk,” Bakugou hisses, blocking another one of Monoma’s attacks. “I know my quirk’s weaknesses better than fucking anyone and stealing my shit doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know how to use it. Unlike you, I know how to win based on my own fucking merit.” He snaps the remaining headbands off of Monoma’s head and, with a deafening bang, is powering their team forward.

“Holy shit,” Sero mutters. “He really ruined Monoma’s whole career, huh.” 

“We’re killing those two fuckers next,” Bakugou says, motioning towards Midoriya and Todoroki’s teams.

This is the difference between him and Bakugou, Eijirou thinks. They’ve got eight headbands which is definitely enough to assure them all places in the tournament. With such little time left, he would probably work on defending their prize. Bakugou, however, is all or nothing. He’d drink all the water in the ocean even if it wasn’t put there for him, just to show he could. 

If it’s there, it belongs to him.

Eijirou admires that, even though it baffles him, and he runs towards the ensuing battle, ready to play the part of the unwavering horse, the immovable mountain, the–

–timer rings. 

Time’s up.

“Well done, everyone!” Midnight says, smiling. “In first place, we have Team Todoroki! In second place, Team Bakugou! In third place, Team Shinsou! And in fourth, Team Midoriya!”

“Shinsou,” Ashido says. “That’s the Gen Ed kid that Hagakure’s not a fan of.”

Bakugou snorts.

“He’s fucked if he thinks anyone’s going to hold back on him because he’s Gen Ed. If he wants to talk shit about us like we’re on the same level, then he’ll get beaten like one too.”

“Believe me,” Eijirou says, staring at a clearly angry Monoma berating his teammates, “I think he’s got the message.”

Bakugou follows his gaze and smirks.

There’s a noon-day break before the Battle Tournament. Katsuki spends it accidentally eavesdropping on Todoroki unloading sixteen years of trauma onto Deku who responds, predictably, with absolutely no fucking tact. In what world is “I’ll still beat you! Plus Ultra!” a response to someone telling you their mom poured boiling water on their face as a child? 

Though, Katsuki doesn’t know what he would have said, even if it would have been better than anything Shitty Deku would have come up with.

He spends the rest of it strategizing. Really, Katsuki’s been strategizing since the start of the school year. Studying with his classmates is the same as studying to surpass them, seeing as he’ll have to be number one and that means beating everyone in his class to do so.

Heavy-hitters like Todoroki and Deku rely on brute power to hide their inability to strategize so Katsuki isn’t worried about a match with either of them. It’s strange because Deku overanalyzes what cereal to have in the morning, so him fighting with no strategy is a dumbass decision on his part. Iida is likely to get knocked out early, as is Sero, both of them average in both strength and strategy.  

Kaminari would be formidable if he got his head out of his ass but Katsuki doubts that’s likely until Aizawa-sensei gets through to him. Aoyama and Ashido both have destructive quirks but, so far, Aoyama can only do one thing with his and Ashido hasn’t hardened herself enough to embrace the truly destructive properties of her quirk.

That leaves Uraraka, Momo, Tokoyami, and Ojiro all of whom regularly spar with Katsuki, which decently familiarizes him with their fighting styles. The 1-B kid with the power magnification quirk has decent control but he moves too slowly to make any attack lasting and harmful. Katsuki has no fucking clue what the girl from Support is even doing in the tournament but her inventions are badass enough for him to remember not to underestimate her.

The Gen Ed kid is way too fucking scrawny to be challenging their class the way he has been. Katsuki doesn’t know what his quirk is, not that it matters. There’s only one fight on the entire roster that he can’t win.

It’s cowardly. But, for a moment, Katsuki almost hopes that someone else plays at defeating Kirishima so that he won’t have to.

As soon as the thought comes, he brandishes it back with a torch. Kirishima never loses. This is a fact. But if anyone is going to fight him, if anyone is going to bruise his skin and blunt his knives and make him hurt, it’s going to be Katsuki.

The bell rings, signalling the end of the break. Katsuki frowns. He would have had more time to strategize if it wasn’t for the fucking pity party he’d walked in on but even he, with his shit social skills, knew that alerting the other two to his presence would have been insensitive as fuck.

Midnight stands in front of them, her arm poised to begin the drawing of the battle lots, when Ojiro interrupts her.

“I’d like to withdraw from the event,” he says. 

Katsuki stares at him. Ojiro’s a good fighter and he sure as hell deserves to be here more than fucking Deku. Is this an insecurity thing? Is he disregarding an opportunity to be noticed by a pro because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to be here? That’s bullshit. As much as everyone in his class bothers the fuck out of him, they all got in by way of merit. (Aside from Deku, Katsuki doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing here.)

“I understand that this is an important and rare opportunity,” Ojiro continues, “but while everyone here has been doing their best up until this point, I was manipulated into winning by Shinsou’s quirk. I don’t think it’s right that I should be given the same spot as others who made their way here fairly.”

It’s a strange word that Ojiro uses. Manipulated. Shinsou, the rider for his team, does he have some sort of physical or mental manipulation quirk? Katsuki resolves to pay closer attention to him.

Midnight regards Ojiro for a long minute.

“And this is what you want?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Ojiro says. “I’m saving my dignity this way.”

Midnight opens her mouth to respond when a quieter voice pipes up. It’s the plain-looking kid from Class 1-B, the one who’d looked like he’d had a lemon in his mouth during the entire duration of the fight. He cites the same reason as Ojiro, although he seems noticeably more uncomfortable during it.

Smiling, Midnight acquiesces.

“It’s nice to see such strong morals from hero students,” she says. “I accept your withdrawals from the Tournament! The open slots will be filled by the team that placed fifth: Team Kendo!”

A girl with hair so ginger it’s almost offensive raises her hand.

“Thank you for the opportunity, Midnight-sensei, but I’d like to give the slots to Tetsutetsu’s team instead, if that’s alright!”

“So cute!” Midnight cheers. “You kids are going to make me tear up. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Shiozaki Ibara will be replacing Ojiro and Shoda. Now, if there are no further objections, I’ll be starting the battle match-ups!” After a brief pause, she draws the first ballot.

“Shinsou Hitoshi and Midoriya Izuku!”

Deku better not fucking embarrass their class. If he loses against a Gen Ed kid when he’s being mentored by fucking All Might Katsuki’s going to lose his shit.

“Todoroki Shouto and Sero Hanta!”

And Katsuki’s prediction is true. Sero’s definitely going to be out first. Todoroki’s unstable right now and Katsuki wouldn’t put it past the guy to freeze the entire fucking stadium as a metaphor for the wall he experiences between him and his family.

“Kaminari and Shiozaki!”

Katsuki hasn’t seen Shiozaki fight but Kaminari had held his own against the villains at USJ so if he loses Aizawa’s going to rip him a new one.

“Iida Tenya and Hatsume Mei!”

The straight-laced class rep against the unhinged girl from Support? Katsuki’s actually looking forward to that one.

“Aoyama Yuga and Ashido Mina!”

That’s a definite win for Ashido. She’s faster and stronger than the sparkly fucker and she won’t spend half of the fight monologuing in French like some sort of ex-lover from a period film. 

“Tokoyami Fumikage and Yaoyorozu Momo!”

A definite win for Yaoyorozu. She’s top of their class for a reason and, whenever they fight, Katsuki’s had his ass handed to him more than not. It’s fucking annoying, which is why he can’t wait to fight her and even the score.

“Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and Kirishima Eijirou!”

Fine.

“And Uraraka Ochako and Bakugou Katsuki!”

Someone whose quirk and fight style he knows. Uraraka’s good, Katsuki admits to himself, but he’s better.

Deku and Shinsou stand at opposite ends of the stadium. Ojiro is standing close to him, clustered by the rest of the class, which is why Katsuki can see the way his hands are shaking on the railing that divides them from the stadium.

“Calm the fuck down,” he tells him, scowling. “Deku’s a fucking loser, you think he doesn’t have every fucking competitor's quirk memorized? Relax. He’s not going to be manipulated like you were.”

Ojiro glares at him but his hands relax their tight grip on the rail. Katsuki huffs. Ungrateful, the lot of them.

Shinsou starts taunting Deku, goading him into responding. Katsuki wonders if he knows how similar to Monoma he sounds, even if he’s one of the “undeserving hero students” that he supposedly hates and is different from.

“Wait, wait, guys,” Kaminari says, a laugh bubbling out of him, “Midoriya’s wearing earbuds. Like, I genuinely don’t think he can hear a word Shinsou is saying to him.”

“Clever,” Yaoyorozu says. “Like Odysseus with the sirens, in the Odyssey.”

“Yeah,” Ashido says. “Exactly… like that.”

They all watch as Deku just fucking… shoves Shinsou out of bounds.

“Should have tossed the fucker out,” Katsuki grumbles.

“Gotten a few punches in,” Hagakure adds. “He’s said a lot of stuff about us, stop looking at me like that!”

Katsuki snorts.

“Agreed, Gloves. Fucker needs to be taken down a peg.”

Kirishima dissolves into a coughing fit.

“Sorry,” he croaks. “Water went down the wrong pipe.”

Todoroki literally freezes the entire fucking stadium. Katsuki wants to be surprised, he really does, but, for all that Todoroki enjoys playing the role of the cool and collected Ice Prince, he’s a dramatic fucker at heart.

Sero shivers from inside the ice.

“Shit,” Ashido says, peering closer, “is that safe?”

There’s nothing about this fucking Tournament that’s safe. Katsuki watches as Todoroki grudgingly starts melting his ice.

That’s two for two, then.

The Kaminari and Shiozaki match is interesting, if only because Shiozaki seems more interested in dragging Kaminari’s name through the mud than actually beating him.

“Listen,” Jirou says, “I was kind of hoping she’d win but she’s being…”

“A bitch?”

Jirou cracks a smile, watching as Kaminari’s lightning crackles down Shiozaki’s vines and forces her to retreat, barely shy of the boundaries.

“Yeah. That.”

Shiozaki presses her hands together, A vine as wide around as two fully-grown men wraps around Kaminari and tosses him out of bounds. He lands with a thud, still lucid and seemingly not too upset about the loss. Katsuki can almost feel Aizawa-sensei’s ire radiating through the stadium as he hisses out commentary.

“Shiozaki really said this bitch empty,” Ashido comments.

Katsuki wonders how many languages Ashido speaks under her mess of bubblegum and fluff because that definitely wasn’t fucking Japanese.

The matchup between Iida and Hatsume is even more entertaining than Katsuki expected it to me. Support Girl ends up using the class president as a fucking mannequin for her advertisements which, Katsuki has to admit, is some pretty genius product placement. Advertising with the number two of Japan’s top freshman hero class during one of the biggest events of the best hero school in Japan? He can see the internship offers rolling in already.

Katsuki genuinely doesn’t understand why Iida doesn’t just dropkick her inventions into the air because his politeness ends up with him being tasered, motored around the stadium during Hatsume’s dizzying presentation, and eventually dropped out of bounds as she thrusts up her arms and waves to the crowd, tossing out shiny business cards.

“That’s gotta hurt,” Kirishima says, wincing.

“It was a fair fight,” Katsuki argues. “Fucker had every opportunity to kick that shit off his feet and he didn’t.”

Kirishima doesn’t respond.

Ashido wins her fight against Aoyama as easily as Katsuki had predicted. While Aoyoma’s quirk relegates him to being a long-range fighter (unless he’s bold enough to burn a hole through Ashido’s body), Ashido’s quirk is versatile enough to let her fight from afar while also skating in closer and disorienting him with her slime.

She doesn’t seem to want to hurt him which is understandable, considering that the slime burns through fucking concrete, but Katsuki feels a little cheated when she maneuvers Aoyama into stepping out of bounds.

Where the fuck is the actual, real fighting? The blood and bruises and violence and giving out and tangible victory? Everyone’s pussy-footing around the Tournament and it’s starting to get boring.

Yaoyorozu steps into the ring.

Her silhouette is small against Tokoyami’s own, which is backed by the inky black mass that is Dark Shadow. 

Midnight cracks her whip and the battle starts.

Yaoyorozu draws two bo staffs from her stomach and they shimmer as they fully materialize in her palms. At first glance, Tokoyami has her on the defensive and she deftly steps away from his sharp attacks, carefully avoiding the boundary lines. Dark Shadow reaches around to claw at her back but their claws glance off the metal shining over her costume.

“That wasn’t there before,” Uraraka says, sounding awed. “Did she make armour for herself on the fly?”

“She’s number one for a reason,” Tsuyu notes. “It makes sense that she’d be quick-thinking in battle.”

Dark Shadow screeches in alarm and Katsuki peers at the arena, looking for whatever is distressing a fucking demon this much. His eyes catch on it immediately and he can’t stop the grin that stretches on his face.

Yaoyorozu’s the only one taking this shit seriously.

Every time she moves, a tiny matryoshka doll rolls out of her leg and lands on the ground. They blend in with the arena but she must be memorizing their placement because she's probably dropped at least thirty by now but has yet to trip over one. 

Tokoyami is surveying the ground too, alerted by Dark Shadow’s cries. He’s too late.

The couple dozen flashbangs explode with a deafening bang and a blindingly white light. It doesn’t bother Katsuki, who’s used to bright things and loud noises, so he gets a behind-the-scenes look at Dark Shadow shrinking against Tokoyami’s back and Yaoyorozu taking advantage of the commotion to slip a pair of quirk-repressors onto Tokoyami’s wrists. Dark Shadow disappears entirely.

“The winner of the match is Yaoyorozu Momo!” Present Mic announces. The audience leaps to their feet and Yaoyorozu, first of their class, receives the first standing ovation of the Festival.

Kirishima and Knockoff-Kirishima’s fight doesn’t compare. Neither does the ensuing arm wrestle. It’s telling, that Kirishima can even overcome someone whose quirk is incredibly similar to his. Defeating oneself, there’s a metaphor somewhere there, isn’t there?

Katsuki ignores it and doesn’t congratulate him on the win. He’s up next and, after Yaoyorozu, he’s got a tough act to follow.

There are two Uraraka’s, in Katsuki’s mind. The first is the bubbly, cloyingly sweet version that makes flower crowns and paper swans with Deku and his fucking clique. The second is the fighter standing across with him, steam coming off of her skin, already falling into a comfortable stance. The second Midnight cracks her whip, Uraraka is moving like a shot towards him, hands outstretched. If she touches him, it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to win.

Katsuki shoots off an explosion to block her attack and reaches out to grab her. His fingers grasp cloth and nothing else. Fuck, it’s a diversion, she’s coming from behind and he whirls around and meets her with an explosion just in time. She moves back, battered and bruised, her hair smoking. Katsuki explodes one after the other. They’re almost as strong as he would have used on Kirishima and Uraraka’s showing the same unwavering strength, which he can respect.

“What’s wrong with you?” Someone from the audience is shouting at him and they’re immediately joined by louder heckles.

“Unnecessary violence!”

“Can’t you see you’re hurting her?”

It’s called a fucking Battle Tournament, Katsuki thinks scathingly. What the fuck were any of you dumbfucks expecting?

Uraraka furiously turns to the crowd, her features contorting into a snarl.

“This is a battle,” she screams. “And if he wasn’t fighting me properly, he’d be done by now!”

The audience quiets in the face of her anger and Uraraka, grinning proudly, turns back to Katsuki and presses her fingers together.

“Release!”

Katsuki feels the shift in the air as a metric-ton of rubble falls towards him. It feels too much like a mountain crumbling, like a landslide, like plates shifting and trees uprooting and people dying.

Howitzer Impact.

When the dust clears, Uraraka’s on the ground. Katsuki watches, alongside the rest of the stadium as she drags herself up, standing on shaky legs.

“Not… over… yet,” she rasps. “I can go on longer.”

His right arm hangs at his side and his dislocated shoulder aches. As fucked up as he feels, Uraraka looks worse, like she'll fall over if she breathes wrong.

Katsuki is a lot of things and dignified is fucking one of them, even if it's not something people tend to think of him. Uraraka's fucking broken but, more than that, she's as proud as Katsuki and he's not going to take that away from her for the sake of some braindead fucking audience members

“Don’t kill yourself for this,” he says softly. “It’s not worth it.”

Uraraka looks at him. 

“I gave you a good fight,” she says. “Walk me out of bounds.”

And it’s grudging respect that has Katsuki walking by her side. Uraraka’s footsteps echo in the quiet of the stadium, all traces of her agility bleeding down her face. The moment her foot crosses the line, she collapses.

Katsuki catches her.

No one claps for them. He doesn’t want them to.

It turns out that patience is a virtue that Katsuki doesn’t have much of. The real fighting he’d wanted, the kind that ended in Uraraka collapsing and Recovery Girl briskly resetting his shoulder, isn’t as satisfying as he’d expected it to be.

“That was badass,” Hagakure congratulates him, as he enters the viewing area. “Where’s Uraraka?”

“Recovery Girl,” Katsuki grunts. “Deku’s with her right now.”

“He’d better get here soon,” Hagakure says. “His match with Todoroki is first.”

“Todoroki might use his fire during this match,” Yaoyorozu says, joining them by the railing. “I remember, during the Cavalry Battle, Midoriya persuaded him to use it. I don’t think either of them actually realized it was happening but…”

“Hasn’t he sworn off using it or some shit?”

“Yes,” Yaoyorozu says quietly, turning to face the glass. Midoriya and Todoroki are standing by Midnight, waiting for the match to start. “I thought so as well.”

The battle starts with Todoroki immediately shooting pillars of ice towards Deku, who fucking… flicks his finger which somehow generates a shockwave powerful enough to break through the ice. Katsuki can feel the migraine developing by his temple already. 

The fight continues like that. Todoroki shoots wickedly sharp ice at Deku like he’s trying to kill him which, when Katsuki considers what Deku had responded to Todoroki’s tragic backstory, is a justified response. Or, as justified as anything can be when it’s related to fucking Half-and-Half. 

Deku flicks his fingers again which almost blows Todoroki out of the fucking ring (what the fuck) but the asshole manages to save himself by backing himself with ice to keep in within bounds. Todoroki shoots ice across the ground and Deku pushes it back with more wind. Todoroki flies through the air on an ice board and the ground attack works better again, trapping Deku’s foot.

His fingers are all broken now and Todoroki clearly realizes that, launching another huge wall of ice. Deku’s wind attack, simultaneously surprising and yet exactly what Katsuki was expecting, works again. 

Katsuki wonders, not for the first time, why Deku’s quirk is the dumbest fucking thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It makes sense, he guesses. The dumbest quirk for the dumbest nerd.

“How can you expect to win like this?” Deku screams at Todoroki. “Aiming for the top when you’re only using half your power? Fight me properly or neither of us will win!”

“Damn,” Hagakure whistles. “Midoriya’s really going all out, huh.”

“He’s fucking stupid is what he is,” Katsuki grumbles, watching as an enraged Todoroki rushes forward, frost creeping up his right arm. “Nerd’s never known when to stop.”

“Oh yeah, you guys are childhood friends, aren’t you?” Ashido cocks her head, turning to Katsuki. “Midoriya was telling us about it!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki says. 

Below them, Deku punches Todoroki in the stomach, his arm glowing bright greens, throwing him to the ground. Todoroki’s returning attack, another fucking ice wall, is easily his weakest attack yet.

“He’s going to lose,” Ojiro says. “If he doesn’t use his other side… he’s going to lose.”

“He will,” Yaoyorozu says confidently. “He’ll use it, just wait.”

Todoroki’s knocked back by another wind attack. Since when is Deku the last fucking airebender? Katsuki’s getting some answers when this shit is over.

“Why,” Todoroki yells, voice hoarse and jarringly emotional. “Why are you going so far?”

“I told you,” Deku shouts, smiling through his broken fucking fingers. “I need to live up to the expectations of everyone who’s helped me get this far! I can’t ever fully understand your motivations, but I know that you won’t be able to become number one without using your full strength and attempting to do so is just an insult to everyone else who’s doing their best!”

And Todoroki… freezes. Literally, too, because he’s stuck in one place but there’s frost creeping all the way up the right side of his body. The temperature in the stadium drops. Tsuyu starts shivering and Yaoyorozu makes her a blanket.

Iida peers closer.

“Is he alright? He doesn’t look healthy.”

Yaoyorozu shakes her head.

“He’s not alright… but I think this is his breaking point.”

The cold doesn’t look like it’s bothering Deku. Deku, who punches Todoroki with green lightning sparking all the way down his arm.

“You think that by not using your fire, you’re disowning your father,” he screams, his voice so loud it cracks the ice on the ground. “But it’s your power, Todoroki! It belongs to you and only you.”

Todoroki flexes his left hand. Katsuki tenses. Yaoyorozu smiles.

The temperature rises and Todoroki roars, filling the arena with bleeding-red flames that rush towards Midoriya with the ferocity of an army. 

“There we are,” Yaoyorozu murmurs.

Todoroki launches a fucking huge wave of ice at Deku, who jumps over it and blasts another wind attack. 

“Wait, look, Cementoss is trying to end the fight,” Kirishima says. “That cement wall between them, that’s his, right?”

“Someone needs to tell them that,” Jirou snorts, right as Todoroki takes a page out of Deku’s repetitive book and combines his two powers to create a powerful wind blast. Lame on its own but Deku, who’s been doing the same fucking thing throughout the entire duration of the fight, meets him with a similar attack and the ensuing shock wave shatters Cementoss’s wall.

Katsuki feels the pressure ripping at his stomach. A look around the arena tells him that he’s not the only one; some audience members look close to hurling.

When the spots in his eyes clear out, the only one Katsuki can see in the ring is Todoroki. Deku’s standing out of bounds and, as Katsuki watches, his body full-out crumbles and he drops to the ground.

Midnight gingerly steps into the ring and cracks her whip.

“Midoriya Izuku is unfit to continue and therefore eliminated! Todoroki Shouto wins this match and advances to the semi-finals!”

Someone claps and before long, the entire arena is hollering and cheering. Todoroki looks at them like he doesn’t know who they’re clapping for. It’s uncomfortable, sympathizing with Endeavour’s brat. 

Abruptly, Katsuki leaves the viewing area and heads for anywhere that isn’t in line with the arena. He doesn’t feel like watching the next two matches.

“And I thought I had it bad,” Sero says, watching Midoriya be carried away in a stretcher. “That was brutal.”

“Todoroki’s a beast, dude,” Kaminari agrees. “Maybe even worse than Bakugou.”

“Ah, I dunno about that,” Eijirou says lightly. “Pretty high bar, y’know?”

“Right you are, bro,” Kaminari says, laughing. 

Eijirou turns to look at Bakugou, half-hoping he’d heard them, half-hoping he hadn’t because they were going to be fighting together soon and he’d really like to leave it alive.

“Wait,” he says, frowning, “where is Bakugou? Wasn’t he right here?”

“He left a few minutes ago,” Hagakure says. “Didn’t say anything but he’ll probably be back in time for your match.”

“I’m going to go look for him,” Eijirou decides. 

Kaminari raises an eyebrow.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

Eijirou shrugs.

“We were okay during the Cavalry Battle. I just want to make sure he’s good to fight in our match.”

Eijirou doesn’t actually know where Bakugou is so he ends up wandering through the hallways for a few minutes. He almost interrupts what looks like a pretty heavy conversation between Todoroki and Endeavour and sneaks away before he can catch their attention.

The minutes drag on and he hears the dull roar of the audience applauding the end of the match. He doesn’t know much about Shiozaki or Hatsume but the latter’s in a league of her own and Eijirou’s money is on her.

They’re supposed to be waiting by the stadium during the match before theirs, so he heads to the side of the arena, hoping Bakugou will show up soon.

Turns out, he’s there already, standing in place, watching the tail end of Ashido and Yaomomo fight. 

Ashido’s employing the use of her acid a little more because she knows Yaomomo can take it, but their vice president tops the class ranks for a reason and she’s got Ashido pinned and incapacitated in a matter of minutes. Weakly, Ashido taps at Yaomomo’s thigh and she lets her go, though only after Midnight quickly announces the match in her favour.

Eijirou side-eyes Bakugou and keeps his voice quiet, so as not to alert Midnight and the other teachers. 

“Where were you? I was looking for you?”

Bakugou scowls.

“The fuck? You wanted to follow me into the bathroom?”

“No,” Eijirou says slowly, like he’s explaining things to a toddler because sometimes that’s exactly what getting through to Bakugou feels like, “I just wanted to make sure that you were ready for our match.”

This, somehow, sets the other boy off because he turns red and shoves his face into Eijirou’s space.

“What the fuck? You think that just because I fucked up my shoulder fighting Uraraka I can’t still wreck your shit? I’ll fucking kill you, asshole!”

Eijirou huffs. Why is everything with Bakugou so hard? 

“No, you just left for no reason and this is a tournament where people need to be here to fight.”

“You think I’m stupid or something?” Bakugou snarls. “I’m here, dipshit, and I’ll fucking win.”

“Well, don’t rub it in or anything,” Eijirou says, before he can stop himself. 

(He’s tired, he’s so tired of Bakugou throwing his shortcoming in his face. Eijirou knows that he can’t measure up but he’d done well at USJ and he’d thought that was a start, thought that was good enough but apparently not.)

Midnight gives them the go-ahead and they both walk into the ring.

Maybe here, standing in an arena in front of thousands of people, Eijirou will get to showcase his competency. It’s just the two of them now, Bakugou has to be looking at him.

Eijirou’s hardening tears his uniform into shreds but it’s worth it to see the frustration on Bakugou’s face as his first few explosions do nothing. Kirishima blazes forward, punches Bakugou once in the gut and again in the jaw.

Are you looking at me now?

Bakugou hits him with the crazy-big explosion that had demolished Uraraka’s meteor shower attack and Eijirou stands through it, baring his teeth in a grin. Bakugou roars and explodes, smaller but no less bright, his arms shaking from the effort.

The audience cheers, seeing him still standing, and Eijirou would be preening, should be preening, but he’s staring at Bakugou, Bakugou who detonates like he wants to burn Eijirou to cinders. 

Eijirou keeps punching, revels in the give of Bakugou’s skin beneath his fist, pins him to the ground but doesn’t catch his breath because Bakugou’s burning against his forehead and powering off of the ground, throwing Eijirou across the ring.

There’s none of the strategy from Yaomomo and Tokoyami’s match, just raw anger, heads butting against each other. Katsuki raises a quivering arm (he’s been hitting Eijirou with consecutive explosions for too long, Eijirou registers, they’ve never fought this hard before) and explodes right by the scar on Eijirou’s temple.

And he feels it, the steady roiling in his stomach, the sudden weakness in his limbs, the filtering of noise and the overpowering smell of smoke.

He can’t keep it up. Eijirou closes his eyes and allows his shield to drop.

Bakugou waits until only the last dregs of Eijirou's quick remain raised on his skin. Only then does he use a second Howitzer.

Eijirou sees his face in the corner of his eye, blurry but for his eyes, bright red and in sharp focus.

“You already won,” he croaks. His tongue tastes like ash. “Why…”

“I didn’t win,” Bakugou says, his face twisted up in disgust.

Eijirou blacks out.

Eijirou wakes up in one of Recovery Girl’s cots. She’s bustling around on the other side of the room. Kaminari sits by the side of his bed and his face lights up the moment Eijirou blinks.

“Dude! You’re going to be okay, Recovery Girl said it was quirk exhaustion more than anything else. That was pretty rough, the last explosion Bakugou attacked with, huh?”

“He didn’t need to,” Eijirou grumbles, staring at the ceiling. “He had me beat already.”

Kaminari frowns.

“I don’t think he did, dude. You looked pretty scary, fighting him. That first wicked explosion, the one that knocked out Uraraka? You just stood through it and you were smiling. I think he wanted to make sure he had you down.”

“You’re taking his side now?”

It’s unfair, Eijirou knows, because there are no sides here and, even if there were, he’d never ask his friends to choose. But he’s bruised and tired and irritated at himself for waking up in a hospital bed while Bakugou is out there preparing for his fight with Yaomomo.

Denki winces.

“Anyway. The Support student, Hatsume, is insane. She won against Shiozaki with, like, a weed-wacker and flamethrower. I think Todoroki beat her, though. He’s going pretty hard on everyone right now.”

“Because of Midoriya,” Eijirou says. “They had that whole argument, right? During their fight.”

“He kinda shot himself in the foot there,” Kaminari says. “I guess they make each other better fighters. I’ve never seen Midoriya do any of that crazy wind power stuff before.”

“That’s pretty manly,” Eijirou agrees. “If they start doing combo moves the rest of us are dead.”

Kaminari laughs.

“If it makes you feel better, Bakugou lost his fight against Momo.”

Eijirou jolts up from the cot.

“He what?”

“Dude, it was insane. She did the armour thing that she did with Tokoyami, right? Only she had it all over her entire body and, shit, I don’t know what it was made of but it stayed put even when he did his crazy Howitzer explosion! And while he was dealing with the recoil of doing that OP move like five times in one day, she punched his pressure points and he dropped like y- uh. A sack of potatoes.”

“You’re kidding.”

Kaminari shakes his head vehemently.

“The crowd went wild. It was the coolest thing! Yaomomo’s insane, dude.” He checks his watch. “She should be fighting Todoroki right around now. Do you want to come watch?”

“I’ll come by later,” Eijirou says. “You can go on without me.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, definitely, just resting a bit!”

“Alright, feel better, bro!”

Kaminari hurries out of the room and Eijirou sinks back into the pillows with a sigh.

He’d tricked himself into thinking that he’d be the first to really beat Bakugou outside of sparring, in a place that mattered, in a place where he could prove how much he’d grown from that insecure little kid in middle school.

All that is left is Eijirou, in a little cot, alone. 

(The world is still spinning beyond the confines of the door.)

He swings out of the bed and bows to Recovery Girl before leaving.

Regardless of his insecurities, he needs to support his classmates! That takes priority.

As luck would have it, Eijirou runs into Bakugou on the way to the viewing area. He means runs into literally, because Bakugou’s shoulder jostles him all the way into the wall.

“Watch where you’re going, fuckwad,” Bakugou snaps.

Eijirou’s bruised and irritated from his explosions. His ego, annoyed that Bakugou is beatable just not by him, is responsible for his response: “How do you expect to be a hero when you constantly push everyone around you down?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s like you think that the only way to move upwards is by making sure that everyone around you feels inadequate,” Eijirou says. “Yaomomo beat you and instead of watching her fight in the finals, you’re here. That’s not heroic behaviour.”

“Oh, you think you’re any better?” Bakugou sneers. “You treat this entire thing like a fucking joke, it’s an insult to everyone who’s actually trying their best. Do that shit on your own time but I can’t fucking believe that you pulled the same shit when you fought me.”

I didn’t win.

“What did I even pull?” Eijirou asks him, frustrated. “What part of that fight did you somehow manage to take as an insult?”

“For a prodigy,” Bakugou says, “you can be really fucking stupid.”

“Fuck you,” Eijirou hisses. “You don’t get to say that to me.”

“Oh, would you accept it from anyone else? If Aizawa-sensei told you the same thing, would you believe it? Just because I’m the only one who’s actually willing to tell you that I actually worked hard to get where I am and it’s fucking ridiculous to see you here when you don’t even–”

“Fine.” Eijirou exhales, clenching his fists. “Fine, maybe you’re right. But that’s my thing to work through, not yours. Now I’m going to watch our classmates battle because we are here to support each other, not push each other down.”

“Yeah? And after that we’ll all hold hands and sing nursery rhymes together,” Bakugou says. “That’s not how this shit works. I’m going to be number one and that means surpassing all of you.”

“Well,” Eijirou says, gesturing at Bakugou’s bruised body, “how’s that working out for you so far?”

“Are you trying to get your ass kicked?”

“You weren’t good enough to keep me down the first time so sure, let’s have a rematch!”

Bakugou freezes.

“You wanna say that again?”

Eijirou replays it in his head. Oh.

“You weren’t good enough to keep me down,” he says slowly. “And I’m going to keep working and training and getting better and you can’t stop me from doing that. So you’d better get used to me being here, because I’m not going anywhere.”

Bakugou slams a fist against the wall.

“There will never be a day where we are equals,” he growls. “So stop playing at believing it.”

He stalks away and, in the wake of his exit, Eijirou can still hear the ringing of unreleased explosions in his ears.

To nobody’s surprise, Yaomomo wins against Todoroki, blasting at his ice with cannons and filling the arena with petroleum gas so that he couldn’t use his fire unless he wanted to blow up the entire place. 

She looks strong and proud on the first place pedestal, smiling brilliantly as All Might awards her the gold medal. Todoroki accepts his silver medal with grace and Hatsume doesn’t seem to care much about her bronze medal, already bending it to test its malleability. Eijirou wonders what she’ll make it into.

Bakugou doesn’t look like he wants to accept the bronze medal but All Might whispers something to him and he quiets down, grudgingly allowing the hero to slip it over his head.

“Three out of four winners from our class!” Hagakure’s cheering. “Hell yea Gen Ed, who’s your daddy now?”

“Oh my god, Hagakure, sweetie,” Jirou semi-chides through her giggles, “you can’t… you can’t say that to people.” 

“You’re saying they didn’t have it coming?”

“I…”

Eijirou tries to fit himself in amongst his celebrating classmates because a win for one of them is a win for all of them. He knows this. He knows this.

But Bakugou’s eyes are fixed on his medal, even though it’s bronze and metal and not first, and Eijirou feels angry at the hunk of metal. How is it that Bakugou can pay more attention to an inanimate object that he didn’t even want in the first place than his classmate who caught a bullet for him?

He’d told Bakugou that he wasn’t good enough to keep Eijirou down.

Eijirou just point-blank isn’t good enough. 

Chapter Text

Here is the thing about competition in the hero circuit: it destroys everyone who believes in it.

Eijirou is all for healthy ribbing between his friends. Who’ll finish the obstacle course quickest, who’ll get Aizawa-sensei’s praise first, who’ll get the courage to ask All Might to stop advising butt-clenching as a viable solution to quirk-induced pain, these are all, for the most part, harmless.

But at this point in the semester, their teachers are starting to delve into the darker parts of being a hero.

“When I was a rookie,” Present Mic tells them quietly, “I gave three civilians tinnitus because I didn’t get them out in time before using my quirk on a villain.”

“Underground heroes have a higher mortality rate than other heroes,” Aizawa says, eyes dark. “If there are any of you in this room that want to pursue that,” and everyone notices the way his eyes linger on a tense Hagakure, “that is a reality you must accept and prepare for.”

“Competition can be a motivator to push yourself farther,” Recovery Girl acknowledges, as she checks Iida over for any residual injuries. “But it will break you if you allow it to control you.”

They’ve all heard the story, despite the teacher’s insistence on keeping it contained. Iida, their straight-laced class president, breaking out to avenge his brother by fighting Stain, the Hero Killer. 

It makes sense, Eijirou thinks, even if nobody saw it coming. Iida is one of the most passionate people he’s ever met and he talks about his brother constantly, to the point that Eijirou knows more about Ingenium than Iida himself. He knows that Iida Tensei is unshakingly brave, that he tutored his younger brother until he came home with straight A’s, that he always picks the best mochi flavours; Iida hasn’t ordered mochi for himself once in sixteen years because his brother has always done it for him.

Knowing all that, Eijirou supposes he can understand why Iida was prepared to kill someone for his brother. 

But Midoriya and Todoroki? That’s a separate issue that nobody has been willing to touch. Ever since the Sports Festival, there’s been an uncomfortable tension between the two of them. Half-friendship, half-something-else. Eijirou doesn’t know what the latter is, only that it’s the reason nobody likes being in the room if they’re the only two in it.

Iida doesn’t like talking about Hosu much, probably because his quasi-parental scolding would lose most of its gravity coming from a guy who was ready to commit murder for his brother. Still, he’s mentioned that Stain had called Midoriya a real hero. On par with All Might.

The first thing Eijirou feels when he hears that is blinding shame. How can he be a hero when there are students like Midoriya gaining the respect of hero-hating vigilantes? The second emotion is anger, because Midoriya is one of the kindest people and Eijirou is happy that his talent is finally being recognized, especially after his internships had fallen through on account of his reckless fighting style and how dare he turn his friend’s success into being about himself?

So Eijirou settles for pride and he congratulates Midoriya first thing in the morning (and he ignores Bakugou when he snorts, overhearing them.)

“The fuck are you congratulating the nerd for?” He smirks, the cut of it sharp and cruel. “Not breaking his fucking bones for one goddamn fight? Needing two other people to beat an anemic loser?”

“Putting away a dangerous vigilante,” Eijirou corrects. Midoriya’s shrinking down beside him, eyes downcast, and he doesn’t know what Bakugou’s problem with Midoriya is, but it reminds him eerily of the bullies that used to give him trouble in high school. So Eijirou stands tall because he can do that now and stares defiantly at Bakugou, arms crossed, shoulders back.

Bakugou raises an eyebrow.

“Dangerous vigilante? What, did he fucking monologue at you for too long and make you cry, Deku? Is that why it took so long for three fucking hero students to defeat the big bad Hero Killer?”

Midoriya looks up, eyes flashing.

“He told me that I was a true hero,” he says firmly. “You don’t… you can’t take that away, Kacchan.”

“Because that’s where we’re getting our internship references from now,” Bakugou drawls. “Vigilante serial killers.”

Beside him, Jirou snorts and hastily looks away when Eijirou turns to her. 

“Well,” Uraraka starts, grinning across the classroom, “if you’re jealous, just say that! Midoriya won against Stain and, Bakugou, we all saw the pictures from your internship with Best Jeanist!”

Eijirou can’t stop himself from laughing, the images of a disgruntled Bakugou with slicked-back hair, decked out in denim from head to toe still hilarious. Bakugou, predictably, holds up a sparking hand as his expression darkens and his voice gets loud.

“You wanna fucking fight, Round Face? I’ll wreck your shit!”

Uraraka stands up, clenching her fists.

“Hell yeah, rematch!”

“Please sit down,” Iida says, desperately hand-chopping. “This is homeroom, not Hero Training!”

“Oh, wow, Hero Killer’s killer wants us to stop fighting,” Bakugou sneers. Uraraka glares at him.

“He’s just trying not to get you expelled for being an ass–”

“Morning,” Aizawa-sensei monotones, walking into the room.

“What the hell,” Kaminari mutters. “Did he just hear the word ‘expelled’ and come running?”

“Yes,” Aizawa says, not even looking at him. “Now. Attendance.”

He doesn’t address the workplace internships. They are, all of them, problem children, Eijirou thinks, amused. In the end, though, they all follow Aizawa-sensei’s lead. If he’s going to pretend like all of that was run of the mill, so will they.

Beside him, Midoriya exhales.

Business as usual, Eijirou guesses and pulls out his pen and paper.

Yaoyorozu coughs into her hand, politely averting her eyes. 

“Apologies,” she murmurs, as Kaminari yelps from behind the bush.

“It was Sero’s fault, he dared me to–”

“Yaoyorozu, I promise, I would never ask him to–”

“Nobody cares how scared you are of the vapers in the boys' washroom,” Jirou hisses, earlobes jabbing indignantly at Sero’s forehead. “There are no fucking excuses for taking a piss out in the open like a zebra on a fucking safari.”

“It’s not… that in the open,” Kaminari says petulantly. He gestures to the bush. “There’s a bush.”

His hand, stuck in the motions, isn’t holding up his pants anymore. Yaoyorozu chokes, her face flushing. Jirou yelps. Even Sero jumps away.

“Dude,” Eijirou says, thanking the high heavens that Aizawa is too busy lecturing Bakugou and Uraraka on their overly violent sparring to notice whatever this is. “Nobody wants to see that.”

Kaminari winks at him but he stills hops into his pants semi-urgently. Faster, when he notices Aizawa stalking towards them and the four of them have to awkwardly shuffle into a half-circle, arranging themselves around Kaminari.

“What are you all doing.”

“Training,” Eijirou says, stepping forward. Kaminari eeps and he hastily moves backwards. Aizawa’s eyes flit too close to the bush.

“We were just discussing the homework for today,” Jirou blurts out. Aizawa raises an eyebrow. The corner of his lips crease. 

“Oh, thank you for reminding me, Jirou. I knew I’d forgotten to assign something.”

Jirou blanches. Sero turns to glare at her but freezes when Aizawa turns to him.

“Yep,” he says weakly. “Can’t wait for that… extra homework. I love homework. Really enjoy memorizing… hero agency health policy.”

“I wasn’t planning on including that,” Aizawa-sensei says dryly. “But, seeing as you’re so interested in it, I’ll add it to the agenda.”

“Great,” Sero says, his smile tightening. “I can’t wait!”

“Get back to work,” Aizawa says, walking away. 

“Yes, sensei! ”

They all stare at his retreating back.

“We’re blaming this on Kaminari,” Jirou says. Eijirou grins and nods because, yeah, fair. 

Katsuki swears. His usual table at the back of the library, behind the shelf of non-fiction books on the Indus Valley and Mesopotamian trading routes, has been taken over by Hagakure. She looks up as he approaches and throws up a thumbs-up.

“Hey, Bakugou! You study during break too, huh?”

“This is my table,” Katsuki responds, in lieu of responding. He’s been studying here since day fucking one, how is Hagakure going to take it over now?

“Yeah, it’s a really nice one!”

Hagakure’s not stupid. She acts stupid because she thinks it’s funny, but Katsuki’s watched her take down guys twice her size in hand-to-hand. She’s strong as fuck but she’s got a mind for strategy, which means that she’s here for something.

“What the fuck are you doing here.”

“Studying!” 

“At my fucking table?”

She leans back in her chair.

“Is your name on the table?”

“Are you fucking serious–”

“Look, Bakugou–”

Growling, he yanks a knife out of his backpack and haphazardly carves his name into the wood.

“Alright, there. My fucking name’s on the fucking table, so get the fuck up and go now.”

Hagakure giggles. She rifles through the front pocket of her backpack and, with a small “aha!” pulls out her own knife, holographic and glowing purple-blue-green in the sunlight. She carves her name above his and it’s impressively neat, considering that the handwriting on her homework is absolute fucking trash.

She sets her knife down on the table. Katsuki looks at it. Groans. And pulls out the chair farthest from her.

“Since you’re here anyway,” Hagakure says, “do you mind looking over my equations? I make stupid mistakes sometimes and I don’t want to lose marks for it.”

“Look over your damn work.”

“Alright, no problem!”

They work in silence for well over an hour. Hagakure doesn’t say anything, quietly writing and occasionally flipping through her textbook. Katsuki methodically balances his equations and, when that’s done, moves to finish the outline for the essay on contemporary poetry that Cementoss had assigned. 

The bell rings and Hagakure shuffles her papers together, standing up.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re doing Sagawa Chika for class as well?”

Katsuki looks up from the page he’s annotating.
“Yeah.”

“Me too! I’m doing ‘Illusion of home.’ It’s… I dunno, I really get that one, you know? Like… 'A chef clutches a blue sky. Four fingerprints are left; gradually the chicken bleeds. Even here the sun is crushed.'”

“'Inquiring wardens of the sky,'” Katsuki adds, almost unconsciously. “'I see the daylight take off.'”

“Yeah,” Hagakure breathes. “Just… I don’t know, the imagery of it all. Someone taking the sky in their hand.”

“Even the fucking sky leaving,” Katsuki says. “Death making everything dark and empty and cold.”

“Which one are you doing?”

Katsuki glances down at his paper, like he doesn’t know the words by fucking heart.

“White and black.”

“Silence comes to rest in my room,” Hagakure quotes. Katsuki nods. She stands there in silence. He clears his throat after a moment and messily shoves his shit back into his binder. She tucks her knife into her bag. He does the same.

She waits for him to clean up.

They walk to Math together.

“Move fucking faster,” Bakugou groans. Eijirou grits his teeth.

“Have you considered,” he mutters, “that some of us are carrying people.”

“They’re dummies,” Bakugou snaps back. “And you fucking offered.”

“Yeah, because I knew you would rather die than be on rescue duty.”

“Hah?” Bakugou turns to him, face bright red. “What the fuck are you trying to insinuate?”

“Bakugou,” Eijirou says slowly, “are you carrying a dummy right now?”

“No,” Bakugou says. “Because your one redeeming fucking quality is that your strength factor isn’t totally fucking incompetent, so you’re carrying them and I’m protecting you and your carry-on because without me,” and he punctuates this with a blast that shatters the rubble blocking their path, “you wouldn’t be able to move them somewhere safe.”

“So we agree,” Eijirou says, “that this is a team effort. And that we both need to do our part. And that my part means that I can’t move as fast as you do.”

“Fuck all the way off,” Bakugou returns. He critiques Eijirou’s speed less, though, so Eijirou’s marking that down as a win.

Aizawa-sensei had paired them together for the rescue simulation because he enjoys seeing Eijirou suffer. His one saving grace is that Bakugou appears to be as miserable as he is. (Eijirou pretends that this is because he’s being as rude and off-putting as possible, and not because Bakugou is irritated that he’s been paired with the most useless student in the class.)

He’d considered doing the opposite, in the beginning. Rising above their differences and being the bigger person and attempting a facsimile of his trademark enthusiasm for something as daunting as a simulated rescue op through a city ravaged by an earthquake. Eijirou’s able to act normal around the worst of their class. He can even work with Mineta, if pressed, although he has to rage text the group chat every couple minutes because, holy shit, there is so much wrong with that guy.

The point is that he’s a good collaborator. And yet, Bakugou had shown up, taken one look at the simulation briefing, said, “fuck off with that noise,” and all of Eijirou’s goodwill had vanished quicker than Aizawa’s willingness to interact with their class.

Everything’s so much harder with him. Eijirou doesn’t understand why that’s the case, this far into the semester, but it’s gotten to the point where all he can do is hope that they won’t have to work together for the practicals in the final exams. That, Eijirou is certain, is a recipe for disaster. He can’t afford that, not with his current standing as someone expendable, someone plain, someone who is innately not enough.

“Fucking finally,” Bakugou grunts, as they pass into the green-lit zone and Eijirou shucks off the dummies slung over his shoulder. 

Aizawa approaches them, his mouth pressed into a thin line. 

“If that were a real operation, your behaviour would have been unacceptable,” he says briskly. “As a hero, you cannot afford to let personal biases get in the way of your ultimate goal, which is to save everyone in danger.”

Bakugou, predictably, steamrolls past this. 

“What’s our time?” 

Aizawa stares at him.

“I wasn’t timing you. I was marking you two on your ability to appropriately handle a traumatized victim.”

“They were dummies!” Bakugou argues.

“You wouldn’t take precautions with an unconscious victim?”

Bakugou doesn’t say anything.

Aizawa frowns.

“You two both have a long way to go in exercises like this. Bakugou, remember that civilians aren’t trained to handle situations like this one the same way that you are. Kirishima, build up the confidence to take the lead, especially if you feel more comfortable interacting with civilians than your partner.”

“Yes, sensei! ”

Bakugou is still staring over Aizawa’s shoulder. His face is all twisted up, like he’s struggling to get the words out of his mouth. It doesn’t look like he’s trying to agree with Aizawa.

“Bakugou?” Aizawa’s brow furrows. “Is everything alright? Is there something you need to tell me?”

“...No,” Bakugou says finally, like he’s resigned himself to actually respecting his teacher. “I’ll fucking win next time.”

Aizawa appraises him.

“I look forward to it.” He turns to Eijirou, then, and his hand makes an aborted gesture at his side. “Remember this. You are capable of being a leader.”

“I– I appreciate that, sensei. I’ll do better next time.”

“I’m sure you will,” Aizawa says. 

He motions for them to go get changed. The next group’s names are called on an overhead speaker.

Bakugou is at his side and he’s still scowling like someone’s told him that his plan to kill all the puppies in the world hadn’t worked and that he, unfortunately, still has to exist in a world where people are happy.

Eijirou doesn’t care. He’s preoccupied with re-playing Aizawa’s words in his head, burning the exact cadence of his voice onto a CD and tucking it away in the archives of his head.

You are capable of being a leader.

Katsuki has to stop himself from running to class. The train had been late that morning and he’s late as fuck . He’d cut off his own foot before running in last-minute like fucking Kaminari and Ashido, though, so he settles for angrily speed-walking and obsessively eyeing every clock he passes.

He kicks in the door and the influx of noise has irritation flaring in his chest.

“What the fuck are you all so loud for?”

Ashido crosses her arms.

“This is coming from you?”

“Tomorrow’s the tenth,” Deku cuts in, his breath hitching. “And it’s not that I forgot, but we need to do something for All Might and we’ve been so busy recently that I haven’t been able to organize anything for the class and I don’t– I don’t–”

“Yeah, you don’t want him to be fucking disappointed in you,” Katsuki says, rolling his eyes. “Fucking get him a birthday card or some shit, what’s the big deal?”

“I don’t know how many birthdays he has left!” Deku bursts out, tears streaming down his face. He hiccups and exhales shakily. It sounds louder in the sudden silence of the classroom. “I just… I really want to make this one good for him.”

Uraraka takes his hand in hers and squeezes.

“Is he… sick?”

Deku freezes.

“No,” he says quickly. “No, it’s just… it’s just that heroes have high mortality rates and even if he’s the best in the world you never know what can happen and besides all that he’s my hero and now I have the opportunity to actually give him something personal and I want it to be good. I want tomorrow to be good for him.”

Kirishima steps forward, grinning brightly.

“That’s so manly, dude! We’ll make it the best birthday he’s ever had, I promise. There’s, what, twenty of us here, right? We can totally figure something out and ask the other teachers for help if we need anything!”

And, just like that, it’s back to being loud as fuck as Yaoyorozu offers to make anything Midoriya needs and Iida pulls out a notebook to write down the ideas that Deku won’t fucking shut up about. Katsuki shoves past their fucking cluster and sits at his desk, staring straight ahead.

When Aizawa-sensei finally comes inside, the noise level only lessens briefly when Kirishima explains what they’re doing. 

“...I’ll invite him to homeroom tomorrow,” their teacher says, after a moment. “And you can give him your presents then.”

The ensuing cheer is louder than Katsuki’s fucking explosions.

(They get All Might a Number #1 Teacher mug and cap and thermos and tote bag and socks. They get him gift cards to vintage merch stores and coffee shops and cat cafes. Yaoyorozu gets him hair ties because he’s been thinking of growing his hair out; the pack is red white and blue. Jirou makes him a motivational playlist. Everyone writes paragraphs in their thank you cards and Katsuki knows this because they’ve all been buzzing around like flies trying to figure out exactly what to say.)

(All Might cries. He cries a lot. )

(Katsuki doesn’t get him anything. He gives him a card, though. Happy birthday old man, he writes. You’re a good teacher. )

The birthdays pass quicker after that. Hagakure’s falls on the sixteenth and the class gets her the designer clothes that she’s been eyeing. Or, well, the class sneaks her magazines out of her room and Yaomomo, Todoroki, and Iida buy the clothes. Satou’s is on the nineteenth and they surprise him with state of the art baking appliances. He gets teary-eyed over his perfectly-fitted springform pan that promises flawless cheesecakes.

(Katsuki signs the fucking group card in both instances and calls it a fucking day.)

Kaminari’s birthday will be in a little over a week, after exams are finished. Katsuki doesn’t give a shit but the idiot keeps whining at that day being the light at the end of the tunnel whenever his mouth isn’t hastily murmuring English conjugations and chugging Monster Energy’s like he’s got nothing to live for.

Shit, they’re just fucking exams. Writtens and the practical. Two fucking things. Katsuki doesn’t understand why half the class keeps spontaneously bursting into tears. Deku’s crying less than the rest of them, which is irritating and confusing and fucking weird.

Yaoyorozu’s running a study group for the dumbasses in the class, which is a stupidly high fucking number. Katsuki wonders how she can put up with Kaminari’s inattention and Jirou’s boredom and Kirishima’s inability to actually fucking apply himself. She looks fucking happy, inviting everyone to her house day after day.
He doesn’t understand how that can be enjoyable.

Katsuki doesn’t have fucking groupies. He doesn’t tutor anyone, even though Yaoyorozu and Iida are. They can handle their own fucking selves.

It is him studying alone at his house and him and Hagakure studying silently in the library at lunch. 

Katsuki doesn’t have anyone that he cares about enough to sit with at lunch, but he’s sure she has people, extrovert that she is. He doesn’t care enough to ask why she’s here with him. He almost does, once, after her birthday, but the sun spills into the grooves of her name, etched roughly into the desk and he stops.

The day before writtens, she looks over at him and puts her hands on her hips.

“You know, this is kinda nice!”

“What.”

“This!” She doesn’t take the hint (but she never does) leaning against the table and waiting for him to finish packing up. “Our little tradition.”

“We’re studying,” Katsuki deadpans. “There’s no fucking tradition.”

She giggles.

“Alright, fine! Not a tradition.”

(Hagakure sits beside him during writtens too. Katsuki would never in a million fucking years tell her this, but the sound of her scribbling down equations and flipping pages actually wakes his mind up enough to slaughter the Japanese Literature section.)

(O rain, which comes in boots,

Must you trample the earth all the night through.)

(They both pass.)

The entire class passed, Katsuki finds out the next day. It’s the practicals they all need to worry about, now, but that’s one thing that’s lessened the fucking zombie-like haze almost everyone’s been adopting recently. 

He thinks it’s pretty fucking dumb that they’re all relaxing without knowing what they’re up against. He also thinks it’s pretty fucking dumb that they would shoot themselves in the foot by allowing nerves to cloud their minds during fucking exam season.

His classmates are just dumb. Period.

In the days before the practical, Katsuki prepares for every single possibility. He plans strategies for a return of the giant robots, maps out escape routes for every rescue simulation imaginable, and spends an entire fucking day figuring out how to beat Yaoyorozu alone, if the teachers are going to have them spar each other.

Their teachers are tight-lipped about the details of the practicals so Katsuki doesn’t waste time bothering them about it. The last possibility he hadn’t explored is an exhilarating one. Maybe they’ll get to fight with Aizawa. Handicapped, of course, because he’s a fucking Pro and none of them could hope to actually match him, but… shit. The idea of it has Katsuki’s hands sparking, already excited for a fight.

The night before the practicals, he pores over the logistics of Aizawa’s quirk. Memorizes his weak spots, learns his strengths and navigates how to avoid them.

Katsuki’s going to fucking kill this.

“What the fuck do you mean, partners? ”

“Each pair will be fighting a member of our faculty,” Aizawa continues, ignoring him. “The goal is to either handcuff your assigned teacher or have at least one of you escape the battlefield. You will have thirty minutes to complete this. We will tell you whether you have passed or failed immediately after the exam’s completion. It is possible for one partner to pass and the other to fail but that isn’t dependent on which partner manages to exit the battleground..”

Ashido’s hand shoots up. 

“Are the teachers going to have handicaps?”

Aizawa nods.

“Yes. Every teacher will be wearing compact weighted bracelets made by Hatsume Mei from the Support Department. However, the recent increase in villain activity has pressed us to also increase your training in order to more closely simulate a real-world battle experience. So, although we will be handicapped, do not expect us to go easy on you. If you fail this section of the exam, you will not be able to participate in the summer training camp. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sensei! ”

“Each team will be transported by U.A.’s buses to an uninhabited training area where the test will take place. If there are no further questions, All Might will be announcing your pairs.”

After a moment of silence, All Might clears his throat.

“Kaminari and Ashido again Principal Nedzu!”

“The principal,” Kaminari mutters. “Of course we get the principal.”

“I dunno, dude,” Ashido hip check him, grinning. “Lightning and acid is a pretty deadly combo, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, you’re right! We’ll pass this, no sweat!”

All Might smiles at them, before continuing.

“Jirou and Kouda against Present Mic!”

Jirou smirks at that. She’s been working with Mic, Katsuki knows, because their quirks are so similar. There’s a danger in that, presenting something resembling a stalemate, but Jirou’s more willing than most to fuck up anyone who stands in her way, and it’s a promising matchup. 

Aoyama and Uraraka against Thirteen; Uraraka’s going to end up carrying his ass to the finish line, but they’ll make it. Gravity against a black hole is fucking interesting, Katsuki’s almost angry that he won’t get to see it. Tokoyami and Tsuyu against Ectoplasm is less interesting; they’re both good at working with others and it’ll be open and shut pretty fucking quickly. 

The irony of Iida being paired with Power Loader when he’d been annihilated by his top student at the Sports Festival is not lost on Katsuki. He smirks a little, especially when the irritated expression sets into Iida’s face, something Katsuki has gotten used to. Hagakure and Shouji against Snipe? It’s not an interesting match but Katsuki knows it’ll end in their favour. The two are two of the physically strongest in their class and Shouji’s got a quirk versatile enough to work with whatever strategy Hagakure plans for them. 

“Sero and Mineta against Midnight!”

Mineta gets the absolute worst fucking look on his face at that and All Might stiffens.

“Cut that out!” Sero hisses, swatting him on the back of his head. “I swear, I won’t fucking work with you if you keep being a weirdo about this.”

Mineta glares at him but he also arranges his expression into something socially fucking acceptable and All Might resumes the list.

“Kirishima and Satou against Cementoss.”

 Katsuki blinks. What the fuck kind of matchup is that? Are they trying to force the two of them to think quicker or something? Kirishima the fucking prodigy will probably figure something out but it’s still fucking weird. He almost wants to ask Aizawa what the fuck whoever arranged that was thinking, just to understand the thought process.

“Yaoyorozu and Todoroki will be against Eraserhead,” All Might says, grinning at Aizawa, who doesn’t react with anything more than a slight twitch in his shoulders.

Katsuki is pretty fucking sure that Todoroki’s parents hadn’t actually seen anything in their ultrasound because the fucker doesn’t move or breathe or do anything at the news that he’ll be fighting their homeroom teacher . He’s a waste of space with a shitty haircut and a half-assed quirk for a half-assed person. Really, ice and fire? Deku’s fucking kid comics of superheroes and sidekicks had better-developed quirks than that.

Wait. That fucking leaves–

“You’re fucking shitting me!” He shouts, right as All Might announces: “And finally, Bakugou and Midoriya will be fighting me!”

“The partners are non-negotiable,” Aizawa-sensei says, voice cold and unyielding. “Unless you want an automatic fail.”

Katsuki glowers at him.

“No, sensei.”

This is how he ends up with shitty Deku of all people, fighting fucking All Might in what looks like an empty downtown area.

“I should tell you,” All Might announces, from somewhere above them, “that, as a villain, I have no issue destroying this entire city!”

Oh, fuck him, Katsuki thinks viciously. He’s never wanted to pummel All Might into the ground more than he has at this moment. It’s strange because this is his hero, this is his image of victory, and yet, all Katsuki feels when he looks at him is contempt. 

“I’m handcuffing him,” he tells Deku. “His head is too fucking big.”

Deku stares at him.

“He’s the number one hero for a reason, Kacchan. Our best chance of passing is avoiding this fight and making it out of grounds.”

“Run away, then,” Katsuki hisses, heading for All Might. “I’m not a shitty coward like you.”

Deku keeps pace with him, lightning crackling up and down his legs. It’s an insult, at this point, that he has all this power evident in his stupid fucking nerdy body but that he refuses to use it; would rather run away. 

Maybe all that sparring with Kirishima had been a good thing. Katsuki is used to fighting against an unbeatable opponent.

“Kacchan!” Deku’s whiny fucking voice is in his ear and, despite his insistence on leaving, he’s still here, still moving with Katsuki to fight All Might. Sixteen-years-old, U.A. student, sudden quirk-user, and Deku still hasn’t learned to grow a fucking backbone. “You can’t fight All Might, you know that! You’re good, but he’s–”

“Shut the fuck up!” Katsuki whirls around and slams Deku into the ground with an explosion.

“NO!” Deku glares up at him. “I want us to pass! And we’re not going to pass like this.”

And it’s cowardice that runs across Deku’s arms like emerald landmines; it’s cowardice that Katsuki has had to spend his entire fucking life indulging. Deku operates between two extremes: he never starts anything but, when he does, he never knows when to stop.

“Fine,” Katsuki says. “Fine, fucker, go run away. I don’t need your fucking help to win against All Might.”

Deku just looks at him.

“You do.”

“Fucking excuse me?”

“You know,” Deku says, “you’ve spent so long being angry, but you don’t need to be, Kacchan. Your anger just makes things harder for everyone involved, including you. You’re shooting yourself in the foot.”

The fucking audacity.

Katsuki is ready to punch Deku so far down that he burns against the Earth’s fucking core, automatic failing be damned. He clenches his fist and gears up for it. Deku flinches back but there’s nowhere for him to go but further down and that’s what Katsuki’s aiming for–

The buildings crumble around them. All Might’s cry reverberates through the wreckage.

“This is him handicapped,” Deku breathes. Katsuki can’t even tell him to shut the fuck up because shit, he’s right and it’s hitting him, just now, the gravity of the fight he’s decided to undertake.

Ever-present smile held in place, All Might charges towards them.

“Kacchan, we need to go!”

“Fuck off!” 

He fires a Stun Grenade at All Might, which works as a distraction, and launches himself forward. All Might blocks the attack with a fist but Katsuki meets him with a barrage of explosions.

(They don’t work. They glance off of All Might’s skin as easy as they had Kirishima’s.)

“Remember,” All Might says, slamming Katsuki into the ground, “I am a villain! Collateral damage, even civilian casualties are insignificant!”

A casualty. Like that’s all Katsuki is, trapped under All Might’s hand. A number, a word, the wealth of his achievements quietly buried with him. All Might effortlessly holds him in place and looks up to talk to Deku instead, asking him about his cowardly escape route.

The sky is sunny but Katsuki can still smell ozone, like even the air is gearing up to run away. It’s Deku’s quirk, he registers dimly.

He’s not going to be one to save me.

And he rolls over and detonates at the same time and this, coupled with Deku’s distraction, has All Might’s grip loosening enough for Katsuki to make a break for it. He powers himself into the air and fuck, there are definitely bruises around his abdomen but the euphoria of feeling them lessens the irritation of their presence. He’s ready to head back to the scene with fresh eyes and angry fists when a green blur knocks him into the ground.

“What… the fuck is wrong with you?” Katsuki demands, hastily getting up. “How are you consistently the biggest fucking disappointment this shitty world has ever seen?”

“Let’s go,” Deku repeats, like a broken record that no one’s ever bought. “You had your chance to fight him, now let’s go before he catches us.”

Like All Might is a villain just because he’s been asked to play the part. Like All Might is comparable to the two of them as toddlers, armed with butterfly nets and determined to ensnare as many of the insects as possible.

“I told you,” Katsuki growls, “I’m not fucking leaving. You might be useless but I always fucking win.”

Would it be different if he was fighting someone else? Anyone else? Katsuki doesn’t know, doesn’t care enough to think about it. What matters is that All Might is the first hero he’d ever fucking seen. The first hero to make him want to be one too. If he’s fighting him, Katsuki can’t back down. Can’t run away.

All Might is his starting point. Katsuki can’t improve until he surpasses him.

He steadies himself as All Might appears in the air, wielding a heavy guardrail like it’s no heavier than a pencil. He nonchalantly pins Deku to the ground and, immediately afterwards, punches Katsuki in the stomach so hard that he flies backwards. Katsuki’s ears are ringing and he’s close to cussing at them. How is it that they can handle his fucking explosions year after year, fight after fight, but one punch from All Might has them out of commission?

All Might’s voice filters through the static.

“I understand,” he’s saying. “You are jealous, because you have finally reached a level where everyone around you is just as powerful. You see Young Midoriya’s rapid growth and it scares you.”

“You have no fucking idea what you’re–”

“Young Bakugou,” All Might says. “This is a waste. You are weakening yourself by putting yourself on a pedestal.” His smile softens until it looks less like that of a manic villain’s and more… something else. Something different. Katsuki doesn’t want to label it. “I am telling you this as a hero,” he says. “You must grow to be able to rely on the strengths of others.”

The idea of that pisses Katsuki off so much that it emboldens him to get up. There’s dust in his throat, even up his fucking nose, but he blinks twice and All Might is clear in his line of sight, tall and proud as he waits for Katsuki to respond.

“This is a fucking waste of your time,” Katsuki snaps. “I would rather fucking lose than rely on the strengths of random extras.”

All Might sighs.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

His stance shifts and Katsuki can map out the trajectory of the attack before it even happens; years of watching All Might fight condensed into a useless play-by-play that he’s too weak to react to.

It’s then that Deku decides to stop fucking watching like a fucking puppet and actually put his quirk to good use. With a screeching snap, the guardrail breaks and he leaps forward, yanking Katsuki out of All Might’s path and leaping into a side-alley.

When had he gotten so fast? Katsuki remembers him stumbling around at the Sports Festival, snapping his fingers until they broke and relying on wind power and broken bones to fight Todoroki. This uncontrolled speed is something new. What the fuck had Deku gotten up to on his internship? These last few months?

Katsuki’s never not known where Deku was at any given moment. The nerd was always fucking following him. But now… 

“I can’t believe you said you would rather lose,” Deku pants, sprinting closer to the boundaries. “If we’re both going to pass this, you need to use your strength. We’re fighting All Might, Kacchan, we can’t give up!”

All Might is chasing after them, yelling corny villain catchphrases which would be lame on their own but hold a special kind of power when the fucker saying them is levelling entire city blocks with every step.

“Fuck you,” Katsuki groans. “I’ll use all my fucking strength and then some.”

“Then listen to me,” Deku says firmly. “Distract him from behind with your explosions but give me one of your bracers. He won’t be expecting me to come at him with that from the front.” 

Behind them, All Might shatters a window and yells something about it being a metaphor for the transparency of modern-day heroic values. 

“Watch the fucking recoil when you pull the pin,” Katsuki tells him. “You’ll be even weaker if you break your fucking arm because of your shitty plan.”

Deku says something but it’s lost to Katsuki as he sprints away and blasts himself up to a rooftop.

Katsuki watches All Might advance towards Deku. It feels wrong, to be watching and waiting and not doing but U.A. has taught him that the method works so he puts up with it. All Might moves closer, closer, closer, and Deku’s hand twitches in the signal and Katsuki pounces, detonating in All Might’s face. The goal of these explosions are to be brighter than they are hot, louder than they are strong, and they catch All Might’s attention. He’s focused on Katsuki and the explosions are barely even scratching him which would piss him off (does piss him off) but then Deku’s exactly where he’s supposed to be and he’s pulling the grenade pins.

The smoke from the explosion darkens the sky.

Katsuki’s already moving, sprinting towards the exit on bruised legs and Deku’s right behind him, even if his arms are trembling enough for Katsuki to notice. It’s an occupational hazard, he’ll get over it.

“Are you fucking shitting me,” Katsuki curses, turning back to look at All Might. He’s coughing up a little blood but he’s still fucking fine. And he’s smiling. 

“Impressive teamwork!” He booms. “I am proud of you both!”

That’s not a villain line.

“Prepare to meet your demise!” All Might promises, dashing after them.

Well. That’s significantly closer.

Katsuki isn’t sure what happens next. One moment he’s watching All Might advance, yelling about his thirst for revenge, and the next he’s pinned down by another fucking guardrail (where the fuck is All Might finding these?) while All Might is holding Deku in the air.

“I am proud of you both for working together to fight me,” All Might says. “Unfortunately, working together is a skill you were meant to have before even entering the area.”

Katsuki’s Grenade Bracers are lying on the ground beside him, shattered in pieces. Deku looks like he’s close to fainting and, shit, Katsuki’s not much better. The escape gate is barely a hundred feet away, fucking hell, they were so close to making it. 

But it’s not enough.

All Might, Katsuki realizes, has been using a fraction of his power and even that is enough to bring down Katsuki and Deku at their fucking best. If his goal is to surpass All Might with his current skill set, he will always be stuck in a state of “almost making it.” 

Deku wasn’t fucking right. He wasn’t. Fuck him.

Deku isn’t anything right now other than looking vaguely constipated as he lolls in All Might’s grasp. Is the elevation getting to his head? He’s two inches tall on a good day, being that high up can’t be fucking good for him. Katsuki watches as Deku makes one last-ditch attempt to escape All Might. He barely makes it through shouting “Full Cowl” before All Might throws him to the ground and leaves him to lie there.

It’s his turn.

Katsuki inhales. And he explodes. It’s nothing more than a distraction, just like all his other attacks have been, but it fucking works because All Might is clearly amenable to falling for the same fucking trick seventeen billion fucking times. 

His arms are fucking screaming at him but it’s his turn to grab Deku, his turn to catapult him to safety. The explosion sends him close to the escape gate, barely a few feet away.

“Fucking go, asshole!” Katsuki screams. 

Deku doesn’t move.

All Might laughs. 

“Good move, Young Bakugou!”

He’s angling himself the way he always does before a New Hampshire, undoubtedly ready to block useless Deku from doing his one fucking job of walking through the escape gate. Fucking hell, Katsuki hates Deku but he hates losing more and, above all, he hates losing to people who expect him to.

He’s motivated by a boatload of ambition and a modicum of spite but, right now, the latter is taking over.

“Asshole!” Katsuki shouts. “All Might! You were right!”

All Might stops.

“What?”

“My bracers,” Katsuki says, gesturing. “The ones that you politely fucking shattered. They help me make bigass explosions without breaking my fucking bones like the dumbass over there.”

“Yes,” All Might says. “I know. It’s an ingenious costume design.”

“I was wrong for thinking that I could win against you without taking risks,” Katsuki says. He doesn’t wait for All Might’s response. He just gathers the sweat in his palms and screams.

It’s a distraction, fuck, of course it’s a distraction, but at least it’s a big one, a flashy one. At least it staggers All Might for the second that it takes for Deku to activate Full Cowl. The one fucking advantage they have in this fight is that they’ve been watching this hero fight since they were fucking born. Katsuki knows what it looks like when All Might’s about to attack so he intercepts.

All Might’s hand is pressing him into the ground but that means he’s there, with Katsuki, leaving Deku to walk through the gate and let them pass.

Katsuki tries to shout at him, tries to yell at him to move the fuck on, but All Might keeps pressing him into the dirt and he’s fucking over it. He’s got one weapon left, he thinks. Is it dignified? No.

Katsuki bites the Symbol of Peace. He doesn’t let go but he lets up enough for Katsuki to scream: “Deku, go!”

Deku has, unsurprisingly, retained his inability to follow basic fucking instructions. He’s ten feet from the fucking gate but, instead, he starts running back to help Katsuki.

I just bit this fucking asshole, Katsuki tries to convey with his eyes. I just bit the number one fucking hero for you to get the fuck out and, for some reason, you’re still fucking here. This is why you’re the worst.

Deku’s smiling because he’s a fucking bandwagoner and he thinks that All Might’s “face everything with a smile” philosophy is the best thing about him. Katsuki might admit, if someone had a gun to his head, that it’s kind of fucking funny watching Deku punch All Might in the face wearing the goofiest goddamn grin Katsuki’s ever seen.

The force of the attack shakes All Might a bit. Deku capitalizes on this, grabbing Katsuki and rushing the both of them towards the gate. Katsuki’s hands are dead to the fucking world, the skin on them cracked and bleeding, but he uses the few small explosions he has left inside him to power them forward.

They limp through the gate. The second Katsuki’s second step hits the ground, the announcement is blaring through the sky: “Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku have passed the practical exam!”

Katsuki’s entire fucking body hurts and he’d had to work together with Deku which is worse than the broken ribs, dislocated shoulders, and torn up hands he’d sustained from the fight. The one silver lining is getting to watch Recovery Girl verbally beat the shit out of All Might for not restraining himself in the fight.

One semester down, he thinks, and knocks the fuck out in the infirmary cot.

He failed.

Eijirou’s an emotional person, he knows this, but he’s never been this close to crying in public. Besides him and Satou, the only other person to fail had been Mineta which is… not the comparison he’s going for because he knows, fuck, he knows that he’s not on the level that he’s supposed to be on, the level that everybody else has already surpassed, but the glaring evidence is so eye-catching that he can’t look away and if he can see it then everybody else can as well and that means, that means–

“We need a team name!” Ashido squeals, looking down at her scores. “Kami, look at this, we killed it.”

“Team Electric Acid?” Kaminari suggests. “Team Pink Power? Cause you’re pink and I’ve got electricity which is– Nevermind, what about, uh… Team Alien Bolt?”

“Alien Queen and Chargebolt! I like it!”

The sharp sound of their high-five has Aizawa-sensei sighing as he enters the classroom.

“Aw, come on, sensei,” Kaminari cajoles. “We were pretty good, you have to admit.”

“...You were,” Aizawa admits. “Using your electricity to short out Nedzu’s machine was a smart move.” His lips twitch up. “And you, Ashido, using your acid to make handholds for you and Kaminari to climb up on top and use the high ground to escape. You both used your environment to your advantage in a way that no other pair did, which is why you have the highest marks in the class.”

The two of them flush bright pink, all traces of bravado gone. Compliments from Aizawa are rare. So rare, in fact, that nobody makes fun of Ashido and Kaminari for stuttering their way through their thanks. 

Eijirou feels pride rise through his embarrassment. Ashido and Kaminari are super smart, even if they choose not to show it most of the time, and he’s happy that it’s finally being recognized. Ashido is one of the most adaptive people he knows, to the point of defending her friends from a villain and effortlessly redirecting them to the police station. Kaminari can figure out the mechanics of anything if he’s given enough time, which is why it’s incredible that he’d shorted out Nedzu’s machine in what was probably a few minutes.

The more he thinks about it, the more Eijirou feels like crawling into a very small hole and never coming out. How can he compare to his friends when they are this smart, this quick-acting, this… heroic?

There had been none of that finesse on his part. He’d just punched and punched and punched until he’d run out of strength and Cementoss had gone in for the kill.

The worst part isn’t even the sting of failing the practicals. It’s knowing that, while all his classmates will be able to go to the training camp during summer vacation, Eijirou will be at home, falling even farther behind.

Wait a minute.

“Aizawa- sensei,” he says quietly, moving to his teacher’s side. “I have a question.”

Aizawa raises an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“I understand that I failed,” Eijirou says, twisting his hands, “but I don’t think that any of us who failed should stay behind during the training camp. We… we need to get stronger, all of us, but the students who failed need that training the most.”

Aizawa looks at him for a short moment.

“Thank you,” he says softly, “for showing me that I made the right decision.”

“What?”

“Bad news,” Aizawa says louder, facing the rest of the class, “you’re all going to training camp.”

Eijirou’s head snaps up.

“It was a logical ruse,” Aizawa explains. “Each one of your teachers left a window open for you to win. A purposeful escape route or way to defeat them. It was an extra handicap on our part so even those of you who passed were helped by your teachers. Because of this, you will all be training to get stronger until you won’t miss a single window in a real battle.” He pauses. “I will never punish you for failing. If you ever get a failing grade on a test or even something as an important exam, that is an opportunity for us all to learn and improve.”

There’s an uproar from the class but Aizawa is looking at Kirishima and he’s smiling. The same one he’d given Ashido and Kaminari.

It looks like pride.

“Iida, Yaoyorozu,” Aizawa calls, later, near the end of class,“please hand out these training camp brochures.”

Eijirou looks down at his own copy and wow, there’s a lot of stuff on the list that he doesn’t own.

“Why would I own hiking boots,” Kaminari says, frowning. Bakugou, summoned by a nice person asking a genuine question, glares at him.

“For fucking hiking, what else, dumbass?”

“Bakugou, you’re telling me you go hiking enough that you own hiking boots?”

“What the fuck, you don’t?”

“Aw, hey, we’ve got an expert,” Hagakure says, walking up to them. “When we all go shopping, you can help us pick stuff out!”

Bakugou steps away from her. 

“Why the fuck would I willingly hang out with any of you?”

“Well, there’s a lot of stuff on this list so everyone’s going to have to end up buying stuff for it,” Hagakure says. “And it would be fun if we could all go to the mall together and help each other figure it out!”

“I’m not going,” Bakugou barks.

Hagakure doesn’t seem even the slightest bit fazed.

“I’ll text you the address!”

Bakugou doesn’t say anything else. Is he… coming? Just because Hagakure said to? It makes sense, she’s one of the manliest people Eijirou’s ever met, really, she’s strong and smart and kind and funny but it’s one more thing, one more point to hammer in the fact that Bakugou respects everyone but Eijirou.

“Yeah!” He steps forward, pastes a smile on his face. “That sounds like a great idea, Hagakure!”

People recognize them.

Eijirou had not expected this and, judging by the various flustered, uncomfortable, and nervous expressions of his classmates, neither had they. He knows, logically, that the Sports Festival is a nationally-televised event. Confronting the ramifications of that in real life is a separate thing.

“Let’s split up,” Yaoyorozu says quickly. “We’re more recognizable as a group so we should separate and meet back at the food court in three hours.”

They all break out into smaller groups. 

Eijirou joins Ashido, Kaminari, and Sero, and the four of them steadily work their way through the list. Or, well, steadily is a little bit of an exaggeration. They politely get thrown out of half of the shops they enter but after an hour they’re a third of the way through the list which is honestly better than Eijirou had been expecting.

Mina, Kaminari, and Sero are in one of the skincare stores, looking at fancy soaps and exfoliators. The strong scents bother Eijirou a little so he waits outside, checking his messages.

“Kirishima Eijirou, right? From the Sports Festival?”

Eijirou tenses. His performance isn’t anything he’s proud of, He’d fallen so quickly that it can’t be something he’ll ever be comfortable being recognized for.

Still, he looks up, because his parents raised him to be polite.

Freezes.

The man who’d approached him is tall and skinny, with a jacket zipped up all the way to his nose, a hood covering his head, and black sunglasses blocking what’s left. 

“Sorry for scaring you,” he chuckles. “You don’t know me yet, do you?”

He sounds like someone Eijirou had seen on TV, bragging about killing heroes. 

“Stain?”

The man chuckles.

“No. No, I just wanted to say that I really admired your performance.” Eijirou steps back until his back hits the glass of the display window.

“...Thanks?”

“Hardening, right? Remind me of your hero name?”

“Er… Red Riot,” Eijirou says. “Yeah, yeah that’s my quirk.”

“Wow,” he whistles. “Jeez, kid, what I wouldn’t give for a quirk like yours.” And it sounds like he’s joking but there’s a tone in his voice that Eijirou can’t decipher, something that sounds like a pot of milk about to boil over. The subtle hissing, the puffing up–

Shit, where are his friends?

“Well, it’s alright,” the man sighs. “I figured my shit out eventually. You really are lucky, Kirishima.”

“I– I’m really not,” Eijirou tries. “My quirk, it’s useful, but it’s not really… flashy, or anything. You should be proud of your quirk.”

“Maybe,” the other man agrees. “But you should be proud of yours too. You had to fight that explosion kid, Bakugou, right? He hit you with those wicked explosions and you stood through them. That was badass.”

Eijirou blinks.

“Thank you.”

The man steps forward. 

“I wanted to ask about your opponent, Bakugou Katsuki. Kinda surprised he didn’t get first, aren’t you?”

“What? Yaoyorozu fought incredibly.” Eijirou narrows his eyes. “If you’re about to say girls can’t be heroes or something equally unmanly I’ll–”

“Oh, no, I would never.” He backs up, finally. “No, it’s just interesting that you have a student in your class who’s so willing to cut down anything in his way. Almost villainous, don’t you think?”

“No,” Eijirou says firmly. “I don’t.”

“Interesting,” the man murmurs. “It was nice meeting you, Kirishima. I’m a fan.” 

Eijirou’s name sounds… not right on his tongue. Like he’s trying to eat it. Like he’s angry that he has to let it go. The syllables sound silky and strange and a little to the left of what Eijirou prefers to hear them as.

“Wait!” Eijirou calls. The man turns around. “Sorry,” Eijirou says, pseudo-casually tucking his hands into his pockets, “you didn’t tell me your name.”

“Oh,” the man says. “My bad, kid. It’s Dabi.”

Chapter Text

“Are we there yet?” Mineta whines.

“Does it fucking matter?” Bakugou’s sneering at him from his seat. “You’re going to fail whatever fucking test they give you regardless of whether you knew about it or not.”

Eijirou presses his lips together. At least Bakugou’s finally using his cutting insults for someone who actually deserves it.

“Oh, yeah?” Mineta leans forward, a sickly grin on his face. “At least I didn’t make a pledge to win the Sports Festival and end up losing.”

Bakugou’s right hand starts sparking. “I’ll throw your deflated balloon body out of this shitty fucking bus, you dickless eggplant!”

Kaminari wheezes.

“Dickless eggplant,” Sero repeats, in wonder.

Ashido muffles her giggles into her palm, her other hand gleefully holding her phone up. 

“There will be no throwing of classmates,” Aizawa says, yawning. His eyes, when he turns around, are bloodshot. “Mineta, Bakugou, stop provoking each other. You can kill each other when the bus stops.” The pause that stretches after that is so awkward that Eijirou sinks deeper into his seat. “That was a joke,” Aizawa deadpans. “Killing each other is also prohibited.”

“Yikes,” Ashido says quietly. “That was a reach.” Then, louder: “You’re so funny, sensei!”

“Suck up,” Kaminari snickers, shoving her lightly. 

Ashido shoves back. “I’m trying to get on his good side,” she hisses. “He thinks I’m a good student now, I gotta keep it going.”

Eijirou laughs and ruffles her hair.  “Ashido, he already likes you just the way you are, just relax.”

“Kiri,” Ashido says seriously, “you are the only person I’ve ever met that I don’t hate hearing that from.”

“It’s ‘cause he’s a ray of sunshine!” Kaminari shouts. “Look at this man, Ashido, is there anything he could tell you that wouldn’t have you falling in love?”

Eijirou chokes. “Kaminari—”

“No, no, let the man speak,” Sero says, nodding. Kaminari winks at him, before loudly clearing his throat.

“First, we have his smile. Look at that grin and tell me it’s not sunshine incarnate!”

“Couldn’t even if I wanted to!” Uraraka says, giggling. 

Eijirou looks at her and, oh, the entire class is looking at Kaminari and vehemently agreeing if the thumbs-up and wiggling eyebrows mean anything.

“Don’t even get me started on this king’s personality,” Kaminari continues, his shit-eating grin glowing as he takes notice of his audience. “Have you ever met someone so willing to help others? So ready to hype you up?”

“Hypeman supreme,” Hagakure says. “The entire gym smiles when you walk in!”

“Guys,” Eijirou croaks. His cheeks are burning. “You guys are all too manly, you’re going to make me cry. Stop being so nice!”

The bus halts with an indignant huff, then, and Aizawa-sensei stands up to address them. Eijirou breathes a sigh of relief.

“Finally,” Mineta groans, scurrying for the exit.

“Everyone out,” Aizawa says. His hand reaches down to hold Mineta’s forehead in place. “We’ll be going in order of seat placement.” The short nap must have done wonders for Aizawa’s humour because he turns to Eijirou and he doesn’t even look completely dead inside. “Kirishima, you first.”

“He’s not even sitting in the front,” Mineta complains. Aizawa doesn’t say anything. Eijirou blinks.

“No rush,” Shouji says, “but some of us need to stretch our legs and. Uh. Eight arms. So—”

“Oh, yeah, sorry, bro!” He stumbles off the bus, followed by his cheering classmates. 

“Man, I even got Aizawa-sensei on board,” Kaminari says, grinning. “I’ve peaked. Nothing’s going to beat this.”

Yaomomo smiles at him from the steps of the bus, eyes sparkling. “Don’t limit yourself, Kaminari, I’m sure you’ll come up with something soon.”

Kaminari winks at her and politely offers his arm. “Why, thank you, my lady. Allow me to escort you?”

She giggles behind her hand, taking his arm and gracefully stepping off the bus.

Eijirou doesn’t know what it is—the fresh mountain air, the warmth of summer, the excitement for training, but everyone’s happier like this. Lighter, almost. Just kids, screwing around. Even Bakugou is only scowling hard enough to encourage a particularly fragile baby into tears, as opposed to a fully grown adult.

“Ah, wait a minute,” Iida says, looking pensive. “Class 1-B isn’t here.”

“No, they’re not!” Two women step out of the forest grinning, decked out in colourful costumes and large white gloves that Eijirou would bet money on having retractable claws.

He tenses, quirk rippling up his arms. Beside him, Uraraka settles into a light stance, her fingers outstretched. 

“Relax,” Aizawa-sensei says, abruptly. He frowns. “I told you both not to go with the surprise approach.”

The taller of the two women, a brunette with red whiskers painted on her face and a jagged scar ripping across her midsection, bows slightly. “Ah, sorry, everyone! That was callous of us.” She straightens, smiling. “My name is Mandalay and this is Pixie-Bob, and we are two members of the Wild Wild Pussycats!”

“You’re one of the four hero teams that founded the Union Affair Office,” Midoriya exclaims, eyes shining. “You all revolutionized the field for rescue heroes, you’re legends!”

Pixie-Bob grins, clapping her hands. “Right you are, little hero! Aizawa, you brought us good ones this year!”

“They’re not here to stroke your egos,” Aizawa grumbles but he doesn’t say anything else. Midoriya’s hero worship must be well-earned.

“Wait,” Midoriya breathes. “Are you training us this week?”

“We sure are!”

“This entire mountain is under our jurisdiction,” Mandalay explains. “Throughout this week, you’ll mostly be training at the base of it. Your first training exercise will be getting there! You have three hours to reach the base. We’re allowing you full use of your quirks!”

Pixie-Bob crosses her arms loosely, surveying them. “Anyone who doesn’t make it by noon won’t be served dinner, so make sure to be on time!”

Bakugou’s face stretches into something that Eijirou might actually call a smile. “You’re saying we get to climb this mountain?”

“Well, you’re climbing down,” Mandalay says. “But yes! You a fan of hiking, kid?”

Bakugou smirks, rolling his shoulders back. “Fuck yes.”

Pixie-Bob smirks. “Then you’ll love the Beast’s Forest.” 

With a delighted cry, Pixie-Bob punches outward and the ground underneath Eijirou and his classmates crumbles into a landslide of dirt, dragging them down into the forest.

“What the—”

“Ow, fuck—”

“Kami, get out of my face —”

The ground stays put, finally, and Eijirou coughs, standing up. Gone is the clear blue sky—all he can see above him are towering trees and the mottled green of the forest canopy. Eijirou tilts his head far back enough that his neck twinges in pain and he still can’t see where the forest ends. It’s really cool, in a terrifying sort of way.

“Alright,” Yaomomo says, dusting herself off. “We have three hours to get through this forest and make it to the mountain base. As long as we work together, we should be done in no time!”

Jirou tenses. “Something’s coming,” she says quietly. “Something big.”

“Yeah,” Bakugou says, gaze fixed forward. “Don’t need your quirk to tell us that.”

There’s a whistle in the air, a preliminary moment where the trees seem to hold their breath—

The forest ignites.

Todoroki immediately throws up an ice wall but it’s a temporary fix at best. On the other side of the wall, those same seemingly unbeatable trees crack in half, the sound so jarring that it reverberates through Eijirou’s teeth. Already, the ice is melting from the heat of the fire, dripping water blurring the view.

Eijirou’s only consolation is that it has to be part of the Pussycat’s training exercise. The fire devouring the forest is blue, hot enough to draw sweat from his skin, but in no way a natural forest fire.

“We need to figure out how to get past the fire,” Midoriya says, his voice wavering the way it always does before he succumbs to his mumbling. “Either that, or we put it out somehow.”

“I can create water to put out some of it,” Yaomomo says, a clear drop forming in her palm. “I don’t— I won’t have enough for this whole forest, though.”

Midoriya nods, accepting that easily enough. “If you conserve your energy, you and Todoroki can clear a path for the rest of us. We can figure the rest out as we go?”

The class nods. Bakugou’s glaring at the fire like he’s going to be able to put it out with sheer dickheadery but even he doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with the plan.

It’s not the greatest plan, to be clear. It’s also the only one they’ve got. 

Bakugou blasts a hole in the ice wall, big enough that even Shouji and Sato can get through by ducking. Yaomomo and Todoroki are at the front of the line, quirks at the ready. They spray water and ice respectively, clearing a path as the fire recoils.

His classmates hurry through the gap in the wall. Eijirou hangs back, waiting for all of them to move forward. Midoriya fidgets in place when it’s just the two of them left. He makes a move to gesture for Eijirou to move forward which is sweet of him, really, but—

“I’m taking the back,” Eijirou says firmly. “My quirk protects me from the fire, bro. If it’s going to get anyone, it should be me.”

“It’s not going to get anyone,” Midoriya says, voice sharp, even as he ducks through the wall. He sounds frustrated, like he wants to argue further, but time isn’t exactly on their side. Eijirou spares a small “thank you” to the overwhelming time pressure and follows him through.

Instantly, he’s glad that he’d decided to take the back. Remnants of Todoroki’s ice glisten on the cracked tree trunks like shards of glass. The ground is damp when he steps on it, Yaomomo’s water has soaked into the dirt. The fire licks at his heels regardless.

They sprint to catch up with their classmates. Eijirou doesn’t think he’s ever run so fast in his fucking life. His quirk spills over the soft edges of his body, skin hardening into something that even the sharpest blade would only sharpen on. His clothes snag, ripping over the transformation, but it’s better than them burning to ashes.

It’s strange. Sensation becomes muted whenever he turns on his quirk. Eijirou can still see and hear just fine but things like heat suddenly fall away. One minute, he’d been sweating because of how hot it was in an on-fire forest and the next, his nerves weren’t picking up on anything.

“It’s getting closer,” he yells, praying his classmates can hear him over the sound of the forest falling apart around them. “We need to move faster!”

It’s empty motivation. They’re all running as fast as they can. The fire isn’t letting up.

There’s a sound like a lightning strike, and a tree is collapsing, the smoke blowing back in Eijirou’s face as it displaces the air around it. 

“Midoriya,” Eijirou screams, his throat hoarse. “Run!”

Midoriya kicks one of his feet against the ground and propels himself forward, his green hair a dim blur through the haze of smoke. Eijirou doesn’t have a quirk that’ll let him do the same. He skids to a stop, mentally re-calculating.

He should be strong enough to punch through it with his quirk. He pulls his fist back, hardens his fist.

Pauses.

There’s a shift in the air behind him, a pinprick of anxiety that isn’t muted even by his quirk. Beneath the sound of burning leaves and hungry fire, Eijirou registers the soft pad of boots on dirt.

“Kirishima Eijirou,” purrs Dabi, blue fire streaming from his fingertips. “Quick sidebar?”

Eijirou blinks. The log is smoking at the edges, the bottom of the trunk a chalky black. “Oh, smart,” he says slowly. “You literally separated me from my classmates. Sidebar.”

Dabi snaps his fingers, pointing at him. “Yes! Yes, that. Exactly.”

“Did you—” Eijirou stutters, attempting to wrap his head around the ridiculousness that is this conversation. “Did you want to talk about something?”

Dabi’s face lights up. He grins and it almost looks cut into his face, the same way kindergarteners take knives to pumpkins and hack up their best approximation of a smile. “Are you free?”

“Actually, no,” Eijirou says, brain working. “The forest is kind of on fire, man, it’s not really the right vibe for, uh, a conversation, y’know?”

Dabi frowns, looking like he’s genuinely considering it. Eijirou holds his breath until, finally, he shrugs. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

He reaches his hand out and Eijirou watches as the flames around them go from raging to slowly sputtering out.

“I can change its temperature,” Dabi explains. “If you bring it down enough, it stops expelling a lot of heat, which means it doesn’t burn.”

“Cool!” Eijirou says. Could Todoroki do that, too? He’ll have to mention that to him later. It’s a cool technique to have and it would allow for more control. 

In the wake of the blue fire, the forest looks like a graveyard. Singed branches clatter to the ground, cracking on impact. If there were any animals in the Beasts Forest, they’re either dead or long gone. 

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here,” Eijirou says carefully, “and say you’re not with the Pussycats.”

Dabi shakes his head. “Yeah, no. I came here for you, kid.”

“For…” Eijirou backs up, feeling small and cold, even wrapped as he is in his quirk. “That’s why you were at the mall, too, yeah?”

“You’re an interesting guy,” is all Dabi offers, eyes glittering. “And I wanted to make you an offer.”

“An offer.”

Eijirou keeps repeating whatever Dabi says. His mouth is dry.

“Do you remember the Sports Festival?” Dabi asks. “I’m asking ‘cause I thought you were the coolest shit I’d ever seen. No one else there had a quirk like yours and the one kid that did? You beat him, too.”

“I lost,” Eijirou points out, confused. “Bakugou knocked me out, remember?”

Dabi rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah, sure, but all that means is you’ve gotta train a bit more to strengthen your shield. You doubt yourself, you give up too easily. You see a few bright lights and you back off.” He spreads his arms and the sleeves of his coat fall back, exposing stapled, scarred skin. “Do you have any fucking idea how much I’d give to have your quirk? Fire, ice, explosions—none of it touches you. That’s insane.”

“You lit an entire forest on fire,” Eijirou stresses. “You would have burned all of it down to the ground. I could never do something as big as that.”

Dabi snorts. “You don’t get it. The organization I’m part of, kid? It’s full of people like you. People who have had to fight for a seat at the table because their quirk wasn’t what people expected. People who turned their weaknesses into strengths.” 

Eijirou’s heard this speech before, has become well-acquainted with this specific brand of unbridled anger. First at USJ, then later during Stain’s rampage.

“In the League of Villains,” Dabi intones, slow and clear, “we are all built to withstand.”

The sentiment has Eijirou’s stomach roiling. Dabi had asked him about Bakugou, back at the mall. It’s just interesting that you have a student in your class who’s so willing to cut down anything in his way. Almost villainous, don’t you think?

He’d dismissed it in a second but all this time, they’d thought Eijirou was the villain.

“I’m not interested,” Eijirou growls.

“You haven’t even seen anything yet,” Dabi continues, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You can stay here, flailing around in a forest or you can come with me and make an actual difference. Do you understand how invaluable you are? I went to them but you, Kirishima, you’re powerful enough that they’re coming to you.”

“Wow,” Eijirou says drily. “The organization bent on destroying the world as we know it is handpicking me personally. I feel so special.”

Dabi’s quiet for a little bit. “I told them you weren’t going to go for it,” he says finally. “Shigaraki’s fucking delusional, but I told them you would need a bit more sweet-talking.”

“I don't need anything,” Eijirou hisses. “I know exactly what your League is about and I don’t want anything to do with it.”

Dabi’s grins, voice soft and frigid.  “You will.”

Sensation is muted when his quirk is activated. It takes Eijirou a second too long to register the gloved hand at the back of his neck. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. There’s a soft curse, a surprised “he’s sharp,” and the entire world presses in so tightly that he can’t even find the space to breathe.

Deku won’t stop fucking screaming. The fire’s been gone for a few minutes but the nerd’s damn near hysterical. They should have put him at the front of the line instead, Katsuki’s confident that his tears would have put out more fire than Ponytail’s quirk.

“We have to keep going,” Katsuki snaps, swatting at him. “Are you done?”

Deku shakes his head, sniffling.

Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Look, your shitty plan worked,” Katsuki grits out. “These losers are all still alive. The longer you cry, the longer we have to stay in this forest, and the higher our chances of fucking starving when we do eventually make it to camp. Is that what you want, Deku? You can’t afford to not eat, your everything is already stunted from being qu—Uh. Quite a shit eater.”

Nice save, Katsuki. A recovery even Recovery Girl would be jealous of.

“You’re wrong!” Deku wails. He scrubs at his eyes, chest heaving. “Not everyone—He was right behind me, I should have—”

“Hold up,” Kaminari interrupts, voice deathly still. “Where the fuck is Kirishima?”

And in that split-second, when no one steps forward to slam their fists together and announce that everything was “right as rain, bro!” Deku’s little panic attack makes a lot more sense.

“He was right behind me,” Deku repeats miserably. “And a tree was coming down and he told me to run and I used my quirk and I turned around and he wasn’t—he was gone.”

Kaminari looks like he’s going to start crying. There’s acid dripping from Ashido’s palms, sizzling as it hits the ground. 

Katsuki doesn’t see the issue. “He’s fucking indestructible,” he grunts. “Calm your shit, the asshole’s fine, he’s just slow as hell. If we keep going, he’ll catch up eventually.”

Ashido stares at him. “You’re not worried for him? Even a little bit?”

“He can take my Howitzer,” Katsuki says, snarling at the memory. “And I’m definitely stronger than a tree.”

“Huh,” Asui says thoughtfully. She’s tapping her finger to her mouth and Katsuki’s already bracing himself for the bullshit that’s sure to come spilling out of her mouth. “You have a lot of faith in Kirishima, don’t you?”

“I’ll put an AP Shot straight through your skull.”

“I’ll wait here for Kirishima,” Iida announces. “The rest of you go forward, as Bakugou suggested. I’ll be able to reach you the fastest and, that way, we’ll all be able to move forward together as soon as possible.”

No one seems to have a problem with that, either, and the rest of them move on. Deku’s basically walking backward with how often he turns back to look at Iida, craning his neck even as their class president goes small and out of sight.

Katsuki sees no need. Kirishima’s like a cockroach. He’s unkillable.

Eventually, after fighting their way through dirt-giants and other various nuisances, the class makes it to the edge of the forest. They’re greeted by the Pussycats, who agree to feed them even though they show up hours late.

Katsuki’s getting real fucking tired of these logical ruses.

Deku, who can’t sleep at night until he figures out how absolutely everything works, asks—“How did you manage the fire?”

“What fire?” Mandalay asks.

And this, Katsuki knows, isn’t one of their shitty jokes, because all four Pussycats look like the ground’s been ripped out from underneath them. 

He isn’t fucking concerned. Turns out, he’s the only one.

Chapter Text

Yaoyorozu is eating the Pussycats out of house and home. Katsuki’s… honestly a little bit impressed with how much she can put away. She’s probably trained herself to be able to eat enough for a small army, but the ferocity with which she’s chowing down is genuinely fucking incredible. 

The rest of the class is situated at the end of the dining table, picking at dinner. Ashido hasn’t touched her plate. Kaminari looks a bit green at the idea of actually chewing and swallowing his rice instead of smushing it into a fine paste with his chopsticks.

It leaves more for Yaoyorozu, at least, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. 

The door to the hall slams open and Aizawa strides inside, dragging Iida by the arm. “I’ll take your place, as promised,” he says, flat and unamused, already heading back outside. “Eat or you’re expelled.” 

Iida takes a seat with all the enthusiasm as a prisoner on death row. “He made me come inside,” he says quietly, fiddling with a bowl. “I thought if I waited long enough—”

“Yeah, no, we’re not doing that,” Uraraka says, taking his bowl and loading it with rice. “You heard what the Pussycats said, right? The blue fire? The tree that separated Midoriya and Kirishima? The whole thing was engineered to separate Kirishima from the rest of us. There was nothing you could have done to stop it.”

Yaoyorozu drains her fifth bowl of soup and sets it down on the table. “I’m sure the heroes are already devising a plan to get him back.”

“We have All Might,” Deku says, voice a little choked up. “He’s the best there is, and he’s going to be on this, right?”

“I just wish they would talk to us,” Hagakure says, slumping in her seat. 

“We wouldn’t exactly be able to help,” Ojiro says, jabbing at his noodles with a cute, shy kind of aggressiveness. Katsuki’s never seen him be especially angry before. Apparently, Kirishima being whisked away to some underground villain lair is bringing forth all kinds of new frontiers.

“Did he say anything? Before you guys got separated?” Sero’s peering at Deku, dropping any pretense of eating.

Deku shakes his head, looking miserable. “He just screamed for me to run.”

“Hey, Bakugou,” Ashido says, her voice hoarse. “Are you worried, now?”

Katsuki snarls. “Excuse me?”

“You told us all not to worry,” she says, voice rising. “You said he would be fine and we all went forward and now it’s been hours and all our teachers have been in that meeting for the entire time and Aizawa’s somewhere in that fucking forest so, I was just wondering, are you worried now?”

“No,” he says shortly. “If any of us were gonna be abducted, it’s probably good that they got him.” He pauses, thinking about it. “Or Tokoyami, I guess, they’d have a bitch of a time restraining Dark Shadow.”

“That’s a pretty awful thing to say,” Jirou says. 

“Fuck off, it’s realistic,” Katsuki shoots back. “You know why that asshole was at the back of the line in the forest? Fire can’t do shit to him. He told Deku to run because a falling tree would have killed him but Kirishima can walk that shit off like it’s nothing. If the villains are trying to break him, they’ll have a hell of a harder time than with most of you extras.”

“Can someone shut him up?” Kaminari inquires, his fingers sparking. “If I have to hear more of this bullshit—”

“He’s saying Kirishima’s strong,” Deku says, giving Katsuki the side-eye of the fucking century. Katsuki debates the merits of scooping his eyeballs out with a soup spoon. 

“He’s also talking about fucking torture to get him to squeal on U.A.,” Kaminari spits out.

“It’s unlikely,” Todoroki says. His voice is calm and quiet. It’s the first thing he’s said since the news broke. “The villain’s behaviour implied that they came here for Kirishima, specifically. They know what his quirk can do. If they’d wanted information, they would have gone for a faculty member or someone with an incompatible quirk. Bakugou said the villains are likely to break Kirishima, meaning they want him to join their cause.”

“Kirishima,” Ashido says. “A villain. Kirishima.”

“No one’s debating his fucking morals, Black-Eyes,” Katsuki drawls. “We’re just sayin’ any villain with a fucking brain is gonna want a shield on their team, someone who’s gonna draw out all the fire and take any hits. If they’ve gotta turn his brain into fucking soup to do it, you think that’s gonna stop them?”

“Keep talking like that,” Ashido murmurs, “and I’ll burn off your fucking hands.”

Ashido’s hands are pressed flat against the table. The wood darkens around her fingers. 

Katsuki shrugs, leaning back. He’s still right and even Todoroki, of all the brain-dead morons, knows it.

All Might and Endeavour show up the next morning. 

It’s strange. Katsuki’s found himself getting used to the version of All Might that teaches them in school, the irritatingly enthusiastic teacher who does his best to bring levity to the subject material.

He’s never seen All Might angry. He’s never seen him look ready to hurt someone.

Technically, the class is supposed to be making breakfast for themselves while the teachers meet in the other room. In practice, however, they’re all standing silently at their prep stations. 

Jirou’s got her jacks plugged into the wall, quietly repeating their conversation. “All Might’s detective friend says they’ve identified the villain’s hiding spot,” she reports. “They’re going to be teaming up with the police to get Kirishima back.”

“Who’s going?” Deku asks.

“All Might, Endeavour, Hawks, and,” Jirou pauses, turning to smirk at Katsuki, “Best Jeanist.”

“I hope he dies there,” Katsuki says flatly.

“Oh my god,” Hagakure says, muffling her snickers into her forearm. “What’s wrong with you, you can’t fucking say that.”

“Stop laughing, then,” Katsuki challenges.

“Go away,” Hagakure huffs, exhaling slowly and passing her hand over her face. “Okay. Yeah. I’m good. Did they say when they’re leaving?”

Jirou holds up a finger, listening attentively. “Sounds like it’s going to be tonight?” The corner of her lip curled up. “They’re talking about strategy now.”

And, at that, his classmates finally begin the motions of making breakfast. The room fills up with the sounds of knives on cutting boards, burners being turned on, eggs sizzling in hot pans. 

Four heroes for one fucking hero student? It’s overkill but, on the off-chance that Kirishima’s been taken by the villain fuckers from USJ who’ve formed some sort of book club, it figures that the heroes would want to be over-prepared.

Katsuki already considers the whole thing done with. Whoever the villain is, they’re no match for All Might, let alone Endeavour, Hawks, and, as fucking annoying as he is, Best Jeanist. Kirishima will be back by tomorrow morning and Katsuki will get to test his AP Shot on his hardening.

He dices onions, chops up scallions, cuts up potatoes, all the while drawing up training plans in his mind. Kirishima’s going to be angry that he’s missed out on a day and a half. He fights harder when he’s angry.

Katsuki can’t wait.

The Pussycats keep them busy throughout the day. Aizawa oversees what Katsuki’s pretty sure could count as state-sanctioned torture. Over the course of the day, his classmates go from worrying about Kirishima to wishing the villain had kidnapped them too.

Katsuki spends the afternoon dipping his hands in barrels of boiling water and coaxing explosions out of his dripping palms.

“They’re too weak,” Aizawa observes blandly, passing by.

Katsuki kind of wants to tell him to go take a shit in Satan’s mouth, but he’s also pretty sure that that would get him sent home and murdered by his mom, so he grits his teeth and focuses on getting more power behind his blasts.

The others aren’t exactly enjoying this anymore than he is. Deku’s getting his scrawny ass kicked by Tiger. Jirou’s jabbing her jacks into the literal mountainside, which has to hurt like a motherfucker.

They all have weaknesses. That’s what spurred this trip—Aizawa noticing that each of them has little windows of vulnerability just wide enough for a knife to fit through. The best heroes, like All Might and Endeavour, are unwavering walls of strength. There’s no chink in their armour, no handholds for even the most observant villain.

If Katsuki is going to be better than them, he has to get on their level first, and that means cutting out every flaw and cauterizing the wound. 

The main issue with the hot water situation is that nitroglycerin is prissy as hell. It goes off from the heat of the water the second Katsuki submerges his hands. The explosions aren’t too noticeable and the only thing anyone else is seeing are collections of bubbles on the surface of the water but it’s fucking annoying to burn off most of the nitro in the water and have to somehow create a more powerful blast with less fuel.

Aizawa’s almost completed his lap around the class and is heading back towards Katsuki. 

“Bakugou,” he says, voice about as lively as a flatlining heartbeat, “have you made any progress?”

I’m switching career paths, Katsuki considers telling him. I think being a homicidal sociopath might be more lucrative at this point.

“Yeah,” he says instead. “You said they were too weak, right?”

Aizawa nods. He’s just standing there, silent and non-judgemental, and Katsuki feels a rush of anger eating at his stomach. Aizawa doesn’t say “weak” like it’s an insult. 

Katsuki knows what it is to be strong. He can shatter rocks with his hands and detonate himself into the fucking sky if he so chooses. If something as common as water is all it takes to reduce his explosions to something so pitiful, Aizawa should consider him weak. 

That’s not who he is, though. He doesn’t leave things in between the lines for Katsuki to dissect and extrapolate from. It’s a simple observation and it has no bearing on what Aizawa thinks of him or his quirk or his ability to be a hero.

It should.

He clenches his fists and his fingers slip on the collected sweat. He’s angry at the water for making him weak, at Aizawa for acting as if it doesn’t. The power coils down his forearms like heavy rope, heat building in his palms.

In one, smooth movement, Katsuki plunges his hands deep into the barrel, hot water splashing up on the sides and landing on his shirt. When he detonates, it rings in his fucking teeth. 

The explosion throws him back twenty feet and he lands ass-first in the grass, the skin of his arms red and agitated. 

Aizawa’s sopping wet. He kind of looks like a cat being forced to take a bath.

He deserves it, is what Katsuki tells himself to avoid the very real threat of being sent home. Also, it’s probably the first time he’s bathed since All Might’s Bronze Age ended. 

He gets up warily and walks back to the splintered remains of the barrel. Aizawa silently unwraps his scarf and wrings it out. Katsuki silently begs for Yaoyorozu to create a gun and shoot him with it. 

“At USJ, you were lucky enough to be dropped in an arena that catered to your strengths,” Aizawa says finally. “You and Kirishima made it out to help everyone else. Had you been teleported to the water arena with Midoriya, Asui, and Mineta, you wouldn’t have been able to fight to the best of your ability. 

“As a hero, it’s expected that you’ll have certain areas where you excel and those will build the bulk of your battles and experience. But you won’t always get the privilege of fighting in a place like that. You need to have a plan for every scenario.”

The anger runs out of him like dirty dishwater. 

“I’ll need to fine-tune it,” Katsuki says. “I don’t know if it’ll work as well with different temperatures.”

Something tugs at the corner of Aizawa’s lip. At first, it looks like a facial tic or the preliminary symptoms of a stroke.

Wait, Katsuki realizes. What the fuck. He’s trying to smile.

“I’ll have them bring out cold and room-temp barrels,” Aizawa says, once his face has settled back into its regular, mildly disgruntled expression. “This was good. Keep going.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki says, shaken to his fucking core. “Thanks.”

The heroes leave just before dinner. Aizawa takes one look at Ashido’s face and mildly announces that he’ll be cooking the meal with them. 

How the man is a fucking asshole during the day and a soft-hearted loser at night is beyond Katsuki. He’s got bigger problems, like the fact that Aizawa doesn’t show a huge amount of competence at being a regular person who practices personal hygiene, let alone having the ability to cook and feed himself. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if Aizawa just scavenged through dumpsters for food, not unlike a particularly disgruntled raccoon.

“What are you all in the mood for?” Aizawa asks.

After a moment of no one speaking up, Yaoyorozu shyly raises her hand. “Could we make pizza?”

Warm, filling, and easy to eat in a group. Next-level comfort food that Katsuki and the hag make for his old man whenever he’s just finished a particularly stressful deadline at work. 

“Good choice, Yaomomo!” Uraraka says, her eyes already getting big. 

Aizawa shrugs and rolls up his sleeves. “Yeah, sure. We’ll make the dough first and worry about toppings later.”

Katsuki watches, with no small amount of what-fucking-alternate-universe-am-I-in, as Aizawa deftly measures out water, flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, and shows them how to put together a ball of pizza dough. They’ll be making the sauce and preparing the toppings while it’s set aside to rise. The Pussycats have a veritable superstore of food for them to choose from, which makes the cooking challenge way more fun.

Aizawa being a competent adult is taking away from the fun.

“I didn’t bring weed with me,” Sero mumbles, beside Katsuki. “Why do I feel like I’m still high?”

“No, this is fucked up,” Katsuki agrees. 

Aizawa’s leaning over Aoyama’s shoulder, cautioning him not to handle his dough too roughly.

“I thought his primary source of nutrition was jelly pouches,” Shouji says quietly. He has to duck so that his voice doesn’t carry. “Why does he know how to knead dough?”

Standing beside Shouji, Sato’s got the smoothest ball of dough Katsuki’s ever seen in his life. Mildly jealous, he attacks his own dough with a focused ferocity. 

“Yours is ready to set aside for now,” Aizawa tells Sato, appearing beside their table like the insomniac love child of the Grim Reaper and Martha Stewart. He casts a disparaging glance at Sero’s ball of dough. “You need to add more flour.”

Aizawa surveys Shouji’s and Katsuki’s dough before nodding and moving on. Katsuki mentally wishes him luck—he’s going to have to explain to Todoroki that tomato sauce goes on after the dough is already rolled out instead of during the fucking kneading process.

“See that?” Sero looks like he’s in the beginning stages of cardiac arrest. “How the fuck did he know that?”

Sato winces. “Your dough’s about as sticky as bubblegum. It’s kind of obvious—”

“To you, yeah, sure,” Sero says, waving a dough-covered hand. “But to Aizawa-sensei?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like cooking?” Sato offers. “Most people have things that they’re able to do but, for whatever reason, don’t want to.”

Sero nods, grinning. “Makes sense! Like how Bakugou could be a nice person but chooses to be a fucking asshat?”

“You should go visit Hound Dog when we go back to school,” Katsuki says, setting aside his dough.

“Why’s that?”

“You’re clearly suicidal.”

Sero laughs so hard he snorts flour up his nose. It’s pretty fucking funny.

By the time the pizzas are in the ovens and clean-up is well underway, the class is relatively calm. Deku hasn’t burst out into tears yet, so Katsuki’s counting that as a win.

Could all of that be attributed to Aizawa’s presence? 

Huh. Probably. 

Katsuki mulls it over as he scrubs at the table, unearthing stubborn grains of flour and sugar. As big a deal as Aizawa makes about them all being problem children, he’s always there. 

“Hey,” Sero says, voice low. “How long do you think they’re going to take?”

“It’s been two hours,” Katsuki says, unimpressed. Most of that time had been spent stirring tomato sauce because the Pussycats didn’t have the stuff lying around in jars. Aizawa, proving himself to be the most unsettling kind of renaissance man, had led them through that as well. 

“I don’t have a frame of reference for rescue-ops,” Sero says flatly, raising his eyebrows. “Do you?”

“Fold your fucking apron,” Katsuki snaps. “And I think it’s going to take longer than two hours to rescue a hero student from unknown villains.”

“Fine, fine, you’re right.” Sero backs off and haphazardly folds his apron. Katsuki glares at it, mentally willing the apron to rearrange itself into something presentable. It doesn’t. Shit-ass apron. “I dunno, I just miss the guy, y’know? He brought the whole class together.”

“He’d probably be loading his pizza with every topping available right now,” Sato says, grinning. “Excluding the vegetables.”

“Wow, Sato,” Shouji says, slamming three pairs of fists together. “Your pizza’s so manly.”

“Dude, that was uncanny,” Sero says, staring. 

Shouji’s eyes crinkle. “Thanks.”

“They’re ready!” Ashido shrieks from where she stands, guarding the ovens. “And they look so good, nice job everyone!”

They smell pretty damn good too. The kitchen is filled with the smell of tomatoes and garlic and cooked sausage. After a full day of training, more than half the class burns their fingers and mouths falling over themselves to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

There are a few tables set up on the far side of the kitchen, but everyone ends up congregating on the floor, forming small circles and chatting to their neighbours. 

Katsuki slouches against the wall, carefully pulling his clean-cut slices apart and taking a first, glorious bite. Yeah. He did really, really well. Shit’s fucking phenomenal.

Hagakure plops down beside him. “What the fuck is wrong with you,” she gasps. 

Katsuki glares at her. “You tryna get your ass kicked?”

“Are you?” She snaps back. “You’re eating your pizza backwards, who does that?”

“The crust doesn’t taste as good as the rest of the pizza,” Katsuki explains slowly and logically. “I’m eating the worst part first.”

“You’re a horrifying individual,” Hagakure grumbles. “Hey, Sero, tell me this isn’t some kind of weird and fucked up.”

Sero scoots closer and examines Katsuki’s plate closely. Katsuki bares his teeth. Sero nods, unfazed. “We can go to Hound Dog together, man. Clearly, you’ve got some unresolved issues that are causing you a lot of imbalance in your life.”

“You assclowns are my unresolved issues,” Katsuki says, mulishly chomping down on the crust. “I made this pizza, I choose how I get to fucking eat it. Fuck off.”

“Oh, we were looking for—” Ashido stops, standing in front of them. Her eyes are fixed on the half-eaten, crustless slice in Katsuki’s hand.

He groans. “Black-Eyes, I swear to fucking god, if you’re here to say shit about—”

“Kirishima does the same thing,” she says, voice wavering. “You’re both so weird, what the hell.”

Her eyes are glossy. Her mouth is wobbling. Kaminari, standing beside her, gently sits her down, and she sits sandwiched between him and Sero, stretching her feet out to rest in Hagakure’s lap.

“Don’t associate me with that asshole,” Katsuki says, but it’s more out of habit than anything else. Ashido’s just lost her best friend.

He’s never had a friend he’s cared about losing.

He’s never had a friend who would care if he was gone.

“I, uh…” She pauses, blinking rapidly. “I wanted to say sorry for saying I was going to burn off your hands.”

Katsuki grins. “Try it.”

“Bite me,” she says, words quick and thrown out. “I get what you were trying to say. I’m sorry for being a bitch about it.”

Katsuki could accept the apology, pretend that she was out of line and overly hostile. 

“He’s one of your best friends, right?” He asks. “If you’re gonna be a bitch about anyone, makes sense it would be for him.”

Ashido smiles, tight at the corners. “Yeah. I’ve known him since we were kids. He used to be way different, though, and I keep forgetting that he can hold his own now, y’know? When you know someone for that long, it’s difficult to picture them as a hero and not the little kid you grew up with.”

Deku’s too far away to hear what Ashido’s saying, even if she doesn’t mumble like the fucking loser. 

“He’s strong as shit, now,” Katsuki finds himself saying. “Stop worrying and just remember that.”

Kaminari frowns. “Don’t you hate the guy?”

“Yes,” Katsuki says flatly.

“But you’re always reminding us how strong and accomplished he is,” Kaminari presses. 

“I cannot fucking stand him,” Katsuki snaps. “Every facet of who he is as a person fundamentally irritates me. He is quite literally one of the most annoying people I’ve ever come across.” He exhales. “None of that stops that dickhead from being the strongest person in this class, though.”

He slumps back against the wall, decisively tearing away at his pizza. Hagakure kicks at Kaminari lightly and he backs off, changing the subject to some pop singer’s recent cheating scandal and how he’s personally been affected by it. Apparently, his stan Twitter account’s been losing followers in droves.

Aizawa’s phone rings. Ashido’s head snaps up and she rapidly gestures for everyone to quiet down. By the second ring, the room has gone completely silent.

Aizawa picks up. “Hello?”

In the suffocating quiet, Endeavour’s loud growl is easily identifiable on the other end of the line. “We got him. He’s with the police right now.”

“Is he okay?”

“Isn’t talking much. Probably in shock. Best Jeanist’s talking to Nedzu about how he wants to spin this.”

Aizawa’s face betrays nothing. Still, Katsuki can’t imagine he wants to have this conversation in front of nineteen nosy students. 

“Did you find the villains who did this?”

“One. Mutant-type named Spinner.”

That’s as good as a no. There’s no way a mutant-type could have set those blue flames. If they have found someone else, though, it’s bad news. There were multiple villains behind this, which implicates—

“Connection to the League of Villains?”

“Possible.” Endeavour’s voice is unmistakably grim.

Aizawa’s eyes flicker over to Ashido. She’s shaking, one pale hand clapped over her mouth, the other holding Kaminari’s in a death grip. Calmly, he asks, “You think he’s up to talking to his classmates?”

A pause. Then— “I’ll ask.”

“Sensei,” Ashido says, small and choked up, “you don’t need to bother him just because I—”

“This might surprise you, Ashido,” Aizawa says wryly, “but over the course of the last day and a half, I’ve actually missed his voice interrupting any attempt of mine to actually teach.”

She smiles. “Yeah, he makes your job super hard, doesn’t he.”

“He’s the only one,” Aizawa deadpans. It’s enough to make her giggle.

Endeavour’s voice crackles over the phone. “He said yes. I’m passing the phone to him now.”

Aizawa puts the phone on speaker and turns the volume all the way up. It’s unnecessary, seeing as most of the class has scooted closer to him and it’s so quiet Katsuki can quite literally hear the sound of people blinking.

There’s a small cough, a clearing of the throat. Deku’s already tearing up.

“Hey, guys,” Kirishima says. “I’m okay.”

“Oh, thank god,” Kaminari exhales and it’s like—it’s like—

It’s like rain after a drought, like the windows being opened in spring, like a static heart coming back to life. The heavy, awkward, sweltering silence gives way like an ocean current. For the first time all day, Katsuki sees his classmates breathe.

Kirishima talks more about how much he misses everyone, how he’s planning on coming back to Training Camp because he can’t miss out on all the fun, now can he?

Katsuki knew he’d come back ready to fight.

Eijirou wakes up in what feels like a dentist’s chair. He’s strapped down with thick metal bands, heavy and unyielding all the way down his torso. There’s some contraption attached to his face, holding his mouth open.

Someone’s poking around his teeth.

He should probably activate his quirk. It could help. He’s harder to hold down in that form.

Everything is blurry and distorted, lights and smells and sounds and feelings coming together like ink spilled on paper. He doesn’t feel right.

“...Awake.”

The instruments in his mouth retract. He tries to swallow. His throat is dry and it hurts.

There’s a man looming over him. The glare from his goggles hurts Eijirou’s eyes.

“Your teeth are genetic, aren’t they?” He muses. “I’d hypothesized, of course, but it’s much easier when you’re right in front of me.”

Eijirou flinches away from him, his quirk rearing up like a spooked cat. The man drags his thumb along the sharp line of Eijirou’s jaw. It draws blood.

“Kirishima Eijirou,” he says, voice soft with rapture, “you’re perfect.”

Chapter Text

Eijirou counts, to keep track of time. Thirty-six hundred seconds in an hour. He keeps a quiet monotone in his head, making sure he doesn’t rush. 

The man doesn’t tend to care if he’s awake or not. Most of the time, he putters around his lab, measuring chemicals and monitoring Eijirou’s vitals. It’s tense and quiet and slow.

The counting helps keep Eijirou grounded.

He’s nearing fifteen hundred when the fog starts to lift from behind his eyes. There’s an ache behind his temple, a strange, almost sticky feeling in his limbs. He feels stretched out, spread too thin. He swallows and it feels like his throat’s been threaded through with needles.

The man with the goggles has to be some sort of scientist. He mumbles underneath his breath a bit like Midoriya does, the ideas so advanced that Eijirou, in his drugged and dumb state, has no hope of deciphering. He’s attached Eijirou to a multitude of devices, all of them blinking numbers that flash red and green.

He has no idea what any of it means.

He knows that his throat hurts.

“What’s your name?”

“Ujiko. Dr. Ujiko.”

“Well, uh, Doctor, do you think I could get some water?” He coughs, wincing at the sting. 

“Sure.”

The doctor reaches for a water bottle and gently pours it down Eijirou’s throat. He waits for him to swallow, then pours more. His other hand tilts Eijirou’s chin up, making sure none of the water spills.

“Enough?”

“Yes, thank you.” Eijrou waits for Ujiko to stop touching him. Then, “How did you get me here?”

“Trade secrets,” the doctor says, smiling cheerfully. 

“What are you working on?” Eijirou tries, instead.

Ujiko blinks. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve got, like, ten different IV’s in me,” Eijirou says. “And I can’t exactly move and tell anyone, so why not tell me what’s going on?”

“You make a strong argument,” Ujiko says, grinning, thin and calculating.

“Thanks,” Eijirou says. 

“I’m in the process of making a very large investment,” Dr. Ujiko begins. “Have you ever fought a Nomu?”

Eijirou’s stomach drops. “I saw All Might fight one. At USJ.”

Ujiko’s face falls. “He destroyed my brilliant creation. I was very angry at Shigaraki for putting him in such a position. He did it again in Hosu, you know. He thinks my Nomu’s are playthings.”

“They’re not,” Eijirou says. Empathizing with the crazy scientist is probably his best chance of survival.

“Exactly!” Ujiko says, delighted. “They’re marvels of science, the ultimate soldiers. I’ve created an unbeatable army that knows nothing but servility. Do you understand how long I’ve been working on perfecting this? After decades of research, I can finally see the end.”

“So, what’s different?” Eijirou asks. 

“Pardon?”

“You said USJ was a learning experience,” Eijirou says. “What did you learn?”

Ujiko raises his eyebrows. “You’re very observant. Dabi mentioned that you were but I didn’t think—Well. It’s a pleasant surprise.” 

“You know Dabi?” Eijirou asks. 

Ujiko nods. “He’s a recent recruit to the League of Villains. His quirk is ‘Cremation.’ It’s very strong. He’s a good fighter.”

Huh. Small world. 

“My Nomu’s have been incapable of surpassing All Might’s strength," Ujiko continues. "They are supersoldiers, but they have no soul, and so he has no problem attacking them with the full extent of his strength.”

Eijirou thinks about All Might punching the Nomu into the stratosphere. Even though he’d seen it with his own eyes, the sheer amount of power is impossible to conceptualize. 

“But you can’t allow them souls,” he realizes. “The only reason you can allow them to be so strong is that they’re completely obedient to Shigaraki.”

“Exactly,” Ujiko says, nodding. “I’d been struggling with this particular problem for a while when Dabi brought something to my attention. You. All Might is a teacher now, yes?”

“Yes,” Eijirou says, biting his tongue. “He’s—he’s got a lot to teach.”

“Has he ever hurt you?” Ujiko asks. It’s hard for Eijirou to tell from behind the goggles but Ujiko seems genuinely inquisitive. Maybe that’s just a part of who he is, endlessly curious. He’d have to be like that, to create what he’s created—to realize what he’s realized. Quiet, curious, with the excitement of a scientist on the edge of revelation, Ujiko asks, “ Would he ever hurt you?”

“I don’t know,” Eijirou says truthfully. Deku and Bakugou had been pretty roughed up after their final exam. 

“Allow me to rephrase,” Ujiko says. “Would he kill you? Would he rip you limb from limb? Would he destroy you, as he destroyed my soldiers?”

“No,” Eijirou whispers.

Ujiko smiles, smug and satisfied. “USJ revealed to me that my soldiers have one flaw. To the heroes, they are breakable. They see my soldiers as corpses, already dead, quirks bottled up in a decaying body.”

I know exactly what your League is about and I don’t want anything to do with it.

You will.

He’s never been the top of his class, never been the guy who tutors others, but he was smart enough to get into U.A. and he’s smart enough to understand where Ujiko’s going with this. He thinks he can play God, remake Eijirou into the image of the ultimate soldier, with just enough soul to render him unkillable by his teacher.

“If you make me one of your experiments,” Eijirou says quickly, trying to rally, “he’ll have no problem killing me. If you take away my mind and turn me into one of your Nomu’s, I’ll be no better than them. You’ll fail.”

“I was under the impression that you understood,” Ujiko says, lips turned downwards. “My Nomu’s had to be engineered to be strong, but your quirk already makes you resilient. I’m simply building on top of that foundation. By virtue of your quirk and your identity as a hero student, you become the solution to every flaw that doomed my Nomu’s.” He leers at Eijirou, yellow teeth bared. “They’ll call you my masterpiece.”

Bile rises in Eijirou’s throat. He wants to throw up. He wants to leave. He wants Dr. Ujiko to kill him—his corpse, at least, serves no purpose here. 

Evidently, what he wants isn’t something that matters anymore.

Ujiko reclines the chair to a 180-degree angle. “I get the impression that you enjoy hearing about my work, yes?” He asks. “This is a muscle relaxant.” He connects a syringe to the hub of the IV line and slowly pushes down. “It will take approximately three minutes to work, during which I will prepare you for tracheal intubation. I should remind you that any resistance on your part will result in your immediate death via anaphylaxis.”

Eijirou glares. “If you think threatening to kill me is sounding like an ultimatum, you’ve got it wrong.”

“I’m well aware,” Ujiko says. “But if you think I won’t resuscitate you as many times as necessary, you are the one who is mistaken. I’ve been waiting for this my entire life, Kirishima. There’s nothing you can do to dissuade me.”

He can’t even escape this by dying. Ujiko’s just going to follow him like a dog until he gets Eijirou in between his teeth.

“Would you like pain medication?” Ujiko sounds so fucking innocent, like he’s asking Eijirou whether he prefers his eggs scrambled or sunny side up. 

“Knock me out,” Eijirou says bitterly. “Not like anything I can say is going to change your mind.”

Ujiko frowns. “I do care about you, you know. To me, you are a miracle.”

He inserts a tube into Eijirou’s mouth and threads it down through his throat. The pain meds are fuzzy at best, like TV static blurring the edges of Eijirou’s nerves. Ujiko’s eyes are wide and shining behind his goggles. 

Eijirou stares at the overhead lights.

Ujiko miscalculates. The paralytic kicks in while he’s taping the tube to Eijirou’s skin.

He can’t breathe. 

He can’t move.

The lights are bright and blinding. Eijirou closes his eyes. It is dark.

He can’t move and he can’t see and he can’t breathe. His body isn’t listening to him. His brain feels like it’s been stuffed full of ice cubes. The pain meds are dulling the ache in his throat.

It takes Ujiko fifty-seven seconds to make sure the tube is properly placed and hook it up to the ventilator. For fifty-seven seconds, Eijirou pretends that he’s dead.

On the fifty-eighth second, the ventilator starts breathing for him. 

The doctor is quiet for a few moments. He dims the lights and fiddles with one of the IVs, which Eijirou guesses is for nutrition, seeing as he’s got a tube in his mouth. When that’s done, he washes his hands in the lab sink, patting them dry, and checks his phone.

Eijirou’s still strapped down, paralyzed and attached to a ventilator and Ujiko looks like he’s fixing to go get brunch. Or, well, whatever meal is appropriate for the time of day. It’s not like the villain’s creepy underground lab comes with a window.

Was all of this just to humiliate him? To show him how weak and stupid and easy he is to beat, an opportunity for Ujiko to throw his weight around and beat Eijirou down that much further?

He makes a small noise. It doesn’t quite sound like “Hey, you can’t paralyze me and then ignore me” but Ujiko turns around all the same.

“Oh,” he says. “You’re confused.”

Eijirou blinks, slowly. No shit.

“Did you think I was going to operate on you?” He asks. “I’d already finished with all that before you woke up. The rest of it was just making sure everything had gone according to plan.” He tilts his head, considering. “You don’t feel any different?”

He doesn’t feel anything.

Huh. He doesn’t feel anything. 

Conceptually, he knows that the lab is on the chillier side. Beneath his lab coat, Ujiko’s wearing a woolly turtleneck.

But he’s not cold. 

He remembers, too, that the metal bands they’d used to strap him down had dug into his skin, a bit. He doesn’t feel any of that pressure now. 

It’s almost like when he activates his quirk along his whole body. 

“You can tell,” Ujiko observes. He pulls out a notepad. “I’ve theorized a lot about the specificities of your quirk—it’s pleasant to see the real thing in action. Oh, no, please don’t try to speak, Kirishima. I’ll explain.”

Eijirou settles. He’d attempted to growl so that Ujiko would know he was pissed, but all it did was irritate the hell out of his throat. This tube can’t get out fast enough.

“As I said before,” Ujiko starts, “your teeth remain sharp when you’re not activating your quirk, which led me to believe that they’re inherited from someone in your family. This surprised me, because your quirk, Hardening, would be classified as a Transformation-type and therefore only be temporary.”

Eijirou’s mom is a mutant. She’s got forty-two teeth, all of them wicked sharp. Eijirou and her like baring their teeth at each other, mirroring each other’s scary smiles. His ma pretends she thinks it’s weird, but she’s got framed pictures of them doing it, so Eijirou feels pretty comfortable taking her complaints with a grain of salt.

“Do you know the difference between Mutant-type and Transformation-type quirks?” Ujiko asks. “Mutant-types are permanent. They cannot be erased, even by heroes such as your teacher, Eraserhead. Your jaw is built in such a way that it allows space for your abnormal teeth, as a result of your mother’s mutant quirk, in the same way that your body adjusts itself for your Hardening quirk to work effectively.”

Eijirou didn’t say anything about his mom’s quirk.

How the fuck does Ujiko know about his mom’s quirk.

Ujiko shrugs. “I simply wondered if I could trick your brain and body into thinking that your Hardening quirk was also inherited, leading to them handling it the same way they would handle a Mutant-type quirk.”

He doesn’t look like a man navigating failure. 

“You might be interested to learn that I did not succeed fully, at least not by the perimeters I had previously set for myself,” Ujiko says. “The goal was for your hardening to essentially be activated at all times. But, as you are likely aware, the nature of your quirk is entirely dependent on your physical and mental strength at any given time. Am I correct in assuming that, at the time of your quirk’s manifestation, you could only activate it on certain body parts for a matter of seconds?”

That’s true, from what he can remember of being a sobbing four-year-old. Eijirou blinks.

“And now, you can activate it for your entire body for over ten minutes,” Ujiko says.

Eijirou blinks again.

“I enjoy it very much when I’m correct,” Ujiko sighs, tucking the notepad back into his pocket. “The more you train, the stronger your Mutant-type quirk will become. Essentially, I have no data that suggests there is a limit to how much your quirk can advance.” He sets a gloved hand on Eijirou’s shoulder, eyes gleaming. “Do you understand now, Kirishima? I’ve perfected you.”

We have different definitions of perfection, Eijirou wants to say. How dare you, he wants to say. How could you think this is a victory? How could you consider this perfect?

Cold, heat, pressure, his ma’s fucking hand—all of it, too weak to register. He’s never going to feel anything ever again.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Ujiko calls. He can’t seem to stop looking at Eijirou, taking in whatever he’s turned him into. 

Shigaraki walks in, every inch as crusty and creepy as Eijirou remembers from USJ. He’d assumed that moving up in the villain world would constitute a change of clothes, maybe a skincare routine, but Shigaraki seems dead set on cosplaying the Sahara Desert for as long as humanly possible.

The way Shigaraki holds his hands reminds Eijirou of Uraraka. Most people swing their arms when they walk but Shigaraki and Uraraka always have their arms stationary by their sides, fingers outstretched, pseudo-casual. 

“What do you think?” Ujiko asks. He’s worrying at the hems of his white coat, pulling the loose threads until they dangle by his wrists like torn spiderwebs. 

Shigaraki raises one hand. Ujiko steps back.

Eijirou meets his gaze. Shigaraki isn’t going to lay a finger on him. The League needs him alive.

“Is he paralyzed?” Shigaraki asks.

Ujiko nods. “He won’t be able to move until it wears off, in which case I can administer more, or until you both reach an agreement.”

Shigaraki smiles. The scars at the corner of his mouth stretch, distorting his expression like oil in water. “Blink once for yes and twice for no. Clear?”

Eijirou blinks once.

“I’d like to take you in for training now,” Shigaraki says, scratching his neck. “If you agree to that, Ujiko can reverse the paralytic agent and take you off the ventilator and you’ll be able to eat and speak and move on your own. Sound nice?” 

When Eijirou doesn’t say anything, he scratches harder and dead skin flakes onto his shirt. Gross. 

“The other option, of course, is that we go back to your little training camp and pay some of your friends a visit. Unlike you, I don’t particularly have a vested interest in any of them continuing to live.” Shigaraki toys with the tape securing the breathing tube. “What do you say, Kirishima Eijirou? Should we go with the first option?”

Shigaraki hadn’t given him a blinking option for “fuck you” but Eijirou figures he can say it just fine when the tube comes out. He blinks once.

“Wonderful,” Shigaraki breathes. “Ujiko, bring him back.”

“It'll only take a moment, sir,” Ujiko says. They’d known Eijirou would say yes. It’s not exactly a shot in the dark, but it still makes him want to throw something, preferably at their beady eyes. 

“What I'm giving you now will reverse everything in a few minutes,” Ujiko explains, turning to Eijirou. “Once it's been reversed, you should begin to be able to breathe on your own, at which point I will disconnect you from the ventilator and remove the breathing tube.”

“He’s not your medical student,” Shigaraki says, sounding amused.

“He’s curious,” Ujiko says, shrugging.

He wants to kill you both, Eijirou thinks. 

“It will take approximately twelve minutes to work,” Ujiko says. “Don’t panic if you start coughing, it’s just a sign that your body is breathing on its own again.”

Eijirou stares at him. No panicking here, asshole. It’s not like the thought of what’s going to happen after he’s out of this chair is enough to make him throw up every meal he’s eaten for the past five years.

All things considered, the next twelve minutes are honestly… kind of awkward. Ujiko and Shigaraki don’t seem to be particularly close, and their feeble attempts at small talk—the weather, the LOV newbies, and Kurogiri’s drama with the guy who tailors his suits—fizzle out pretty quickly. Eijirou’s eerily reminded of every family reunion where his aunt and uncle had attempted to act normal before finalizing their divorce.

It’s a welcome distraction when the paralysis begins to ebb away at the edges. He wiggles his toes, then his fingertips. It rushes in, then, all at once, and his chest heaves as he coughs. His throat aches as his body attempts to eject the tube.

“Ah, he’s breathing again,” Ujiko observes, his tone distinctly relieved. 

“Yes,” Shigaraki says, nodding a little aggressively. “You should, uh, remove that tube. Right now.”

Ujiko does so and Eijirou tries not to cough while the tube is coming out. He’s given water after the coughing calms down and it soothes the irritation.

“Don’t try to speak just yet,” Ujiko says before Eijirou can even open his mouth. “You’ll have a sore throat for a little while and it will take a similar amount of time for your body to fully regain muscle function.”

He really does care about Eijirou, even if it’s the same way a musician might care about their instrument. He cares that Eijirou is healthy and efficient and doing what he was built to do. He cares that everything they’re going to make Eijirou do is traced back to his genius.

None of the villains in this room want Eijirou dead. It’s disconcerting.

“Can you walk?” Shigaraki asks.

Eijirou shrugs and attempts to swing out of the chair. Only one way to find out, right?

He’s not wearing a shirt, which makes sense because it would have been inconvenient for Ujiko to fuck with his DNA with a polo shirt in the way. They’ve given him pants, though, which is pretty hospitable of them. The fabric looks a little strange, but it’s not shredding on his quirk.

His quirk, which traverses his body in harsh, unforgiving lines. The ridges wrap around his arms, straining against the fabric of the pants. The hardening shoulders the brunt of his weight so he doesn’t tip over like a weakling when he stands up, but it leaves him plodding around the lab, bulky and unbalanced.

He’s barefoot. His feet should be cold.

Shigaraki’s staring at him. As if transfixed, he reaches out a hand and curls his pinky in at the last second. 

His fingers come away bloody. He marvels at them, studying the way the blood drips down his fingers and gathers in his palm.

Has anyone ever gotten close enough to his hands to hurt them? 

“You’ve done well,” Shigaraki breathes.

“Thank you,” Ujiko replies. 

They’re both quiet, for a moment. Eijirou can’t decide if he wants to stay in the lab, away from whatever Shigaraki has planned, or leave immediately and never see it again.

The decision, unsurprisingly, is made for him.

“Come with me,” Shigaraki tells Eijirou. 

Eijirou thinks of the forest fire, how it swallowed the trees and chased out the animals and terrified his classmates. Shigaraki can activate an even greater magnitude of destruction with nothing but his fingers.

Eijirou goes with him.

Ujiko’s lab is underground, as Eijirou had assumed, but it’s also apparently below a gigantic warehouse, which, Shigaraki explains, doubles as both their temporary headquarters and Eijirou’s training gym.

“Who am I going to be training with?”

“Not me,” Shigaraki says, smug. “If my quirk works on cement and steel, it’ll undoubtedly crumble you as well. We can experiment with how long it takes for substantial damage to occur later, but for now—”

“For now, you’re my problem,” Dabi says, saluting lazily. 

Eijirou pictures him waiting in the shadows of the warehouse until his opportunity to make a dramatic entrance and has to stifle a laugh. For all the flames and threats, Dabi’s kind of a loser. 

Shigaraki rolls his eyes, before nodding. “I want to see what your threshold for extreme circumstances is. We’ll familiarize you with different quirks once we’ve established your present limits.”

It’s all so clinical, like Shigaraki’s just checking things off a checklist. Step one, turn this kid into a monster. Step two, see what happens when we make him mad. Eijirou’s more than a little over it.

“Can we fight now?”

“Eager,” Dabi says, eyebrows raising. He turns to Shigaraki. “You good with that, boss?”

“Knock yourselves out,” Shigaraki says, heading for the door. “I’ll be with Kurogiri in the bar.”

Dabi rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t even drink,” he complains, before Shigaraki's fully even made it outside. “I’m pretty sure he broke all the bottles during his last temper tantrum. Kurogiri just fucks around with cranberry juice in a cocktail shaker and calls it a day.”

“What are the rules here?” Eijirou asks, ignoring him. 

Dabi grins. “No rules. Just give it your all.”

“Sounds like you just gave me permission to kill you,” Eijirou says, rolling his shoulders back. Dabi’s the one who brought him here. Eijirou’s hellbent on making sure that he regrets it. 

“See, this is why I like you,” Dabi says, laughing, “You don’t take things too seriously.”

Eijirou punches him so hard that he spits blood. 

Dabi’s neck snaps back, the staples on his chin tearing. Blood drips down his throat, soaking his scar tissue. His jaw is torn open, loose skin hanging like pull-tabs. 

Eijirou examines his fist. His knuckles are smeared in blood. Nothing hurts.

“Nice one,” Dabi says, raising his hands. “Time to test out your new toy, yeah?” 

The room floods with blue flames.

Eijirou can see the fire just fine. He can hear it too, roaring in his ear, announcing its hunger—demanding something to eat. It’s like a mirage, though. He steps through the flames like air.

If this is all Dabi’s got, Shigaraki’s going to have to send up a body bag.

Dabi’s quick, which is really all that’s going for him in the fight. Eijirou’s still working on walking without looking like a five-foot-seven penguin, and it allows Dabi to dart backwards and fight from a distance. It’s like a game of cat and mouse, if the cat was recently paralyzed, then unparalyzed, and then given permission to rip the pyromaniac mouse limb from limb.

He doesn’t need fancy footwork, though. Dabi’s malnourished and weak. He relies too much on his quirk, blasting Eijirou with fire that doesn’t do much other than obscure his viewpoint. All Eijirou needs to do is catch him off guard.

“I thought you said we were giving it our all,” he calls. “You haven’t even landed a hit on me.”

Dabi takes the bait. He propels himself forward with his flames, one hand whistling through the air and smacking into Eijirou’s shoulder. Eijirou’s unsteady enough to stumble back from it, back denting the metal wall. 

His body is set alight by fire.

He does not combust. 

The fire might as well be water, the way it runs down his arms. It’s licking at his eyes, his hair, his bared teeth, but it’s growing smaller, flickering without fuel. 

Well. He can’t let the fire die.

Dabi hasn’t moved. He’s growling, fingers blistering from the heat as he tries to eat Eijirou alive. His entire body glows with white-hot fire. The metal behind Eijirou’s back begins to warp from the heat.

“I get it now,” Eijirou tells him. “Why your quirk is called ‘Cremation’? I get it.”

Dabi’s not listening to him, scarred face twisted up in rage. His staples melt into rivulets of metal, leaving trails of red, burned skin as they drip down his person.

Eijirou clasps his burning hand around Dabi’s throat. The flames rush forward with wild abandon, delighted, at long last, to feed. 

Dabi’s skin begins to tear, as if going under the scalpel of an incredibly excited, if not slightly imprecise, surgeon. The muscles in his face jump, ticking uncontrollably. 

Do you have any fucking idea how much I’d give to have your quirk? 

Eijirou drops all his weight, crushing Dabi beneath them as they collapse. He takes Dabi’s face in his hand and squeezes, hard enough for the bone to crack. Dabi whimpers. Fear blows his pupils wide. 

Does he regret bringing Eijirou here, yet? Does he feel sorry? Does he want to take it all back, do it all over again?

“Come on,” Eijirou goads, revenge carving a grin into his face. All forty-two of his mom’s teeth are on proud display. “It’s what you’re named for, right? Cremate yourself.”

With Eijirou’s body pressed down against his, there’s nowhere for the fire to escape. It eats Dabi alive, skin vaporizing into ash, the sound of his death ringing like church bells.

Ujiko had said Dabi was a strong fighter. Shigaraki wouldn’t have accepted him if he wasn’t. And yet, in the face of Eijirou, Dabi had become weak.

“Huh,” Eijirou says to the empty room. “He made me invincible.”

Eijirou stands up, brushes the ashes from his pants, and waits.

Shigaraki doesn’t show up with a body bag. He shows up with an urn, which not only serves the purpose of being funny as hell but also tells Eijirou that there are cameras in the training room.

“He said to give it my all,” Eijirou says, gingerly poking at the ashes with his foot.

Shigaraki looks relatively unbothered. “Asshole was always running his mouth. Figures this would happen sooner or later.”

“What happens now?” Eijirou asks.

“You’re going to get his ashes into this urn,” Shigaraki says. “And after that, I’m going to see just how strong we can make you.”

Eijirou thinks about Dabi and his bravado and how quickly it had shattered into fear when he’d realized his opponent was unbeatable.

“Yeah, okay,” he finds himself saying. “That sounds good.”

Endeavour calls ahead to let the class know they’ll be arriving at eight in the morning. The entire class is gathered in front of the mountain lodge by seven. Aizawa crawls out of his cabin at half-past seven, squinting at all of them in vague disbelief.

Katsuki can empathize. Seeing Ashido awake before eight is kind of like seeing men walk on water. 

Hagakure drags Sero into a game of rock-paper-scissors while they wait. Anyone with a brain can see that she’s one hundred fucking percent cheating after she beats him five times in a row with her gloves off. Sero, who sold his brain in exchange for gummy bear edibles, just smiles at her and says “best out of ten?”

It’s highway robbery, is what it is.

To the side, Ashido is leading a morning yoga group. Iida eagerly follows her movements, his muscles bunching as he attempts to curl into Child’s Pose. Kaminari’s bones crack so loudly during Downward Dog that Ojiro offers him an acupuncture coupon.

Kirishima shows up before Ashido can teach them how to do King Pigeon Pose. Katsuki’s not religious, but he does aim a “thank you” in the direction of the cloudy early morning sky. 

He’s flanked by heroes on all sides—Endeavour on his right, All Might to his left, Best Jeanist and Hawks bringing up the rear. Katsuki supposes it makes sense, seeing as it would be pretty fucking embarrassing for the dumbass to get kidnapped again on his way back from being kidnapped.

The pro hero security detail does not stop Ashido from launching herself at Kirishima like a cotton-candy rocket. Kaminari and Sero are right behind her and Kirishima’s knocked down into the grass, laughter echoing down the mountain. 

The heroes step back to make room for the students piling themselves over each other, all eager to hug Kirishima, to touch him, to make sure that he is real and present and ready to be the most irritating prodigy this side of the Pacific Ocean.

Katsuki hangs back. Todoroki and Tokoyami do too. He figures they’re not too keen on hug piles, which is perfectly fucking logical, because Katsuki’s a lot of things but Golden Retriever puppy is incidentally not one of them.

They don’t also hate every red hair on Kirishima’s weirdly shaped head but he’ll take what he can get.

Kirishima slots back into their class easily. He cooks breakfast with them, sticking his tongue out of his mouth as he flips tamagoyaki with the same intensity of a surgeon making their first cut. 

When that’s finished, Katsuki approaches him before anyone else can. 

His AP Shot can shoot perfect holes through concrete but, then again, his Howitzer Impact blows it to smithereens. Kirishima walks that shit off like it’s nothing.

“Hey, listen,” he says. 

Kirishima turns to look at him. “Bakugou? Do you need something?”

Katsuki frowns. He sounds genuine, instead of patronizing. It’s possible that being kidnapped has Kirishima turning over a new leaf. He tucks it away for later.

“I’ve got a new move that I want to test with your quirk. It’s called AP Shot and it’s basically my explosions focused on a single point, like a bullet.” 

It’s the sort of thing that’s right up Kirishima’s alley. He can’t catch this bullet the way he’d caught the one at USJ, but measuring it against his strength is the only way Katsuki can gauge the efficacy of this new attack.

Kirishima’s eyebrows furrow. “I’m not sure I’m up to that just yet. Why don’t you go practice on the mountain?”

And then he turns around and leaves. Like that’s not the most absolute fucking bonkers thing he’s ever said.

“The fuck do you mean you’re not up to it?” Katsuki shouts at his back. 

Kirishima doesn’t turn around. 

Katsuki stays watching until he’s convinced that it wasn’t all some lame ploy to catch him off guard before Kirishima punched him to kingdom come.

“Lay off him,” Kaminari says, coming up behind him. “The guy just came back from something pretty tough, Bakugou. I know you miss your sparring buddy—”

“I’ll tear your hair out by the fucking roots—”

“But just give him some time and he’ll be back to normal, alright?”

There’s no way to say what he wants to say without sounding like a little kid, spoiled and stupid. You don’t get it. He’s never refused to fight me.

Katsuki shakes his head and stalks off to find some water barrels. He still needs to practice his underwater blasts.

Chapter Text

Eijirou’s becoming increasingly convinced that Shigaraki has a spinning wheel of extreme situations in his room that he uses to decide what Eijirou’s going to be training with on any given day.

After fire comes ice. 

The League doesn’t have anyone with an ice quirk and, if they did, Shigaraki probably couldn’t afford the off-chance of Eijirou killing them too. Apparently, the next best thing is locking Eijirou in a freezer and monitoring him to see how long he lasts.

The freezer is small and cramped and Eijirou can’t stand up without his hair spikes grating against the ceiling. Ice crystals decorate the walls like moss, thick and heavy. It falls away easily when he pokes at it, gathering in small piles on the floor.

Shigaraki doesn’t set a time limit. Eijirou had expected as much, but it’s a little irritating that he doesn’t have much to do other than stare at the wall for as many hours as they’re planning on keeping him here. He’s more of a robot than anything else, with his throat re-lined in metal, the wires in his head twisted and manipulated to make him unbeatable. Robots don’t get bored.

After a good ten minutes of counting the individual snowflakes in the room, Eijirou’s ready to call it quits. At least when they’d tested fire, he’d gotten to do something.

Yawning, he tips his head back against the wall. His hair props up against the wall, stubbornly unyielding, and it puts his neck in an awkward position. Right. His hair, like the rest of him, has the same texture as a cement block and, as such, isn’t going to flatten when he wants to do something perfectly fucking reasonable, like rest.

Fine. It’s a challenge.

Eijirou spends the next few minutes shifting awkwardly, attempting to curl up in a way that doesn’t have the tendons in his neck cursing him into the grave. The one position that works requires him to curl his legs in, like a fetus in the womb. One of his arms is stuck underneath him and the blood flow is already starting to cut off.

The air crackles with microphone feedback before Ujiko’s voice filters through, tinny and distorted. “Kirishima? Are you feeling alright?”

“Just tired,” Eijirou says. “Can I nap?”

The ensuing silence sounds pretty damn affirmative. Eijirou closes his eyes.

He’s too uncomfortable to fully fall asleep, which is just plain rude. Ujiko had said he was allowed, though, probably having come to the same conclusion that Eijirou is currently battling with. He determinedly keeps his eyes closed. 

It turns into something of a waiting game—Eijirou curled up on the floor, determined to feign sleep, and Ujiko monitoring his incriminatingly uneven heartbeat. 

Ujiko is meticulous with his experiments. Everything is controlled. There’s air circulation so that Eijirou doesn’t pass out from suffocation. After two hours, someone slides in food and water, which he has to scarf down before it freezes from the temperatures.

Eijirou is alive and breathing and well-fed. 

He doesn’t get cold.

They take him out after four hours.

After, Ujiko asks him—“Did you know most people in that room would have died in under an hour?”

“Get me a bed next time,” Eijirou replies. 

“I appreciate your feedback,” Ujiko says.

They get bolder after that, more experimental. He can’t freeze to death, he won’t burn alive, but they learn that he can drown. Poison works, too. Anything that cuts off his air supply, anything that paralyzes him, anything that gets inside him, to his soft, squishy organs—it’s all fair game. 

If it was up to Ujiko, he’d make it so Eijirou wouldn't have to breathe at all. Eijirou has faith in the doctor, he’d probably be able to engineer it into existence. Shigaraki, though, likes knowing that he’s still got one over Eijirou.

Eijirou knows this because Shigaraki reminds him. Constantly.

It’s not necessary. Through experimentation, they’ve discovered three situations that can beat Eijirou. Shigaraki’s quirk was obvious from the beginning.

After a few dozen experiments, Shigaraki decides Eijirou’s up to code. “Boring part’s over,” he says, grinning. “Now, you fight.”

He takes Eijirou to the room where he’d killed Dabi. 

A Nomu stands at the other end, dead-eyed and motionless. It’s like a blueprint detailing what Ujiko was working towards. The Nomu is tall and imposing, body made bulky with muscle. Eijirou notes the similarities, the heavy lines of his new body, stopping when he gets up to the Nomu’s head.

All things considered, he’s pretty grateful Ujiko had made the executive decision not to slice his scalp open and put the pink flesh of his brain on display. 

“You want me to fight that?”

“As fun as it was to watch, I can’t have you killing more of my employees,” Shigaraki explains. 

That’s Eijirou, a known workplace hazard. HR hates him. 

“It took All Might two hundred punches to beat this guy,” Eijirou says slowly, eyeing the Nomu’s powerful arms. It doesn’t react to his gaze and the blatant ignorance is uncomfortable, more than anything else. The Nomu won’t move until Shigaraki says go.

Is that what they’re going to train Eijirou to do?

He blinks. Shigaraki’s laughing at him.

“That Nomu was specifically engineered to beat All Might. This one’s nowhere near as strong. Still big enough to bother most heroes. We’re using him as a diagnostic. Beat him and we’ll know you’re strong enough to move on.”

Shigaraki talks about the Nomu’s like they’re nothing more than disposable plastic. Single-use, easy to make, easier to throw out.

“It doesn’t matter if I kill them,” Eijirou checks. It hadn’t mattered that he’d killed Dabi, either, but Ujiko built these and Shigaraki’s sending them out every week to terrorize cities. They have to be a little important.

“We’re doing this to make you stronger,” Shigaraki repeats. “Do whatever you need to do to win. If they can’t handle it, you take that as a sign that your training is paying off.”

The Nomu’s were built to fight the strongest heroes in the world. They are expendable. 

Eijirou is not.

What does that mean for him, then? Shigaraki freezes him, burns him, drowns him, poisons him, paralyzes him, and it’s all to make him stronger. He tells Eijirou to obey him and then turns a blind eye when he kills a member of the League. 

It doesn’t make sense. There’s no consistent behaviour to cling to. Shigaraki is erratic and Ujiko’s straight-up delusional. Somehow, Eijirou feels more connected to the Nomu than anyone else.

“If that’s all,” Shigaraki says, stepping back, “I’ll be back in a little while.”

Eijirou nods, settling into a light battle stance.

Shigaraki holds the door open an inch, says, “Go,” and leaves.

The Nomu flies forward like a bat out of hell. 

For a creature so big, it’s fast. Eijirou makes a mental note to ask about that later when he’s not avoiding getting punched into the ground. He dodges the first hit, legs swaying uneasily. 

The Nomu comes at him again, muscles rippling, skin stretched so tight it looks on the verge of tearing. Its right fist is the size of Eijirou’s head and it’s swinging closer, closer—

It hit him.

It’s still hitting him. 

His skin doesn’t give. His head doesn’t move an inch. 

The Nomu doesn’t know how to do anything but attack. It has no concept of defence because it’s never been weak enough to necessitate learning. It will keep punching and punching until it tires itself out.

Eijirou doesn’t have All Might’s sheer strength, but he’s steady as anything. Eventually, the Nomu will slow down and, when that happens, all Eijirou’s going to need is Red Gun Turret. The move breaks through concrete—it’s bound to break through the Nomu.

So Eijirou waits. 

He analyzes the infinitesimal gap between the Nomu’s punches, the power behind them, the way it doesn’t seem to prefer a hand. The Nomu is all brute force. There’s no strategy behind its punches, but it makes up for it in strength. Before the experiment, Eijirou would have been smeared on the ground after the first couple of hits.

It takes a while. At first, the Nomu shows no signs of stopping. Exhaustion is more mental than anything else and the Nomu’s had anything resembling critical thought yanked out by the roots. It doesn’t remember how to be tired.

What the mind forgets, however, the body remembers. 

Eijirou’s starting to stumble from the force of the hits and it forces him to get lower, steadier. It’s enough to make him worry if his plan is going to work out. Did he underestimate the Nomu? And, more embarrassingly still, did he overestimate himself?

And then, as if the Nomu’s trying to reassure him, its punches begin to slow.

Eijirou doesn’t make a move to spook it. After dozens of experiments, he’s learned patience. The Nomu won’t change its moves. Eijirou just needs to pick his moment.

In a split-second of weakness, the creature overextends itself to put more force behind a punch, leaving itself wide open. 

Eijirou digs his right hand into a fist, fingers grinding against his palm. He thinks about Cementoss’s walls, how he and Satou had punched and punched and punched until they’d both run out of energy and failed the exam.

I’m on the other side this time, he realizes, and he drives his fist through the Nomu’s ribs.

For a moment, the Nomu just stands there, looking down at Eijirou’s arm, submerged in its side. It must be a pretty confusing experience, even if the Nomu doesn’t exactly have the higher thought to understand that arms generally don’t go through a torso.

Eijirou’s knuckles knock up against something hard. He’s got his hands up against the Nomu’s rib bones.

He curls his fingers around the bones and uses them as leverage to pull himself forward, knocking the Nomu backwards. It goes down with a screech, arms scrabbling at the ground as it tries to get back up. Eijirou tugs his arm out of its side, grimacing at the mess of soft tissue decorating his arm, and reaches for the creature’s brain.

His fingers cut through it like butter.

Eijirou holds the Nomu down as it dies. When that’s done, he gets up, gingerly holding his hand away from his body. Various Nomu-goop drips off his arm, puddling on the floor.

“Shigaraki?” He calls, voice echoing in the empty training room. “Do you have a sink I can wash up in?”

The second Nomu is shorter than the first. It’s thinner too, built like a ballet dancer, muscles trained to lie flat. Eijirou’s old approach is no longer applicable. This Nomu would turn it against him.

Instead, he focuses on being faster. Or, more accurately, he focuses on acting faster. Eijirou’s biggest asset in this fight is his brain. The Nomu is engineered to fight well, but it doesn’t know how to think.

Not for the first time, he wonders what worth Shigaraki’s eternally-obedient army is if they’re also dumb as rocks.

Eijirou’s not a strategist, not like Midoriya or Bakugou, but it’s not exactly difficult when he’s up against a Nomu. He fights back this time to see how the Nomu reacts. Dodges, punches, and kicks, all the while mapping out the Nomu’s choreography. After a few rounds of the sequence, he starts noticing patterns. 

The Nomu darts in, dodges his hit, gets in an attack of its own, and moves away too quickly for Eijirou to follow. There’s a moment two counts after the Nomu attacks, where it prepares to move. It turns, leaving its side open for anything quick enough to get through. 

Unfortunately for Eijirou, he’s slow as shit. Fortunately for Eijirou, he knows how to count. 

When the Nomu approaches, he throws a weak punch that doesn’t take anything out of him. The Nomu intercepts, accepting it as a sign of exhaustion, and moves forward with its own attack, a powerful roundhouse kick.

It doesn’t land. Eijirou’s already pushing up into its space, fist in its face, knee in its gut. Its head swings to the side and he catches the movement with his other hand, pummelling the Nomu until it’s too dazed to keep standing. 

This Nomu’s smaller than the other one, less reinforced. It only takes a few hits for blood to start pooling out of its brain.

He’s getting pretty good at this.

The passage of time is weird, here. At most, it’s been a few days. This amount of progress in such a short time frame is too noticeable for Eijirou to not be a little proud of it, despite the circumstances.

It’s similar to the intensity with which he’d trained in preparation for U.A.’s entrance exams. He’d gone from nothing to something in the span of a year.

This, though, is leagues different. He’s got real, tangible results. His progress is so apparent he can lean forward and kick at it, a little.

His stomach growls. The last time he was fed was after Ujiko had checked to see if he could be electrocuted (he couldn’t) and that was… what. Hours ago? Maybe a day? He licks his lips, imagining a rare steak, meat skewers, chicken karaage. 

As delicious it sounds, his stomach curdles at the thought and he gulps, forcing down bile.

You were just hungry, Eijirou tells his body. How are you nauseous now?

Ujiko’s voice is high-pitched when it comes, stabbing pins into Eijirou’s ears. “There’s something wrong, he shouldn’t be—Kirishima? Kirishima? Shigaraki, we need to—”

God. It never fucking ends, does it?

The Nomu is dead at his feet. Eijirou collapses all on his own, the world narrowing down to the ringing in his ears.

There’s something wrong with Kirishima.

Well, okay. There are a lot of things wrong with Kirishima. On any given day, Katsuki can count at least seven, beginning with the way Kirishima thinks dotting his I’s with hearts in English is an actual grammatical rule. 

But this is different. Kirishima, for some incorrigible reason, is refusing to fight.

Katsuki gets that the guy just got back from being kidnapped. He’s capable of understanding how that can fuck with a person. In fact, out of everyone in his stupid class, he’s probably the best equipped to understand just how much a run-in with a villain can fuck someone up.

After the Sludge Villain, he’d thrown himself into training harder than he’d ever trained before. Deku’s convinced Katsuki has long-lasting issues from the incident, but the only thing he’d learned was that he was weak enough to get his ass beat by the literal mascot for IBS. Really, it inspired him to kick his ass into gear.

Kirishima’s a piece of shit, but he’s a piece of shit that’s always ready to throw down. In the first couple months of the school year, he’d probably beat Katsuki several times a day, always ready to go again, to push himself further.  

Being kidnapped should have made him fiercer than ever. He should have woken up at five in the morning to roar at the mountain, to show it what real, inimitable strength looked like.

Instead, the jackass is holed up in his cabin. Recovering. From his “trauma.”

What a load of horseshit.

Katsuki’s been more than generous, considering. He’d given Kirishima the entirety of the previous day to get his shit together. He hadn’t approached him at all, hadn’t even brought up the concept of the AP-Shot.

But it’s their last full day at training camp. Tomorrow’s Friday and they’re leaving in the afternoon to make it home in time for dinner. After that, it’s back to school and they’ll all be held to a higher standard after a week to hone their skills. 

Kirishima should be just as, if not more, impatient. Prodigies always are—they expect everything to come to them quickly.

Katsuki’s tired of waiting.

It’s for this reason that, when the Pussycats call everyone down to the main court for sparring, Katsuki looks for Kirishima amongst the sea of students.

Unsurprisingly, he’s nowhere to be found.

“Aizawa-sensei,” Katsuki calls, irritated, “where the hell’s Kirishima?”

“He’s with Vlad King,” Aizawa says dryly. “I believe he’s doing remedial work for the written exams.”

“We all passed those,” Katsuki says.

Aizawa sighs. “Bakugou. He just came back from—”

“I know what he came back from,” Katsuki snaps. “My shit was fucking broadcasted, remember? I get how it feels and I know how he works which is why I know that he wants to be out here, training to get stronger just like everyone else. You’re honestly going to tell me that he’s going to let something like this stop him? Kirishima?”

Aizawa doesn’t say anything for a moment. He regards Katsuki and the height difference between them seems—to stretch, almost, and Katsuki feels like he’s standing at the foot of a California redwood, dwarfed by sheer age.

“If you go to him,” Aizawa says, finally, “and he tells you to leave, you leave. That’s final.”

“He’s not with Vlad King,” Katsuki deduces. He’s alone, somewhere a teacher can’t step in and tell Katsuki to back off.

“He’s in the boys’ cabin,” Aizawa confirms. 

Katsuki nods and heads for the cabins, determined to drag Kirishima by his fucking ear if that’s what it takes.

Kirishima is digging through his suitcase. 

He’s something of an over-packer, characterized by the suitcase, duffle bag, and a carry-on that he’s lugged with him for a five-day trip. Katsuki’s willing to bet that at least half of the duffle bag is taken up by a frankly ludicrous amount of protein powder. Kirishima has every flavour imaginable—who the fuck is even selling pink lemonade protein powder?

His clothes are strewn across his bunk, metal weight littering the floor. He’s got picture frames in his hands, photos of people with black hair and tomahawk-sharp teeth. 

Katsuki slams the door shut behind him. Kirishima doesn’t flinch.

“I thought I’d never see them again,” he whispers, gripping the photos so tight that the glass fractures. 

“You were gone for a day and a half,” Katsuki says, unimpressed.

Kirishima shakes his head. “You can’t understand—”

“You know what I can’t understand?” Katsuki asks. “Why you’re not out training with the rest of us.”

“Bakugou, I just—”

“If you say you just got kidnapped I’m going to take you back to the villains myself,” Katsuki says flatly. “You think you’re good enough to get by without working for it? This is a good opportunity, asshole, and you’re making an ass out of yourself just letting it go to waste.”

Kirishima sets the frames down. Clenches his fists. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“What else is there?” Katsuki asks, genuinely curious. “Look, you don’t even have to use your fucking quirk. Just spar with me. Think you can handle that?”

Miracle of fucking miracles, that seems to convince him. Kirishima shoves the cracked picture frames back into his duffle bag and turns to face Katsuki.

“Just hand-to-hand?”

“Just hand-to-hand,” Katsuki says, rolling his eyes. 

He waits outside while Kirishima changes. 

It’s strange—Kirishima’s never shied away from using his quirk before. It’s possible that he now associates using his quirk with fighting off the villains who kidnapped him. Only, he hadn’t had that problem after USJ. Even in the beginning, when they’d just been thrown through space by Mist-Dick’s bullshit quirk, he’d thrown up his quirk as easy as anything, faithful that it would protect him from a wave of villains and their weapons. 

Villains don’t scare him. Katsuki sure as hell doesn’t scare him, otherwise, Kirishima wouldn’t keep throwing their fucking matches.

What is it, then?

Kirishima walks out of the cabin, throwing him a small grin. He starts on the path that leads back down to where the training grounds are.

Katsuki can’t remember the last time Kirishima smiled at him. “Oi,” he barks. “You trying to make fun of me or something?”

Kirishima frowns, eyebrows furrowed. “...No?”

“Then?”

“Then what?”

Yeah. Katsuki’s going to kick his ass into the fucking stratosphere.

They reach the rest of the group, taking their place on the outskirts. Katsuki catches Aizawa’s eye, making sure to send him the smuggest fucking grin he can think of.

I got him here. Me. I did that.

Aizawa flattens his lips like he’s trying to tell Katsuki to shut the fuck up without losing his teaching license. Katsuki can respect that.

“No quirks, no dick-kicking,” he rattles off. “First person to get knocked on their ass three times loses. Fair?”

Kirishima nods, grinning.

Katsuki balks. Kirishima doesn’t look focused. Usually, before a fight, he’s growling at Katsuki, telling him to give it his all. He still isn’t taking this seriously. 

The only thing stopping Katsuki from taking an explosion to his face is Aizawa’s watchful gaze burning into the back of his neck. He still thinks Katsuki’s in the wrong. 

Fine. He’ll show all of them that Kirishima’s just the type who needs to be dunked underwater before he can swim.

Katsuki pierces forward, twisting to dodge Kirishima’s preliminary punch. He comes back around, catching him with an elbow to the jaw. 

Kirishima’s unfazed by it, throwing three swift punches. Katsuki catches the last one and Kirishima takes advantage of his grip, using it to catapult himself forward and kick Katsuki back.

He’s fighting like he’s smaller than he is, relying on his opponent’s force to turn it against them. What’s more, Kirishima doesn’t tend to fight with his legs. His upper body strength is formidable—the power in his arms and chest means one good punch can be enough to end a fight. Because of this, Kirishima drives forward when he fights. It’s like fighting a tank, scrambling to get the upper hand over something designed to move right on over you. 

For some reason, though, Katsuki isn’t facing that same barrage now. After kicking him back, Kirishima leads with a punch and it’s too easy to catch that one too and pull the arm to the side, opening Kirishima’s side up to an attack from Katsuki’s other arm. 

Kirishima keeps reaching for something. The movement’s always followed by a split-second reaction and he wrestles himself back into the fight. What the fuck is he reaching for? He’s not like Yaomomo or Aizawa, he doesn’t fight with weapons, so there’s no reason—

Katsuki stumbles backwards. Kirishima, the bastard, had noticed his moment of distraction and capitalized upon it, sweeping his legs out from under him. 

Whatever. The guy weak enough to get kidnapped can have one out of three. 

Except Katsuki’s on the ground, which puts him at a perfect vantage point to see Kirishima reach into his pocket for a shard of glass, jagged like it’d been broken off from something.

Like a cracked picture frame.

Kirishima runs his thumb along the edge of it, blood streaking the edge of the glass. It’s an unconscious motion. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s doing it, reaching out with his other hand as if Katsuki would ever fucking take it. “C’mon, man! We said best out of three, yeah?”

He's hiding something.

“Yeah,” Katsuki says, getting up. “Again, let's go.”

Now that he’s got something to look for, the dissimilarity becomes glaringly obvious. 

Kirishima’s always been steady. Steady stance, steady hits, steady resolve. Here, he flits around the edges of Katsuki’s vision, ducking instead of intercepting, kicking instead of punching. 

He’s never asked for hand-to-hand before. As much as Katsuki aches to shatter Kirishima’s shield with his explosions, Kirishima gets off on the fact that his hardening holds up under the immense offensive force that Katsuki’s quirk offers.  

Katsuki’s fought Kirishima hundreds of times since the start of the year. He’s become intimately acquainted with Kirishima’s brawling style, his steadily improving strategy, the ever-annoying split-second where he lets his shield down to spite Katsuki.

The realization bites down on Katsuki’s tongue, drawing blood. 

Katsuki hates Kirishima, but he knows him. Whoever he’s fighting, it isn’t Kirishima.

Kirishima throws a punch and his knuckles are smeared in blood and he hasn’t landed a hit that’s broken Katsuki’s skin—even though that’s what they’ve always done. Even though they’ve walked away from every spar bloody and pissed off and ready to go again. 

It’s the metaphorical straw that breaks Katsuki’s back. He lunges forward, tackling Kirishima to the ground. He doesn’t calculate it right and they both fall on their sides, elbows caught between ribs and grass.

Katsuki throws a leg over Kirishima’s hip, twisting himself up and pinning Kirishima’s hips to the ground. He’s so angry that it’s choking him, lethal sweat dripping from his palms like saliva.

He wrenches Kirishima’s jaw in his hand, explosions sparking along the skin. Kirishima doesn’t harden his jaw.

“Who the fuck are you?” Katsuki demands. “Tell me!”

“Bakugou, that’s enough!” Aizawa snaps, striding over. “I told you—”

“Use your quirk on him,” Katsuki orders. “Something’s wrong, I’m fucking telling you something is wrong , use your quirk on him and see what happens.”

Aizawa hesitates, eyes flickering over Kirishima.

“It’s alright,” Kirishima says quietly. “I get it, everyone’s on edge… let’s just stop sparring, Bakugou.”

Katsuki growls. “There! Right there.” He turns to Aizawa. “You see that? You think Kirishima would miss three days of training and then take the rest of the time off?” 

And the thing is, he’s well aware that he’s not Aizawa’s favourite. Not even close. But Kirishima, as the suck-up of the fucking century, has wormed his way into Aizawa’s good graces. Aizawa knows him too.

“He wanted to come, remember?” Katsuki asks. “He failed the exam like a loser and told you he believed the students that failed needed the training more than anyone.”

Kirishima’s face had been pretty fucking funny. Katsuki had never seen him look so sad before, but here he was, quiet and pensive, begging Aizawa to give him a second chance to prove his worth.

That Kirishima, the one who demanded his right to train with everyone else, would never insist on hand-to-hand and he would never suggest that they stop sparring because, what, Katsuki’s was on edge? Yeah, okay.

Aizawa looks at Katsuki. Looks at him like he’s dissecting him, peeling away at his skin with a pair of metal pliers. “You mean this.”

Katsuki’s dead fucking certain. “Yes.”

Aizawa nods and his eyes glow red, hair writhing up above his skull, tendrils waving like sea anemones. His capture weapon floats around his shoulders, sharp edges slicing through the air.

And, below Katsuki, Kirishima begins to change. His skin distorts like oil in water, red hair washing away into blonde. Katsuki can feel the bones shifting beneath his hands, Kirishima’s waist thinning, the jut of his hips growing sharper. 

The class starts yelling, the growing din almost loud enough to drown out the imposter’s guttural laugh.

“Kacchan, get away—”

“I’m not fucking moving,” Katsuki snarls. This was his fight, his call, and his save. If the heroes who fucked up the mission try to take credit for this because he moved away like some coward, Katsuki’s going to have to spend his weekend curb-stomping a bunch of pros.

Aizawa blinks but the disguise doesn’t return. Looks like once it’s gone, it’s gone. 

It’s a girl beneath Katsuki, now, with messy blonde hair and sharp, yellow eyes. The only thing she’s got in common with Kirishima is her teeth, all of them narrowing into tapered points. 

“Who are you?” Katsuki asks.

“Himiko Toga,” the imposter says, beaming up at him. “Nobody warned me about you.”

Chapter Text

“We’re not letting you interrogate a villain,” Endeavour repeats, for what is probably the hundredth time.

“You weren’t good enough to even notice she was a villain,” Katsuki replies, just as he’s been replying the past ninety-nine fucking times that Endeavour’s attempted to save face in this circus of a situation. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me! Let me talk to her.”

They’ve been going in circles for the past half-hour. Toga’s sitting in an interrogation room because the Pussycats apparently just have one of those lying around. Katsuki and the rest of the class are clustered in the dining room, stubbornly ignoring the ingredients they’re supposed to turn into a meal.

The high altitude must have the heroes going crazy if they think Kirishima’s classmates are just going to sit around after learning that the heroes fucked up big time. 

“This isn’t an indictment of your competence,” Endeavour grits out. “We are all incredibly appreciative of your help in this matter, but we'll be taking it from here.”

All Might walks in, ducking in through the entrance. “What’s the issue?”

“I’m explaining to Bakugou that he can’t interrogate our villain,” Endeavour says.

All Might pauses. He looks at Katsuki and Katsuki can see the wheels turning. Then—“I’ll watch him.”

Oh, fuck yeah. Spending half his parent’s annual income on All Might merch is coming back to bless him. 

Endeavour looks like All Might just offered to wax his nose hairs. “You can’t—”

“He’s right,” All Might points out. “We brought back the wrong person and, without Bakugou, who knows how long it would have been before we figured it out? He’s the one that noticed something wasn’t right. It’s reasonable to assume that it would be helpful for him to talk to the villain and see what else he can discern.”

Endeavour’s flames flex, almost, like the primary feathers of a falcon in flight, and he’s angry. It’s obvious to anyone with eyes that he’s angry.

All Might is unfettered by it. He stands before Endeavour, arms crossed, looking down his nose. You’re going to tell me no?

The class is quiet. Katsuki catches Todoroki’s eye and the other boy nods once, steady and certain. 

“You’ll watch him,” Endeavour says finally. “He gets five minutes.”

He’s trying to hold onto the illusion of control. 

All Might looks at Katsuki and shrugs, like they’re both in an inside joke. “Thank you,” he says. “We’ll be going now. Come along, Young Bakugou.”

He sets his hand on Katsuki’s shoulder, the heat emanating down to the bone.

Himiko is like a lighthouse in the drab grey of the interrogation room. She’s still wearing Kirishima’s gym uniform, drowning in the crumpled blue cloth. They’ve got her hands cuffed to the table, bird bones encased in sharp metal.

“What do we know about her?” Katsuki asks.

All Might’s lips tighten. “Not much. Her quirk is called ‘Transform.’ It grants her the ability to transform into someone else's doppelganger. Every detail is exact, down to their voice.” He pauses. “She can only transform into people whose blood she has… ingested.”

Katsuki wrinkles his nose. “She’s like Stain.”

“Yes,” All Might agrees. “She was a student at a high school in Kyoto before she was thrown out by her parents for attacking and drinking the blood of one of her classmates. She went missing shortly after the incident and only recently resurfaced, after one year.”

Huh. She survived all by herself for a year. Katsuki isn’t in the habit of giving villains props, but her survival, at least, is something to respect.

“You coming in with me?” He asks.

All Might shakes his head. “I said I would watch. I can hear both of you fine from behind the glass and I’ll come in if I believe I need to, but that is unlikely.” He clears his throat. “Try to get her to talk as much as possible. The more she has to say, the more we’ll be able to analyze. I trust your judgement, Bakugou.”

Katsuki isn’t going to have a meltdown over his idol trusting him. He’s not. 

“Thanks,” he manages to get out, walking inside the interrogation room before he can embarrass himself further.

Himiko straightens up when she sees him. It’s fucking creepy. 

“I’m glad you came!” She chirps. “I kept telling them that I wanted to speak to you but they said I wasn’t allowed.”

Endeavour’s hesitance is beginning to make a lot more sense. 

“You wanted to talk to me?” Katsuki asks.

Himiko nods vehemently. “You surprised me! I like surprises.”

“How’d I surprise you?”

“They didn’t tell me about you,” Himiko explains. “Usually when they send me somewhere they warn me about the people who pay attention, like parents or partners or siblings. They said Kirishima didn’t have any of that, that the mission would be low-risk.”

“Who’s they?” Katsuki asks. “Who’s sending you on these missions?”

For some reason, Himiko starts giggling. “Oh, man,” she says, head tipped back, “that’s so funny. Are you kidding? You don’t know? He’s not going to be happy, y’know, he told me, he said this was how we were going to make our mark. You don’t know?”

“No,” Katsuki says, debating the merits of strangling their only lead. “I don’t know.”

“It’s the League of Villains,” Himiko says. “Haven’t you met them already?”

The guy at USJ, with the quirk that tore apart Aizawa’s arm. He’d brought throngs of villains, a monster that even All Might had struggled to beat. All Might. 

“Shigaraki,” Katsuki gets out, the name scorching his tongue. “That’s who sent you?”

Himiko nods. “It was him and Dabi. Dabi was the only one who actually met Kirishima and he told me how I was supposed to act. He told me Kirishima was sweet, friends with everyone, so that’s how I acted.” She pouts. “Either Dabi messed up or Kirishima’s a good liar.”

“Dabi messed up,” Katsuki says. Kirishima’s a shit liar. “We’re not friends.” He frowns, rewinding. “Who’s Dabi?”

“Annoying,” Himiko says bluntly. “He’s always challenging Shigaraki because he likes Stain better and he thinks that he’s the one who should be leading the movement. I only joined because I thought Stain was right but Dabi’s always talking about him. It’s annoying.”

Somehow, Katsuki doesn’t think they’re going to be able to track down a guy by telling the police to look for someone “annoying.” 

“You said he met Kirishima?” He asks. “How? When’d that happen?”

Himiko frowns. “At the mall, I think?”

“You think?”

She nods. “I’m sure. I got to get new rings, which I was super happy about because I’d lost my old ones and Dabi was supposed to go with me but he disappeared. And then he came back and he told Shigaraki that he had met a hero student who would be perfect for the League.”

Kirishima hadn’t mentioned that. Katsuki wasn’t his fucking therapist but it would have made sense for the asshole to have told someone. Aizawa, maybe. Or even Ashido, since those two were as good as conjoined twins.

Himiko’s gasps, eyes wide. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No,” Katsuki says shortly.

“I thought you said you weren’t friends?”

“He would have told someone ,” Katsuki snaps. 

“What makes you so sure?”

“Excuse me?”

“What makes you so sure that he would tell someone?” She repeats, purposefully slow. “You got one thing right, I’m not him. But he didn’t tell you that he met Dabi. He made sure he was at the back of the line in the forest. What makes you so sure that we took him away?”

She’s trying to imply that, what, Kirishima went with them willingly?

“You keep forgetting that I saw through your bullshit,” Katsuki says. “What makes me so sure is that I know that dickhead. He’s a fucking prodigy. He’s the strongest in our class. He’s basically a straight-arrow shot to the top ten. You think he’s going to throw all of that away to join your dumbass League? Nobody even knows who you are. Joining you would be throwing away his potential.”

Himiko doesn’t say anything. 

There’s a light knock at the door. Katsuki’s five minutes are up. 

When Katsuki moves to leave the room, however, Himiko speaks up. “You said you weren’t friends.”

“We’re not.”

“Then how do you know all that about him?”

“He’s the guy I’m trying to beat,” Katsuki says. “I know everything about him.”

He leaves the room, closing the door behind him. Himiko slumps in her seat, disappointment palpable through the glass.

“You did a formidable job,” All Might says quietly. “She barely spoke to anyone else. Now we know who’s behind this.”

“We don’t know where he is,” Katsuki argues.

All Might smiles. “If we can convince Endeavour to let you in again, I’m sure we’ll be able to think of something. With these results, he’ll be hard-pressed to refuse.”

“Well?”

Speak of the fucking Devil.

Endeavour strides up to them, arms crossed. His flames are waning. Without them, he looks almost normal, a regular guy with a scruffy beard that he apparently covers with fire because it’s easier than shaving. 

“Bakugou did very well,” All Might says, turning to face him. “We can go over the recording later if you’d like. In short, Himiko confirmed that the League of Villains is behind this. I’ll have Naomasa go over everything we have on them, and we can use that as a starting point.”

“She told you this?” Endeavour asks, glaring down at Katsuki.

Does he think Katsuki doesn’t speak basic fucking Japanese? “Yeah. She started laughing when I said we didn’t know who took Kirishima. Said the leader of the League, Shigaraki, is convinced everyone knows who they are.”

Endeavour frowns. “That’s not what I’m taking issue with. She gave that information up too easily. From what we know of her so far, she’s too smart to offer up something like that just because.”

Fuck. He’s right. Himiko was kicked out of her home because she couldn’t repress her psychotic urges anymore. She’s been on her own for a year, as a young girl in a country rampant with villains. Instead of being killed by Shigaraki, he respected her enough to send her out on her own. She knows what she’s doing. At the very least, she knows what not to do.

“She didn’t seem unsettled, either,” All Might remarks thoughtfully. “She was cracking jokes with you the entire time, wasn’t she?”

“Until the end,” Katsuki says, nodding. “The one time she got serious was when she tried to convince me I was wrong.”

Endeavour picks up on that like a bloodhound. “What did she say?”

Katsuki scowls. “Apparently, Kirishima met his kidnapper before, when the whole class went to the mall to buy shit for this trip. He didn’t tell anyone. She tried to spin that into him wanting to go with them, which is bullshit.”

“It’s something to consider,” Endeavour says.

“The hell it is!” Katsuki refutes. “You think that asshole would risk cancelling training camp because some creep walked up to him while he was busy buying a tub of bleach for his hair?”

Endeavour sighs. “Bakugou, I’m aware that you want to think the best of your friend—”

“He’s not my friend,” Katsuki spits. “He’s a bitch and I can’t stand him but he wouldn’t join some shitty villain group. Besides, the only reason we’re in this situation in the first place is because you two were convinced you knew best. I’m the one that figured this out and I’m telling you, they took him.”

“We’re listening,” All Might placates, shooting a glance at Endeavour. “The more pressing issue is finding out where they’re keeping him.”

“And why she was so willing to talk to us,” Endeavour adds. “Did she say anything about the kidnapper?”

“His name’s Dabi,” Katsuki says. “Ring a bell?”

Endeavour pauses. “No. We didn’t encounter anyone other than the mutant and a few Nomu’s when we went to rescue Kirishima. That’s why we were so confident we had the right person—we assumed they were using their strongest soldiers to guard Kirishima. Did you get anything other than his name?

“She said he was annoying,” Katsuki says, grinning blandly at him. 

Endeavour’s lip curls. “Nothing else?”

“Listen,” Katsuki huffs, “just get me back in there and she’ll be singing like a fucking canary. She doesn’t fucking shut up when I’m in the room.”

Endeavour shakes his head. “You did well, but you’re untrained. It’s dangerous to have you in close quarters with a villain like her. You got our foot in the door, Bakugou, but we need a professional in order to move forward with the investigation.”

A professional? Does Katsuki need to get a fucking certification with a government stamp that confirms he’s more competent than a room full of egotistical pro heroes?

He opens his mouth, ready to tell Endeavour exactly where he can shove his investigation, but All Might nudges him, the movement eerily gentle for such a large man.

“Not now, Bakugou,” he says quietly.

And it’s All Might, so Katsuki listens.

Eijirou wakes up in the dentist’s chair. He really fucking hates the chair. 

Ujiko leans over him, so close that Eijirou can see the individual pores in his nose. At some point, he receives some form of divine intervention which leads him to move back to a reasonable distance after flashing a penlight in Eijirou’s eyes.

“You’re tired,” Ujiko announces.

Eijirou stares at him. “Well, yeah. You didn’t give me a bed.”

“We’ll arrange that,” Ujiko says, fidgeting with his glasses. “No, what I mean is—your body is exhausted. You must have felt like you were starving, yes? We’ve been giving you all your nutrients but your exhaustion has led your body to crave high-fat, high carbohydrate foods.”

“So if I just eat more I’ll be fine?” That’s not exactly a drawback. Now Eijirou can ask Shigaraki for a steak and actually have scientific proof for why he needs one ASAP.

“Not exactly,” Ujiko says, shaking his head and effectively killing Eijirou’s dreams, which does seem to be his favourite pastime. “Your body is producing an incredibly high amount of cortisol. It’s the stress hormone,” he clarifies after Eijirou blinks at him. “All this results in decreased concentration, adaptability, and coordination while increasing risk for malfunction or accidents.”

“In layman’s terms,” Shigaraki drawls, coming up behind Ujiko, “you’re too tired to be a good fighter. Which Ujiko assured me wouldn’t happen.”

“I assumed that his ability to withstand large attacks would cancel out the energy it takes to maintain this state of being for a prolonged amount of time,” Ujiko corrects. His shoulders slump. “Experimental data suggests otherwise.”

“So… what?” Eijirou looks at both of them, sitting up in the chair. “What’s the solution here? It can’t be letting me sleep for twenty hours at a time.”

He won’t be able to improve if he’s fighting off bedsores most of the time. The only, only upside to all this is that he’s getting stronger than he’d ever imagined. They’re not taking that from him. 

“If that was our only solution, you would both be dead by now,” Shigaraki says flatly. “Luckily for you, I know someone that can fix this.”

“Oh no, you shouldn’t have,” Eijirou mumbles. 

Shigaraki squints at him. “Excuse me?”

“Who is it?” Eijirou says, widening his eyes innocently. 

“His name is Overhaul. He’s the head of the local yakuza.” Shigaraki scratches at his wrist, sneering. “He’s a control freak. Also an asshole. Picture Dabi with a bird mask and a receding hairline.”

Shigaraki doesn’t really have room to talk when it comes to controlling assholes, but Eijirou’s already gotten in his snarky remark of the day so he stays quiet.

“He wants to see what you can do before he offers his services,” Shigaraki continues. “We’re going to go upstairs now and meet him. Don’t embarrass me.”

Bold words for someone who hasn’t moisturized since his mother’s umbilical cord was cut. 

After one final check-up, they leave the lab, leaving Ujiko behind to do whatever he does when he’s not building brainwashed supersoldiers. 

Shigaraki keeps up a running list of things that Eijirou is not to do under any circumstances. Don’t talk back. Don’t talk, period. Don’t move unless otherwise ordered. Don’t tell Overhaul Shigaraki called him Dabi with a bird mask and a receding hairline. 

There’s a lot to keep track of.

Up until now, Eijirou’s movements have been limited to the lab, the training room, and a few tiny rooms where Ujiko carried out his experiments. Now, though, he’s starting to see evidence that this is where Shigaraki and the rest of the League presumably live. The hallway they’re walking in has actual lighting, for one. There’s music playing from somewhere in front of them, the bass strong enough to echo through the floor.

Shigaraki tugs him through a door and they step into a small bar. It’s decently furnished, though the upholstery on the bar stools and couches are all webbed. The bartender is the same guy he and Bakugou fought at USJ. Kurogiri. That’s his name. 

No one else in the room looks familiar, though. There’s a redhead leaning against the bar, her eyes blocked by sunglasses. Beside her stands a tall, twitchy man, clad head-to-toe in black spandex. 

A man sits elegantly on the arm of one of the couches. He tips his hat at Eijirou, eyes glinting from behind his painted mask. Sitting on the couch is the largest man Eijirou’s ever seen. It’s kind of surprising the couch hasn’t collapsed under the weight of all his muscles. He kind of looks like Bakugou on steroids, with the fluffy blonde hair and the glare that could curdle milk. 

“Overhaul’s running late,” the redhead says, lips curling. “You’d think a yakuza boss would be punctual.”

“I don’t understand why we have to work with that piece of shit,” Spandex snaps. His head swings to the side and, in a much softer voice, he mumbles—“We’ve been doing just fine on our own, is all.”

“It’s not enough to be doing ‘fine,’” Shigaraki hisses. “If this is too much for you, feel free to get the fuck out.”

Spandex shakes his head rapidly and glues himself to the redhead’s side, who pats his shoulder. 

“Interesting,” Painted-Mask says, tilting his head. His voice sounds familiar but Eijirou can’t place it. “You don’t want this either, do you? Why are we entertaining Overhaul, then?”

Kurogiri speaks up before Shigaraki can disintegrate the guy into painted bits of ash. “Think of it as an exchange in services. If we provide Overhaul with something, he will help us tremendously, allowing us to move forward and reach our goal.”

“What’re we giving?” Steroid-Bakugou asks, narrowing his eyes. God, even his eyelids are muscular. Eijirou can’t help feeling a bit insecure. 

Kurogiri doesn’t say anything. The room falls silent, everyone turning to stare at Eijirou. Wait, what?

He whirls around to face Shigaraki. “Dude, you’re not, like, selling me to Overhaul or something, are you?”

“What?” Shigaraki snaps, looking offended. “No!” He pauses. “Well—Think of it as loaning on a trial basis —”

“That’s the same thing!” Eijirou exclaims. “You said this was supposed to help, how is this—”

Shigaraki’s right hand snaps out like a pit viper, four fingers on his neck, the fifth hovering perilously. Eijirou stops talking.

“If he thinks you’re strong enough,” Shigaraki says, “and that’s an if, he’ll take you on as a bodyguard. They’ve got something important to transport and he thinks your quirk is the perfect thing to protect it. He’s got something that’ll fix your little fainting spells. That’s the exchange.”

There’s really only one question that matters. “I can train for longer this way, right?” 

“You’ll be spending less time unconscious,” Shigaraki says, snickering, “so yes, I’d say so.”

“Hold on,” the redhead interjects. “You’re saying we’re getting in bed with Overhaul for this kid?”

“It’s necessary,” Shigaraki says, his tone firmly ending all lines of questioning there. 

The room falls silent.

“Well, alright then,” Painted-Mask says after it becomes glaringly clear that Shigaraki is fine with glaring mulishly at the ground until Overhaul shows up. “We all know who you are, but I assume you haven’t been told about us?”

“That’s accurate, yeah,” Eijirou agrees. 

“My name is Mr. Compress,” Painted-Mask introduces. “The gentleman beside me is Muscular, the lady by the bar is Magne, and beside her is Twice. Behind the bar—”

“Kurogiri,” Eijirou interjects. “We’ve met.”

Compress tilts his head. “You remember him but not me?”

The only other villain Eijirou knew was Dabi, and Shigaraki’s already scattered his ashes in a sewer somewhere. What would there be to remember?

“In the forest,” Compress says. “We met, briefly.”

“I don’t…”

“My quirk allows me to compress anything into a small marble without actually damaging it,” Compress says. “If used on a person, it effectively entraps them.” He pauses. “Do you remember how we brought you here?”

A gloved hand on the back of his neck. Piercing suffocation. He’s sharp.

“We’re adding him to the list, then,” Eijirou says, turning to Shigaraki. 

Shigaraki raises an eyebrow. “What list?”

“The list of things that work on me.”

First impressions are important. Shigaraki and Ujiko have seen Eijirou paralyzed, frozen beneath Ujiko’s steady hands. This room only knows him as the guy Shigaraki’s willing to negotiate for. 

“Is that list really so short?” Compress asks.

Eijirou bares his teeth. “Do you see Dabi here?”

“Point taken,” Compress says. “I feel as if I’ve been inducted into a rather exclusive club.”

“I don’t think I’d refer to your league as exclusive.”

The newcomer stands stiffly in the doorway, hands shoved deep in his pockets. He looks down the beak of his mask at Eijirou, gaze hard and unflinching. 

“Shigaraki,” Overhaul says, without looking away, “I was hoping to see a demonstration of its skill set before making my decision.”

“Of course,” Shigaraki purrs, grinning widely. “Go ahead, Muscular.”

Muscular stands up from the couch, the upholstery creaking at the shift of weight. He’s massive, the width of his shoulders seemingly taking up half the room. Eijirou keeps waiting for him to fully straighten but, even with his hair flattened against the ceiling, there’s a slight stoop to his back. 

If Eijirou had been in his weaker body, he would have shivered in the shadow cast by Muscular’s body. 

Muscular produces a steel ball the size of Eijirou’s head from behind his back. Calmly, casually, as if it’s nothing more than a soda can, he crushes it in his fist. 

You cannot ask a villain about his workout routine, Eijirou reminds himself. Even if his grip strength is about as strong as a hydraulic press.

“As impressive as that is—” Overhaul starts.

Muscular snorts. He steps forward and, with his free hand, reaches out for Eijirou. 

Don’t move unless otherwise ordered. 

Eijirou doesn’t move.

Muscular’s hand wraps around his head. His skin breaks from the points of Eijirou’s quirk, blood running down the taut muscles of his forearm. Muscular curls his fingers and squeezes.

Eijirou keeps his eyes open.

“Hit him,” Shigaraki orders. 

Muscular rears his fist back. 

The smack! reverberates in his ears. Eijirou doesn’t move.

“Again,” Shigaraki says. Muscular hits him again. A third time, prompted by Overhaul. Eijirou keeps his eyes open, his feet planted. The skin of Muscular’s knuckles begins to tear, the flesh underneath red and inflamed.

“That’s enough,” Overhaul says. 

Muscular huffs and ambles back to the couch.

Overhaul hasn’t stopped staring at Eijirou since he came in. “It’s small,” he says, after a moment.

“He’ll grow,” Shigaraki says. “The doctor’s confirmed that.”

Overhaul hums. “I’ll take it. You can have my services in return.”

And Eijirou wants to ask exactly what those services are, how Overhaul is meant to help him when he refers to Eijirou as an “it.” But Shigaraki had said not to talk. 

“Sorry,” Twice says, sheepishly raising a hand. “What exactly do you mean by services?”

“You’re broke,” Overhaul says bluntly. “You need manpower, funds, a base. From now on, I’ll be providing those things.”

“Why?” Twice asks, voice turning shrill. “The freak’s worth all that?”

Overhaul’s eyes narrow. “No. Shigaraki has gone through the contract with me already. I see no harm in reiterating for clarity. In return for my services, I expect your loyalty. You will not harm my operations in any way.”

Huh. He thinks the League is an actual challenge.

“As for the freak,” Overhaul drawls, stepping back, “I will be taking it with me. I will see you all at my base when we return.”

He turns on his heel, footsteps echoing down the hall. Eijirou steps forward, uncertain, but Shigaraki doesn’t move to disintegrate him, so he keeps going, following Overhaul out the door.

They walk through the winding halls of the warehouse, eventually emerging onto a dirty street. 

It’s dark out, streetlights bleeding through the night. Eijirou wants to ask what day it is. 

A car waits for them on the other side of the street. It’s sleek, smooth lines and tinted windows. Eijirou follows Overhaul’s lead and sits inside, his hair brushing up against the roof of the car.

There is a briefcase lying on the ground, a nondescript black. Overhaul’s eyes flicker over to it every time the car takes a turn.

Outside, most of the stores still have their lights on, though there aren’t too many people walking the streets. It’s probably a weekday, then. 

Eijirou had been taken from camp on a Monday. Has it been only two or three days? Has it been over a week? 

Overhaul must know what day it is—but Overhaul refers to him as an “it,” so Eijirou does not move and he does not speak.

The car pulls into the front of a hotel. Instead of dropping them off, the driver continues down to the pitch-black of the parking garage, headlights illuminating the rows of vehicles. She reverses into an empty parking spot.

“Bring the briefcase,” Overhaul says. “And walk behind me.” 

It figures that the one time he actually speaks to Eijirou like he’s a being capable of complex thought is when he wants Eijirou to watch his back.

Eijirou follows Overhaul out of the car. 

It’s a technically-perfect parking job, slotted exactly between the two painted lines. 

Overhaul’s paranoia makes more sense when Eijirou realizes that they aren’t the only people in the parking garage. The other guys are haphazard where Overhaul is careful, dirty where he is clean. Their van is old and held together with duct tape and the wheels screech over the asphalt before parking two feet away from where they stand.

Overhaul wrinkles his nose but doesn’t say anything.

Two men get out of the van. They’re both lugging metal briefcases. Without being prompted, they click the briefcases open, so Overhaul can inspect the contents.

Cash. So much cash that Eijirou’s mouth goes dry with it.

Overhaul doesn’t look too impressed, but he still nods, approving, and the men close the briefcases, setting them on the ground. They’re staring at the case in Eijirou’s hands, eyes hungry. He side-eyes Overhaul and, at the slightest incline of his head, Eijirou opens the case so the men can see it.

He doesn’t look down.

What are they selling?

Whatever’s inside, the guys they’re dealing with are doing their level best not to look too impressed, eyebrows rising, voices carefully neutral. “How long do they work for?” 

“Long enough,” Overhaul says. “Furthest estimate is around a week.”

“Should make it permanent.”

“We’re working on it,” he says tightly. 

The guys look at each other, then back at the case. One of them nods and the other kicks the briefcases full of cash forwards. 

“All yours,” he says casually, like that amount of cash is something that can be kicked across a grimy strip of asphalt. “Just curious, though, how're you gonna advocate for Quirk-Killing bullets when your bodyguard looks like that?”

“I look after my own conscience,” Overhaul says coolly.

It’s a sort of dissonance. Eijirou had almost forgotten what he’d looked like, for a moment, enveloped by the almost-comfort offered by Overhaul’s complete and utter ignorance of his person. He may as well have been invisible.

The way the client’s staring at him, he’s the opposite of invisible. The guy looks at Eijirou like he’s the monster under the bed, crawling out of the shadows to show the kid what horror’s supposed to look like. 

If Eijirou’s making a guy here to buy Quirk-Killing bullets look like that, how fucking awful does he look?

Then, the rest of the question processes. Quirk-Killing bullets. That’s what’s in the case. Eijirou’s never heard of them. If the heroes haven’t mentioned something so important, it stands to reason that they’re new enough to be relegated to the underground.

That’s how Overhaul’s making his fortune. No one else knows what it is, so no one else can replicate it. More importantly, it’s so underground that the police haven’t heard about it yet. No one’s prosecuting him for his invention.

Overhaul coughs, the snap of it harsh. Oh. He’s meant to give them the briefcase. 

Eijirou hands the case over, then picks up the two filled with cash. 

One of the men loads the cases into the van. 

“We’ll contact you if we need more,” the other one says. He’s still staring at Eijirou, gaze caught between fear and admiration, like he’s watching a plane crash in motion, wings going up in flames.

Overhaul just nods, inclining his head slightly. He walks back to the car and Eijirou follows him. 

Katsuki is a very, very patient person.

His quirk demands it. Explosions are impatient, reckless, launching themselves from his palms with wild abandon. If he didn’t counteract them, he would have gotten his arms blown off before he hit thirteen.

This is all to say that he understands the importance of waiting. Not now, All Might had said, implying that there would be a “later,” a moment where he would listen to what Katsuki had to offer and let him go forward with his plan.

So Katsuki stews with his class while the heroes attempt to wring more information out of Himiko. Jirou keeps up a running commentary on what’s happening with the investigation, ear jacks buried into the walls.

The Pussycats are going to have a hell of a time plastering up all the holes in the walls after they leave.

In comparison to the night after the kidnapping, the atmosphere is somewhere around a million times worse. They’ve got a villain where they should have a classmate and no leads. Kirishima’s been gone for three days and, the way things are going, that time’s liable to stretch out further.

Everyone’s handling it differently. 

Ashido’s been taking her frustrations out on the training grounds, trying valiantly to get herself classified as a biohazard. Kaminari’s had a full-body tremor since Himiko shed her disguise and Aizawa’s refused to let him do anything more strenuous than drink soup. 

Uraraka’s trying out her quirk on the trees. Every so often, her fierce yell echoes across the grounds as she manages to outstrength the centuries-old roots buried deep in the earth.

Katsuki’s spent most of the day on the track. Ojiro and Iida have been circling the track for a while as well, Iida easily lapping them both. 

Running usually keeps him out of his head. Katsuki can disassociate, reducing himself down to the burn in his thighs and the ache in his lungs. 

It’s not working. He keeps going back to Himiko, how calm she’d seemed, how easily she’d told him that it was the League of Villains that had taken Eijirou, some dickhead named Dabi who had escorted him personally.

What makes you so sure that we took him away?

Why would she give that up so easily? What fucked up thing was she keeping locked inside her, that giving away something so monumental was collateral in comparison?

More than that, Katsuki still can’t wrap his head around the fact that All Might fucked up this badly. He’s not a dumbass like Deku, he understands that All Might had to train to get to where he is just like every other hero on the fucking planet, but the difference is that All Might always fixes the problem in the end. Sending him in is as good as welcoming the troops home.

What does that say about the League, that they’ve managed to evade All Might?

He has to see Himiko again. The more he learns about the League, the better a picture he can draw of what they’re up against.

Katsuki runs and runs and runs.

Katsuki’s patience pays off. All Might comes to see him after dinner, as he’s scrubbing down the countertops. As always, he’s the last one in the room, the rest of his classmates unfamiliar with the concept of deep cleaning. Fortunately, their laziness means that he and All Might have the room to themselves.

“Can I talk to her now?” Katsuki asks.

“I can’t give you much time.”

“Have your fucking professionals found out anything in the entire day?” 

All Might winces. “She’s deigned to tell us about some of the other members of the League of Villains.”

“How do you guys know she isn’t talking out of her ass?”

“We’ve done background checks,” All Might says. “Everyone she mentioned either has a criminal record, a missing person’s report, or was presumed dead.” He raises an eyebrow. “If you don’t think she’s trustworthy, why are you so insistent on meeting with her?”

Katsuki bites his tongue from snapping something childish, along the lines of hey, wait, I thought you were on my side. All Might isn’t going to let him see Himiko if he thinks Katsuki’s a fucking kid who can’t handle this.

“She wanted us to think Kirishima went with them willingly,” he says, honestly. “Everything she said in there, she said for a reason. I want to know what she would have gained from us believing that.”

All Might looks at him for a moment. “You have the makings of a fine interrogator,” he says. “I’ve never been very good. Endeavour’s always been better than me.”

He admits the fault so easily. Endeavour, number two, outshining the number one in a dark room with no one but the villain to bear witness. 

It’s beginning to pile up. All Might, failing to bring Kirishima home. All Might, acknowledging that Endeavour beats him in some areas, even if they’re not the ones the official rankings care about. 

Katsuki’s not sure how to go about confronting it, so he leaves it so simmer on the backburner for the time being. “Can I talk to her now?” He repeats.

All Might nods. “Get her to slip up as much as you can,” he says, a grin fighting against the stern set of his lips. “The more you get, the less they’ll be able to scold you for going in the first place.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. Like he wasn’t planning on doing that anyway.

Himiko grins when she sees him walk in, her top incisors poking down past her lips. Before this, she’d been a student at a private school in Kyoto. The lengths her parents must have gone to repress her desires and save face in society weren’t detailed in the report All Might had provided him with, but the insinuations are enough to make him fight an instinctual recoil.

There are some villains for whom a case could be made. People who were fucked over, people thrown into something, people who were poor and destitute and did what they could for their dependents until they were too far gone to leave.

Himiko, though. Katsuki knows a lost cause when he sees one. 

“You’re back,” she says happily. “I missed you.”

Huh. He just threw up a little. 

“You’re working with the League of Villains,” Katsuki recapitulates. 

Himiko nods.

“Last time we talked, you mentioned Stain,” he says. “You joined the League because of him, right?”

“He’s amazing,” Himiko says breathlessly. “Did you see the footage from Hosu? I think he’s incredible.”

“Why?” Katsuki asks, genuinely fucking confused. “What’s so special about him?”

He’s not really sure what he expects. Maybe Himiko’s into tattered guys who look like they spent the day cleaning up a butcher’s shop. Maybe intense delusion really does it for her.

“I want to be everything that he is,” she says. “And I want to kill him.”

Yeah, sure, he’s not too far off.

“My parents told me I was wrong for being this way,” she says, leaning forward like she’s sharing gossip. “That’s why they made me leave. They said I was wrong and bad and filthy. But Stain’s like me and he’s amazing. He killed heroes and he made them listen to him. I want to win the way he does.”

“He’s your hero,” Katsuki notes. “And that’s why you want him running the League?”

Himiko shakes her head. “Shigaraki says he wants to burn everything to the ground. He hates everything. He thinks all of it’s rotten, all of it, the heroes, the villains, everything.” She looks at Katsuki, eyes alight. “I asked him, you know, when I joined? I asked if he meant everything. I don’t want the things I love to die.”

“You just said you wanted to kill Stain,” Katsuki says.

Himiko glares at him.

Katsuki understands, now, the kind of person she is. She’s not angry at Shigaraki because he wants to kill everything and she wants the things she loves to be safe. She’s angry because she wants to consume them herself.

She doesn’t realize what she’s given him. At her core, Himiko is starving and, fuck, hunger? Hunger’s something Katsuki knows how to work with.

“When are you going to leave him, then?” He asks.

She frowns. “What?”

“At some point, he’s going to kill something you love,” Katsuki says. “At one point do you walk away?”

It’s the first thing he’s said that’s actually resonated with her. She’s silent, staring at her hands, fingers curling and uncurling. Her wrists are still immobilized by the cuffs.

She’d kept reaching for something that wasn’t there during their spar. Katsuki’s willing to bet that Himiko fights with knives, intent on drawing blood at every opportunity.

“I’m not leaving right now,” she says, finally. “I’m not betraying the League.”

But she doesn’t care about the League, she’s made that clear enough. What is she protecting, then? 

Himiko doesn’t have anything. She’s on the run, divorced from society, robbed of anything she would have once called her own. If it’s something she loves, it’s a person. The question then becomes who she’s protecting.

“You’ve done a pretty good job so far,” Katsuki says, watching her carefully. “You’ve told us about Dabi and Shigaraki.”

“They want you to know,” Himiko says, giggling. “They’re both obsessed with everyone knowing their name. It’s what they would want me to say.”

“So there’s something they don’t want us to know?” He pushes further. “Like where you’re keeping Kirishima?”

Himiko’s casual giggle dissolves into a full laugh. It’s an ugly, genuine shock, turning into something croaky, almost painful to listen to. “Even—even if I told you,” she gasps, hiccuping, “even if I told you where they took him, it would be too late.”

That—no, that doesn’t—the villains wouldn’t abduct Kirishima just to kill him. There’s no reason behind it, no motivation besides the shock factor. They wouldn’t kill someone that strong, not when they could use him. 

She’s trying to rush him, trying to get him sloppy, emotional enough to overlook the slip-up.

“You think I’m gonna believe that?” Katsuki demands. “Your League is dumb as shit but even they aren’t going to kill a kid for zero fucking reason.”

“He’s not dead, ” Himiko mocks. “I could tell you or I couldn’t and it wouldn’t make a difference. Why don’t we talk about something different? Who’s your hero, huh?”

Katsuki doesn’t budge. “So he’s alive? That’s what you’re telling me? He’s alive?”

Himiko sits back, the chains stretching to make room. “Oh, I get it,” she breathes, tone hushed. “You’re not worried we killed him. You’re mad you didn’t get the chance.”

She’s wrong.

Katsuki doesn’t want Kirishima dead. 

But if anything’s going to break his fucking shield, it’s going to be Katsuki’s explosions. Not blue fire, not Shigaraki’s lethal hands—Kirishima doesn’t lose to anyone but if he does, if anyone is going to surpass him, it’s going to be Katsuki.

“I’ll make it easy for you,” Himiko says, eyes crinkled. “Chase after him if you want, but you’ll be disappointed. They beat you to it. He’s not dead, but he’s as good as.”

Chapter Text

“Again,” Endeavour orders.

Katsuki grits his teeth and complies. “I started off by getting her to talk about Stain. She’s in love with the guy, he’s basically her hero. She doesn’t like Shigaraki all that much, though, especially in comparison to Stain. They don’t agree when it comes to the League’s big idea. I wanted to see if this would make her willing to betray him or, at least, tell us where they’re keeping Kirishima.”

He digs his nails into his palms, looks right at Endeavour to make sure he’s fucking listening. If Katsuki has to say this one more time, he’s going to lose it.

“She told me it wouldn’t matter if she told me or not because it was—because it was too late. I asked if he was dead and she said,” and his nails break through the skin, “that he’s not dead but he’s as good as.”

“She said that exactly?” Endeavour asks. “She said that Kirishima is as good as dead?”

“How many fucking times—”

“I wasn’t in the room,” Endeavour hisses, “and I need to make sure that—”

“That I heard her correctly?” Katsuki demands. “You need to make sure that you fucked up and a hero is dead? I’ve said it twice now, asshole, the words aren’t going to change no matter how many times I say them.”

“This is the process,” Endeavour says, smoke billowing from his nose. “You wanted to play interrogator, Bakugou? You did well, I respect that. Now, we go over every single second of that interaction as many times as we need to find a lead. Can you handle that?”

All Might had escorted him out of the interrogation room after Himiko dropped her bomb. He’d taken the blame for letting Katsuki speak to her again but all the complaints immediately dropped off when Katsuki revealed what it was, exactly, that she’d said.

Almost every pro is in this room, listening to him speak. The Pussycats are all with the rest of the class, making sure they’re safe and attempting to get some training in, however minimal. Everyone else, though, Aizawa, Vlad King, even Hawks and Best Jeanist, they’re sitting quietly, eyes trained on Katsuki. 

Endeavour’s not beating him down in this room. Not in front of this crowd. 

Katsuki lifts his chin. “If she said he’s as good as dead, that means he’s still alive.”

“In a technical sense, maybe,” Vlad King says. “They might have tortured him for information. We have no way of gauging the intensity of his injuries.”

“She could have just told you he was dead,’” Best Jeanist says, frowning. “Why specify?”

“Maybe she wants us to keep looking?” Hawks suggests. 

“We would have kept looking regardless,” Aizawa says, shaking his head. “It’s possible the response was to invoke a reaction. A large part of why she was able to go off the radar for so long despite her quirk is her ability to manipulate others into seeing what she wants them to see.”

Katsuki wracks his brain, trying to think of something that would explain Himiko’s behaviour. 

It’s difficult. The bulk of what she’d said had been purposefully casual, designed to throw him off the mark. She’d slipped up at the end, revealing her genuine feelings for Stain and showing Katsuki her true motivations.

The first time he’d gone to see her. She’d mentioned something about motivations then, too, about the bigger picture, about what exactly the League was working towards.

“The first time I went in to talk to her,” Katsuki says slowly, “she said something about this being how the League was going to make their mark.”

“Do you remember her exact words?” Endeavour asks.

“Yeah. I told her we didn’t know who was behind the kidnapping and she said ‘Shigaraki’s not going to be happy. He said this was how we were going to make our mark.’ I thought she was talking about the formation of the League but what if she was talking about the kidnapping?”

“You think they’re going to try and use Kirishima for something,” Vlad King surmises.

“It makes sense,” All Might says, backing Katsuki. “Why would they kidnap Kirishima just to kill him?” 

He’s right. Killing Kirishima would be cruel, sure, but no one would know about it. There would be no big show, no way to show the public what they were capable of. Cruelty without resonance would just be inefficient. 

“Himiko said Kirishima was approached by the villain called Dabi at the mall,” Best Jeanist said. “Security footage confirmed that. Have we considered the idea that they were attempting to have Kirishima join the League?”

It’s in line with Katsuki’s earlier theory. He’d abandoned it after the heroes had brought Himiko back and, in the splintering panic of hearing that Kirishima might be dead, it had slipped his mind.

“He wouldn’t join them willingly,” he says quietly. “So they targeted him while he was cut off from the rest of us, in the forest.” And it slots into place like a key turning a lock. “That’s what she meant when she said Kirishima was as good as dead. They probably fucked with his brain to get him on their side.”

The room is eerily silent. Kirishima is too fucking young to be a prisoner of war.

“That does add another layer of complexity to this investigation,” Best Jeanist says, after a moment. “Whoever we find, he might not want to come home.”

“His quirk is perfect for the kind of operation they run,” Hawks says. “Kid’s basically a tank, right? Train him until he can hold steady against just about anything, have him take all the hits, go in after and conquer.”

“There has to be more,” All Might says, frowning. “Himiko said this was how they were going to make their mark. Using Kirishima as a battering ram is helpful, yes, but it isn’t going to change the way society views them.”

All Might, more than anyone, knows exactly what goes into crafting a legacy. “They’re going to use him for something else,” he says confidently. “The impact of having a hero student as the face of their League would be catastrophic.”

“Shigaraki’s too egotistical to let him be the face of the organization,” Aizawa counters. 

All Might inclines his head, conceding. “A weapon, then,” he says.

And that’s—terrifying.

Katsuki’s main issue with Kirishima has always been that he doesn’t try hard enough. How is Katsuki supposed to fight properly knowing his opponent isn’t giving it his all? 

Even handicapping himself, though, Kirishima had been unbeatable. His shield had only ever gone down when he had given up, never because Katsuki had been strong enough to shatter it. 

No villain would build a weapon they didn’t intend to win with.

Kirishima’s already so strong. Katsuki can’t conceptualize anything more. What would that fight even look like? A Kirishima that couldn’t be knocked down, moving forward without obstacle. Katsuki could throw a punch and it would be his knuckles that would bleed, his skin that would split open. 

Touching Kirishima would be an attack all on its own. 

“That makes this easier, at least,” Aizawa says. “If they were keeping him for information, they would hide him so that they wouldn’t lose their source. But if they want him to fight, they’re going to have to bring him out sometime.”

“So, what?” Katsuki demands. “That’s it? We just wait for them to bring him out and see if we can intercept? If they bring him out, that means they’re confident that he’s not going to try and escape.”

It sounds like a bullshit plan. Are they supposed to just sit around, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for Kirishima to be so irreversibly fucked in the head that he’ll go along with whatever Shigaraki has planned for him?

“We don’t have anything else,” Aizawa says flatly. “We can collaborate with the police, see what we can get out of Himiko, but at the moment all our suspects are completely off the grid and we have zero location. There isn’t anything we can do.”

Katsuki slouches in his seat, elbows digging into his thighs. Aizawa’s an underground hero. He’s the guy that works the cases that no one cares about. He’s used to this, the lack of leads, the secrecy, the ambiguity. Katsuki’s not going to talk back against all that experience and get cast as the idiot kid who’s bitten off more than he can chew.

He understands all of it. He doesn’t like it, or agree with it, but he understands all of it.

There’s a knock at the door. Endeavour stands up to open it. 

Detective Naomasa peeks his head in, flushing lightly at the focused stares from a room full of pros. “We found something,” he says, tripping over himself. “We’re not sure if it’s useful, yet, but I called some of my undercover contacts and they mentioned a villain named Twice. Does the name mean anything to you?”

No one speaks up.

Naomasa falters. “He’s incredibly dangerous. His quirk, Double, allows him to create an exact duplicate of anything, even living things.”

“That’s it?” Endeavour asks, leaning forward. “No draw-backs?”

“None,” Naomasa says, shaking his head. “What makes him especially dangerous is that, when he clones living people, they have their own autonomy. He has no control over their actions. Essentially, his quirk is completely unpredictable.”

“Can he clone himself?” Best Jeanist asks.

“We’re not sure,” Naomasa says. “But there’s nothing that suggests he can’t.”

Oh, what the fuck. If he can clone himself, he’s basically a one-man army. By the grim atmosphere of the room, everyone else seems to have come to that conclusion as well.

Naomasa continues. “My contact claimed that Twice had approached him, asking if he wanted to join the League of Villains. He refused and, since then, he hasn’t heard anything.”

Is that it? Twice sounds scary as shit, but the news that the League has an S-Rank villain on their side isn’t helpful any more than it is reassuring.

“We have a direct confirmation that the villain Twice is a member of the League of Villains,” Naomasa says. “For some reason, he wasn’t on the list of members Himiko named.”

“You’re sure,” Best Jeanist says, eyes narrowed.

Naomasa nods. “I went over it three times and had my colleagues confirm as well. What I can’t figure out is why she wouldn’t name him.”

Himiko doesn’t care about the League. She’s fine with tossing out information as long as it’s effectively worthless. She’d named the other members too easily for them to be anything important.

She keeps the important things quiet.

She hadn’t mentioned Twice.

I’m not leaving right now. I’m not betraying the League.

“She’s protecting him,” Katsuki murmurs.

Hawks turns to him sharply. “What?”

“Most of the information she gives us is stuff she doesn’t care if we know, right?” Katsuki asks. “The League being behind the kidnapping, Kirishima being alive, none of that matters to her, so she was fine with telling us. If we know Twice is in the League, but Himiko didn’t mention him, it’s going to be because she cares about him. She didn’t want us knowing his name.”

“Hey, Aizawa,” Hawks says, after a pause, “where the hell did you find this kid.”

“He was left in a basket on the steps of U.A.,” Aizawa deadpans.

Surprisingly enough, Endeavour is the one that recommends that Katsuki speaks to Himiko again. The other heroes all defer to All Might and All Might, in this situation, defers to Endeavour, so the suggestion passes. 

Katsuki considers ribbing on him for all of three seconds before he remembers that Endeavour is the sort of guy who would rescind the offer and go forward with the interrogation himself.

“You’re not going to give me any pointers?” He asks, halfway-genuine.

It’s just the two of them, standing outside the door of the interrogation room. Endeavour’s flames are still up but they’re low, flickering like candles left lit for too long. 

“You’ve got a knack for it,” Endeavour says. “There isn’t much to say. Keep her talking, do what you need to do to get her to open up.” 

It’s almost a carbon copy of what All Might told Katsuki, that first time. Katsuki’s just now realizing who he learned it from.

“You’ll give me as long as I need?”

“No interruptions,” Endeavour says, nodding.

And then he leaves for the observation room and Katsuki walks inside.

“It’s getting late, isn’t it?” Himiko asks. “Why are you still here?”

“We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon,” Katsuki offers, easily enough. Information for information. Himiko needs to feel like she’s getting somewhere with him. “I wanted to talk to you before they lock you up in Tartarus.”

Actually, he’s not sure that she’s headed for Tartarus. She’s a kid. There’s still baby fat on her cheeks. But she’s unhinged and she talks about killing people the same way other people talk about going out for dinner. The Hero Commission doesn’t tend to see much of a difference between kids and adults anyway, not when there are powerful quirks involved. 

“I hurt you, last time,” Himiko says, not looking very remorseful.

“I got over it,” Katsuki says.

“I don’t think you did,” Himiko says. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t still trying to find him.”

“You don’t have anyone you would look for?” Katsuki asks. Himiko hums, tilting her head to the side like she’s thinking, except the humming is loud and the movement is so exaggerated her neck looks like it’s disjointed. Katsuki strikes. “Not even Twice?”

The shift is immediate.

Up until now, every movement Himiko’s made has been exaggerated. The gasps, the pouts, the giggles—all magnified for effect, like a circus clown pandering for laughs. The invocation of Twice’s name drags it all out of her, leaving her sitting still and poised and quiet.

Katsuki feels a little like a miner, pawing through mud and rocks and emerging with gold clutched tightly in his fist.

Himiko doesn’t say anything, not immediately. She regards Katsuki carefully, yellow eyes tracking him like searchlights. This needle-point focus, lethal in its intensity—yeah, Katsuki can see how a parent would be scared if their daughter looked at them like that. 

“Your heart’s beating faster,” Himiko says quietly. 

“You can hear that?”

She bares her teeth. “I can see it.”

“You know what I see?” Katsuki asks. “I see you protecting a guy who doesn’t give a shit about you. You’ve been caught, arrested, you’re cuffed in a room with a bunch of angry heroes, and where the hell is he?”

“It’s not like that,” Himiko growls.

“No,” Katsuki taunts, cruelty slipping over his tongue like an old friend, “no, I get it. He’s older than you, right? Showed you the ropes? Taught you how to survive? Fuck, you’re probably in love with him.” 

Now this, this is old-hat. Katsuki isn’t a natural-born interrogator, no matter what All Might seems to think. He’s just spent most of his life learning how to hit someone and make it hurt. Himiko’s an open wound and Katsuki’s hands are full of salt.

“He left you here, you know that?” Katsuki asks. “He chose Kirishima and left you to get eaten alive by the wolves. Even if you think he’s worth protecting, he sure as hell doesn’t think you are.”

“You have no idea—”

“They’re going to lock you up,” Katsuki interrupts, “for the rest of your life, until you decompose in that fucking room, they’re going to lock you up. No people, no blood, just food slipped under your door. You think you’re hungry now? You’ll die starving.”

There’s blood caked under Himiko’s nails. Her hands smear red on the table.

It’s an ultimatum. “You love him,” Katsuki says, “but do you love him more than being full?”

Himiko looks at him like she wants him dead. “You’ll lock me up anyway.”

“You’re a kid,” Katsuki says. “They’re gonna wanna lighten your sentence as much as you can. Easier if you help us out.”

He gets it. Any hero would. They all have people that they love but if All Might had to choose between his best friend and his quirk, the entire world knows exactly who he would choose.

“There’s an abandoned building,” Himiko says eventually, voice acidic enough to dissolve concrete. “In Kamino Ward.”

“I’ll get you a map,” Katsuki drawls. “You think you can point it out for me?”

He strides out of the room ten minutes later, annotated map in hand, and slams it down in front of Aizawa. 

“I got your fucking location,” he snarls. “Can we do something now?”

Aizawa sighs. “Bakugou,” he says, almost pleadingly, “what I’m about to say is going to make you angry. All I ask is that you don’t explode the lodge. Can you do that?”

Katsuki flexes his hands. “That depends on what you have to say.”

Aizawa closes his eyes as if feigning sleep is going to make all of this go away. “You can’t come on the rescue mission.”

He snaps his eyes open just in time to activate Erasure.

The first time Overhaul asks if Eijirou is tired, he’s got blood all the way up to his elbows.

They have two more deals after the first, one in an alley behind a club, the second out by the docks. The first deal goes alright—the most eventful moment is one where Eijirou’s pretty sure he gets propositioned by someone with zero fucking fear, but Overhaul smooths past it too quick for him to even register it fully. 

The second deal, on the other hand, can be cleanly classified as a disaster. For one, the clients don’t bring the agreed-upon sum of money, and Overhaul point blank refuses to hand over the briefcase.

Or, more accurately, he refuses to let Eijirou hand over the briefcase.

The clients get a little agitated, at that, arguing over semantics and pay-back schedules and how, exactly, Overhaul expects to run a business if he doesn’t stay flexible. Overhaul doesn’t budge.

It’s at this point that they decide to take the briefcase by force. 

Overhaul watches, amused, as the bullets ricochet off of Eijirou’s skin (and can it even be classified as skin, now?) outright smirking as one of the bullets catches one of the gunmen in the shoulder.

The noise hurts more than the bullets. Eijirou closes his eyes against the flares of light that accompany the gunfire. 

Eventually, they run out of bullets. 

Overhaul has Eijirou beat one of the gunmen until he’s unsteady and unrecognizable, eyes swollen shut, arms hanging at odd angles. The training with the Nomu’s, however brief, prepared him well for this. He’s so used to fighting supersoldiers that a couple of low-level drug dealers is nothing.

“Kick him off the pier.”

Eijirou does. The guy flails around, crying out the whole time. His arms are broken. He can’t swim.

“What are you waiting for?” Overhaul asks the other client, eyebrows raised like an exasperated teacher. “He’s going to die if you don’t go and help.”

The client just stares at him, jaw hung upon, spluttering.

“Go on,” Overhaul says softly. “Bring him back.”

Bravado gone, the client takes one, terrified look back at Eijirou. He jumps.

The drowning man screams as he’s brought back onto the pier, broken bones tossed limply back onto the splintered wood. His friend curls up beside him, panting.

“I want the full amount,” Overhaul says, looking down at them sternly. The second guy, the one who’d jumped in on Overhaul’s command, nods aggressively, flinching as his partner coughs up seawater.

“Yeah, yeah, of course, we’ll get it—”

Overhaul says—“Leave us” and they stumble to their feet, footsteps unsteady as they head back down the pier. 

Alone, they stand in silence for a moment, looking out across the water. There are no boats this late, no lights to cut through the darkness.

“Are you tired?”

Eijirou startles. Overhaul doesn’t ask him questions. Is he allowed to talk? How is he meant to respond?

Hesitant, he nods. He’s always tired.

“Stand still,” Overhaul orders. “Don’t move.”

And this, this is familiar ground with him. Directions, clear-cut. Eijirou stands still and does not move.

Overhaul touches him and Eijirou feels—weightless.

There’s a roaring sound in his ears, like a plane taking off, and it gradually gets louder and tinnier until it dissolves into a steady ringing. Everything is dark. Eijirou doesn’t remember closing his eyes.

His senses fall away, one by one. The ringing stops abruptly, the smell of the ocean fades away. In one fell stroke, his world is narrowed down to the pain blooming inside of him.

Eijirou knows pain. The sting of his quirk cutting right above his eye, Bakugou’s explosions burning him down into defeat, Ujiko, taping plastic to his skin as his lungs stopped breathing—he’d thought he’d never feel anything like it again.

His mind floats like oil on water, distorted. Nothing comes through, everything hurts like a cattle prod on an exposed nerve. The world, suddenly, feels very big.

He feels—large, or not large, but wide, but boundless, every inch of him electrified, burning at the stake.

The universe, Ashido had once explained to him, is constantly expanding. There’s a hypothetical scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, where this expansion eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, causing every planet, every galaxy, every white-hot star to be condensed into one cosmically-concentrated point. 

That’s what it feels like. The expanse of his body splinters, the edges curling in, and heat rushes in with a vengeance, pushing against the boundaries of his rapidly accelerating shrinkage. Everything grows smaller, everything burns more. Eijirou hurts.

And then he can see again. The pier, the water, the blood staining the wood. 

 He’s oversensitive. The slightest brush of wind on his body feels like a knife wound. It’s all pressure, like Overhaul is still compressing him, cutting off the unessential parts.

“You’re not tired anymore,” Overhaul says, and it’s phrased like a question but it sounds like an order.

Regardless, he’s right. Eijirou doesn’t feel tired. He’s sore and in pain but he could fight another three Nomu’s with the amount of energy he’s got. He hasn’t felt this energized since… he can’t even remember when. 

It’s just another way the villains have made him stronger.

After the deal down at the docks, Eijirou begins to spend more and more of his time with Overhaul. 

He learns a lot about him, this way. Overhaul gets driven everywhere. They spend most of the day driving to different areas and Eijirou’s never seen Overhaul’s hands even touch the wheel. 

What’s more, the guy isn’t as well-off as Eijirou had previously assumed. His clothes are pristine. His cars go from zero to two hundred and fifty kilometres in a matter of seconds. But the base, where the Shie Hassaikai carry out the bulk of their operations, is falling apart. 

There’s water damage in most of the ceilings. Everyone else starts shivering the minute they walk in. Most of the members are either people who have been there too long to leave or recent, untrained members, gained in the last couple of weeks.

It doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to pick out the game-changer. Overhaul dragged an organization from the brink of extinction up to the upper levels of villain society, and he did it by inventing bullets that have the ability to kill a person’s quirk.

The thing is, Overhaul doesn’t talk to him unless it’s the sort of command he might give a dog, so all the information Eijirou has on the bullets, he’s gleaned either by eavesdropping or from Shigaraki.

The quirk-killing bullets have a name—Origin. 

Overhaul, like Shigaraki, holds a harsh disdain for present-day hero society. He thinks every problem that faces the world can be traced back to the creation of quirks and, more recently, the heroes who use them to fight. 

The first client’s question makes more sense, now. 

How're you gonna advocate for Quirk-Killing bullets when your bodyguard looks like that? 

The answer is obvious. Once quirks are eliminated, Overhaul’s yakuza will be able to reclaim their glory days. Whether or not he’ll keep his quirk after that, Eijirou doesn’t know. He hadn’t been brave enough to ask Shigaraki and, even if he had, Shigaraki probably wouldn’t have been able to give him a clear answer.

Privately, Eijirou doesn’t know what he would prefer Overhaul to do. 

His quirk is—similar to Shigaraki’s. Where Shigaraki needs his whole hand for it to work, though, Overhaul’s quirk is activated with as little as one finger.

It’s easily the most painful thing he’s ever encountered, and his threshold for that has been jacked up with the rest of him. Before Ujiko’s experiment, Overhaul’s quirk would have left him for dead. Now, though, it just makes him wish he was. 

By definition, it’s a solution. Eijirou isn’t fainting all over the place anymore. He’s out all day, guarding Overhaul and the precious weapon he’s distributing across the city’s underbelly and, whenever exhaustion creeps up his back, Overhaul unstitches the seams of his body and puts him back together, good as new.

Except it’s like surgery without the anesthetic. Except it’s Overhaul, ripping him open, blood dripping like condensation, organs scrubbed clean. Except it’s like being paralyzed all over again, motionless in agony, Ujiko reaching down his throat to brand Eijirou down to the cellular level. 

The way Shigaraki explains it, Overhaul can take something apart and restore it to its original form. He takes Eijirou’s body and he erases every evidence of stress, of exhaustion, of not-up-to-code and he leaves him bloody and new, energized and in pain. 

Mostly, it’s convenient. He can admit that easily enough. Eijirou assists Overhaul and, when that’s done, he trains with the Nomu’s, working his way through the ranks. The fights get longer the higher up he goes but he can taste the improvement on his tongue. A Nomu that would have taken him the better part of a day to defeat only takes an hour. 

Overhaul’s quirk means he doesn’t need to sleep. 

There’s a statistic Eijirou remembers dimly, the forty-two percent rule. The body and brain require forty-two percent of a person’s time to be spent resting.

But Eijirou’s brain has been reworked. His body is remade at least once a day, every imperfection lost to Overhaul’s fingertips. He is an anomaly. Ujiko hadn’t meant to, but he’s managed to eliminate the concept of rest.

It’s interesting, the people they meet in this line of work. 

Overhaul’s driver drops them off in front of a house. 

Overhaul walks in front. Eijirou follows him, briefcase in hand. 

The house is aesthetically perfect. The lawn is neatly trimmed and the garden is manicured, lilies lining the way to the door. It’s a far call from the parking garages, warehouses, and back-alleys that Eijirou’s seen so far.

Overhaul motions for him to ring the doorbell. Eijirou’s fingers are too big to press the tiny button. He knocks, instead. From behind the door come footsteps, a silhouette growing larger behind the glass pane. 

A woman opens the door. She is tiny too, her head barely brushing Eijirou’s chin.

“Come in,” she says, smiling. “Thanks for coming on short notice, my sister-in-law’s been here a lot lately, and I didn’t want any scheduling conflicts.”

Overhaul doesn’t say anything. He’s not good with small talk.

Even though she’s opened her home to them, Overhaul stands motionless on the welcome mat, cataloguing the home with careful eyes. “Do you have the payment?”

She bites her lip, handing over a thick brown envelope. “Cash. Non-consecutive bills. It’s all there.”

Overhaul cuts through the envelope cleanly and peers inside. The woman shifts her weight, crossing her arms tightly. 

After a moment, he nods. At this, Eijirou clicks open the briefcase.

The woman doesn’t look like the other villains they’ve met. She doesn’t regale them with tales of heroes encroaching on her space, police officers sniffing out underground operations. 

When she first lays her eyes on Origin, the woman sighs in relief. “I’ve got a kid,” she says quietly. “And I love him to death, but his quirk’s too strong. I can’t handle it.” She looks up. Meets Eijirou’s eyes. “How old are you?”

“It can’t understand you,” Overhaul says briskly and she apologizes quickly, fully believing him.

It makes sense that she would believe him. Eijirou hasn’t said anything so far, he’s barely even looked at her, and he doesn’t move without Overhaul’s cue. It’s an accurate assumption. It’s not on her.

“My father said you guys got it to last longer…?”

“The effects will begin to wear off after a few months,” Overhaul says. “At which point you can contact us again. It is likely that we will have a permanent solution by then.”

“Permanent,” she mumbles. Louder, then, and conscious—“Alright, thank you.”

Eijirou carefully places the case in her arms. Now that she’s mentioned it, he can pick out the signs of a kid living in the house—toys strewn across the floor, drawings on the walls, done in shaky coloured pencil. 

The kid can’t be older than four.

Overhaul clears his throat. He doesn’t want to stay here longer than he needs to. Eijirou opens the door for him, the handle crumpling like paper in his hands.

It turns out that the tired mother with the messy house was their only drop for the day. Overhaul drops Eijirou off to train with Shigaraki, before disappearing into the bowels of the yakuza base.

“Where did you guys go this time?” Shigaraki asks, curious. He likes knowing about Eijirou’s exploits with Overhaul. 

“A house,” Eijirou says.

“A house?”

“A house,” Eijirou repeats. Does Shigaraki not know what a house is? “It’s a small building where people live, usually for families but—”

“I know what a house is,” Shigaraki snaps, a vein pulsing in his temple. “I just thought it was a strange choice of location. He’s never taken you to one before, has he?”

Well, no. 

“I think she knew Overhaul,” Eijirou says. “She mentioned her father saying something about Origin. He could be part of Shie Hassaikai, or in contact with them, at least.”

“So it was a favour,” Shigaraki presses. 

“It could be.”

Shigaraki looks pensive. “I didn’t know he had anyone he would do a favour for. Do you know who it could be for?”

“No,” Eijirou says. “He doesn’t tell me anything.”

“You said ‘she,’” Shigaraki says, then. “Who was there?”

“A woman,” Eijirou says, remembering the relief on her face. “A mom. She got the drug for her kid.”

“Overhaul gave her the bullets?”

“It was in pill form,” Eijirou says. “He was working on that, I think.” Shigaraki makes a face at that, like he’s just eaten something sour. Eijirou’s brain-to-mouth filter is fuzzier, nowadays. It’s harder for him to hold things back. 

“Are you worried he’ll poison you?”

Shigaraki opens his mouth, then slowly closes it. “How about you let me worry about that,” he says, after a moment, “and you go back to doing what you’re good at.”

Eijirou can do that. 

He spends the rest of the afternoon taking hit after hit, unwavering in the face of Ujiko’s Nomu’s.

To the heroes, they are breakable. They see my soldiers as corpses, already dead, quirks bottled up in a decaying body.

How is that different from Eijirou? Shigaraki decays dead Nomu’s every day, unworried that they’ll face a shortage if the time ever comes. Eijirou has his pick of victims.

Ujiko must hate me, he thinks, and he cracks a Nomu’s skull open on his knee.

Katsuki’s been ranting to the boys’ cabin for the past ten minutes. He knows this because Kaminari has a little whiteboard that says Minutes Bakugou Has Spent Ruining My Poor, Sensitive Ears and the whiteboard currently reads 1-0 in wide, shaky scrawl. Kaminari writes like a fucking five-year-old.

“This was me,” Katsuki yells, tearing at his hair. “This was all fucking me and they think that, what they can just leave me behind? If I hadn’t stepped in, Aizawa would still be teaching Himiko how to crack a fucking egg.”

“She was pretty shit at that” Sero nods, uncapping a marker and replacing the zero with another one.

“I thought All Might would have said something,” Deku says. “Didn’t he let you go talk to her when Endeavour said you couldn’t?”

Katsuki whirls around to face him so quickly that Deku flinches back, smacking his head against the top bunk. 

“All Might,” he hisses, “is a trick-ass bitch. ”

All Might had let him talk to Himiko again and again and a-fucking-gain, all the while gathering intel that Katsuki had fucking bled for and using it to build an operation that he had no intention of letting Katsuki see even one second of.

“He took advantage of me,” he says, pacing across the cabin. “None of the other fucking interrogators could get Himiko to say shit so he gets me, tells me I’m a goddamn natural, and then he uses me when I gave him the fucking map!”

“You kind of sound like you’re going through a breakup,” Kaminari says, freezing when Katsuki turns to glare at him. “...Which is what I would say if I didn’t value still having my eyes in my skull. But I do. Value that, I mean.”

“I’ll break him,” Katsuki grumbles, going back to pacing. “Jesus fucking Christ, I had her circle the fucking place. The villain hideout that all these fuckasses have been searching for all day, I got it in five minutes. Less than, even. Aizawa said we didn’t have leads and I fucking gave him one and how does he reward me? By sending me back to sleep with you jackasses!”

 The room is quiet as he pauses to catch his breath.

Iida clears his throat. “You know, Bakugou,” he says, fiddling with his glasses, “I have—well I was just thinking—that is, if you don’t consider this overstepping, I wouldn’t want to—”

“Out with it, Glasses,” Katsuki snaps.

“That’s a little on the nose,” Iida says, as if to himself. At Kaminari’s snicker, he flushes, awkwardly steamrolling past it. “I just meant—you gave them the location, didn’t you?”

Katsuki huffs, remembering the dead-fish stare Aizawa had given him as he’d waved the map in his face. “Yeah.”

“So,” Iida says, “do you still remember the location she marked?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki says again. Does Iida think he can’t remember a single fucking building? “It’s an abandoned unit in Kamino Ward, on the outskirts of the entertainment district.”

“Wait, Iida,” Deku stutters, nervously side-eying Katsuki. “Stop for a second, just think about—”

“Go die in a hole,” Katsuki snaps. “Iida. Talk.”

“If you know where it is,” Iida says slowly, “why don’t you just go?”

Oh, holy shit.

“Hey, Pres,” Katsuki says reverently, “you’re a fucking genius.”

“Don’t do that,” Kaminari exclaims. “Are you fucking nuts? Iida, bro, you know I love you, but just because you went on a one-man revenge quest doesn’t mean—”

“No, no, that’s exactly what it means,” Katsuki says, already picturing it in his head. “Holy shit, can you imagine Endeavour’s face ?”

“That does sound funny,” Todoroki says blandly. “I would like to come also.”

“This isn’t a fucking slumber party,” Katsuki refuses.

“What’s a slumber party?” Todoroki asks.

Yeah, no. Katsuki’s not going to be socializing Todoroki. He is not a zookeeper and Todoroki is not a tiny orangutan baby raised in captivity. That’s not the kind of outfit Katsuki’s running here.

“A slumber party would be the perfect alternative to whatever Bakugou’s thinking of right now,” Sero tells him helpfully. “We could get facemasks and music playing and play Spin-The-Bottle.”

“I don’t think we have a bottle,” Iida says, momentarily distracted.

“How is that your only objection?” Ojiro asks. “Bakugou, listen, I don’t think—”

“Not taking criticism from a guy with a tail,” Katsuki says, very purposefully ignoring him.

Ojiro peers at him, confused. “This is just—this is how I was made, I don’t—”

“Bakugou,” Satou asks, tone exasperated, which Katsuki thinks is unfair, given the number of times Satou has ranted about Aizawa critiquing his poached eggs, “what even is your plan?”

“Get a disguise first, obviously,” Katsuki says. “Then scout out the building, make sure I know my escape routes. They’re probably holding him below ground, so that’s where I’ll check first. Then I’ll find Kirishima and get the fuck out of there.”

A pause.

“I didn’t think you’d actually have a plan,” Satou says.

“Well, I’m not fucking Deku,” Katsuki says, rolling his eyes.

Deku raises his hand like he wants to defend himself, sees the look on Katsuki’s face, and wisely puts his hand back down. Good. Nerd knows what’s good for him.

“That’s oversimplified,” Shouji says, the tilt of his arm-mouth distinctly displeased. “How are you going to scout the place out without getting noticed? Even if you do get Kirishima, what if he’s restrained? What if he’s guarded? There’re too many unknown variables.”

“But you would do it anyway, wouldn’t you.” Iida’s voice is deathly serious.

Obviously. What kind of question is that? Shouji’s incomplete algebra problem isn’t enough to take away from the fact that Katsuki’s been royally fucked over.

Iida doesn’t say it like he’s wondering, though, he’s saying it like he knows. Like even if Aizawa had figured out about his plan and shoved him into an isolated cell before he could go out and kill someone, Iida would have figured out a way to get to Hosu and rain hellfire down on the dickhead who hurt his brother.

“Yeah, I would,” Katsuki says.

“So then say that,” Iida says, like it’s simple. “You’re serious, aren’t you? All Might and Aizawa will know you are as well. Go and tell them that either they bring you along and make sure you’re following orders or you’re going by yourself and potentially jeopardizing not only your safety but that of the mission.”

The cabin is silent for a few minutes.

“You couldn’t have led with that?” Kaminari speaks up first, so incredulous that he starts laughing in the middle of his sentence. “Iida, dude, why’d you start at, like, incredibly dangerous undercover op and then dial it all the way down to, like, passive-aggressive threats?”

Iida just blinks at him, confused.

“Nevermind,” Kaminari says, calming down. “Nevermind just, Bakugou, that sounds like a way better plan.”

Everyone else gradually agrees, although none of them look particularly jazzed that Katsuki’s going to be inserting himself into a mission. 

“I’m not going to fuck it up,” Katsuki feels the need to mention. “If any of you think—”

“Dude, you’ve got it wrong,” Sero says, somehow making it seem like reassurance and reproach all at once. “We’re just worried. We want you to be safe, that’s all.”

Oh.

They’re worried about him. They want him to come back safe. He’s an asshole and they still want him coming back safe. 

“You’re all lame,” Katsuki barks. He storms out the door before he can do something equally lame, like confess that he’s pretty goddamn worried too.

The really annoying thing is, Aizawa doesn’t even look surprised at his ultimatum. He just sort of waves Katsuki in the general direction of the heroes.

“We were taking bets on how long it would take for you to come back,” Hawks confides, grinning at him. “You just won me a thousand yen.”

Katsuki reminds himself that it’s frowned upon to punch nationally ranked pros in the face, even if they’re betting on him like he’s a racehorse with a bad knee.

“Have you ever wondered if they’re coming for you?” Shigaraki asks.

Eijirou looks at him. “Who?”

“The heroes,” Shigaraki says. “It’s been a while. Aren’t you hurt that they haven’t shown up yet?”

It’s an odd question. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just curious,” Shigaraki says lightly. Right. He likes knowing everything about Eijirou.

“I didn’t expect them to come for me,” Eijirou says, after a moment. “They might have looked but the trail would have gone cold eventually, right? Between Kurogiri’s mist and Dabi being dead, all their leads would be dead.”

Thinking about his time at U.A. is hard. Conceptually, he understands that it can’t have been too long since he was back there, learning with his classmates and teasing each other about things far-off in the future, like fan mail and merch deals.

It just feels like all of that was experienced by a different person. When Eijirou tries to remember things, it’s almost as if he’s a third-party audience, looking at the film reel in a dark movie theatre, thinking jeez, that guy’s an idiot. 

“Besides,” he continues, “even if they did find me, I doubt they would let me be a hero after they found out about… everything.”

“It almost sounds like you don’t want them to find you,” Shigaraki muses, the corners of his lips curling up. He doesn’t ask Eijirou to answer the question.

Eijirou doesn’t even know what he would say.

Chapter Text

Overhaul has guests over.

Eijirou, of course, only learns this from Shigaraki, who’s starting to become his informant into the world of yakuza politics. Apparently, Overhaul is trying to mend bridges between other local yakuza groups. It’s all part of his plan to phase out quirks, heroes, and villains, and end up in a world where yakuza are the ones controlling the cities and calling the shots.

Privately, Eijirou doesn’t really see how one dinner with one group is going to help with that. He’s never been the best at seeing the big picture, though. It’s the reason why his life path was centered around being a hero student and not the leader of a criminal organization.

The Shie Hassaikai base has a dining room, large and opulent, with a dining table that stretches out like taffy and chandeliers that Muscular would have to be careful not to knock his head against.

Eijirou isn’t quite sure how the catering situation works. He’s ninety-nine percent certain that he’s never seen so much as a kitchen anywhere in the base, so Overhaul couldn’t have had in-house chefs whipping up the meals at every place setting. Where’d all the food come from, then? Did he just order from a local restaurant and tell them to drop it off at the sketchy building on the outskirts of town with the armed guards in front of it?

He’s so zoned out, thinking about how, exactly, Overhaul managed to acquire a metric ton of food for his criminal guests, that, when the guests start filing one, one of them actually mistakes him for a statue. 

She pokes and prods at his body, fingertips barely brushing the bared ridges of what used to be skin.  Eijirou doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.

“Is this a new art piece?”

Overhaul looks over at her sharply. “That’s my bodyguard.”

“Really,” she hums, thumb navigating the cement bird-nest that is Eijirou’s hair. “Where did you find him?”

“He’s one of a kind,” Shigaraki cuts in, oozing condescension. “Pretty incredible, isn’t he?”

“Very,” she agrees, leaning in to stare right at his eyes. Eijirou can’t help but look back. She turns away immediately and goes to sit down with everyone else.

Aside from that, no one else bothers Eijirou for the rest of the dinner. Overhaul seems to have hired servers for the night in addition to the most oblivious restaurant in Japan, and they bring out course after course, piling the table with sauteed scallops, pressed sushi, and braised wagyu beef. 

The conversation is polite but smooth. Overhaul isn’t exactly a social butterfly but he’s good at leading the conversation into certain directions and extrapolating more than anyone is aware of. He draws his guests in with glittering anecdotes and inquires about their organization in a way that is so wrapped in subtlety that they don’t even realize they’re dropping valuable information about their resources, finances, and manpower.

Eijirou wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been spending the last few days at Overhaul’s beck and call. He’s more than a little proud of the fact that he’s been able to pick up so much in such little time.

From what Eijirou can glean, Overhaul’s gunning for some sort of deal. Increased access to Origin in exchange for the guest organization’s client list. The way dinner is going, he’s looking like he’s about to get it, too.  The other yakuza is enamoured with Origin, to the point that it’s beginning to edge out their need to keep exclusive control of their client list.

Before long, the servers are bringing out dessert. Eijirou salivates at the smell of caramelized sweet potato and brown sugar syrup.

“Does your bodyguard need to eat?” The woman from before is looking in Eijirou’s direction, eyebrows furrowed. 

“No,” Overhaul says shortly. 

He’s not wrong. Eijirou gets all his nutrients in pill form, prescribed by Ujiko. They can’t risk feeding him anything else, given the fragile chemistry of his enhanced quirk. 

“He just looks hungry, is all,” she says.

Overhaul shifts as if he’s about to speak when an attendant hurries up to him and whispers something in his ear. In response, Overhaul murmurs something back, looking strangely alright with the interruption. Eijirou strains to hear but comes up with nothing. 

It must have been good news. Overhaul’s voice is light when he speaks, almost lifted. “The bodyguard is simply understimulated. It needs to fight something every few hours or so. If you’re all full, we can move on to tonight’s entertainment.”

And Eijirou’s been doing this for long enough to know that, for the rest of the evening, he’s going to be the center of fucking attention.

Where Shigaraki has an empty training room, Overhaul has a proper fighting ring. It’s a raised stage painted in slate grey, fenced in with red rope. The ring is surrounded by chairs, so the spectators can be comfortable as they watch Eijirou kill whatever Overhaul’s brought for him today.

“Get in the ring,” Overhaul directs. Eijirou obeys, jumping up onto the stage and ducking under the rope.

There’s no one else here. Or, well, there’s no one that looks like they should be up in the ring with him. Overhaul’s guests are yakuza, sure, but they’re the same kind of sleek that Overhaul is, dressed in well-made fabric and intricate jewelry. None of them look expendable.

“I mentioned that I’d found something effectively invincible,” Overhaul begins, turning to face his audience. “This armour can withstand extreme situations that put most heroes six feet below ground. Fire, ice, none of it succeeds.”

Is this going to be another one of Ujiko’s experiments, just with a peanut gallery? That wouldn’t be so bad. The experiments tend to be more boring than anything else.

“In the past, only explosions have been successful in breaking past the armour,” Overhaul says.

Explosions… like Bakugou’s explosions? 

Why is Overhaul talking about Bakugou?

“Our society is overly dependent on quirks,” Overhaul says, voice echoing across the ring. “Heroes and villains alike ignore science and progress in favour of arbitrary quirks that come about simply by chance. The creature you see in the fighting ring is a product of scientific innovation. Tonight, we will all see which will win—quirks or science.”

Two of Overhaul’s henchmen strongarm a struggling boy up towards the ring, flanking him on both sides. Eijirou gets the feeling it’s more to protect the yakuza in the audience seats than to keep the boy in place.

The henchmen toss him up over the rope into the ring and he immediately struggles upright, wrists rubbed raw from what must have been handcuffs. 

The room erupts in blinding white light, illuminating the boy’s scowling face. 

Bakugou Katsuki stares at Eijirou, recognition flickering in his eyes.

And Eijirou can’t help it. It falls out of his mouth like vomit, scratching up his throat and leaving a bad taste underneath his tongue. 

“You?”

Of all people, it has to be the person who he’s never won against. It has to be the person who’s taunted him, who’s insulted him, who’s beaten him into the fucking ground and kicked dirt in his face.

Bakugou’s been training his entire fucking life and it’s been evident ever since the first day of school, when he’d launched the ball into the stratosphere with nothing but trained-into-existence strength. He doesn’t need a doctor with a god complex to make him strong, he’s made number one by sheer drive and talent. 

It doesn’t matter if his explosions shatter Eijirou’s shield. Inherently, the playing field is imbalanced. If Bakugou wins, he’s beaten the unbeatable. If Eijirou wins, it’s effectively worthless. 

Even on a Friday night, Kamino Ward is packed. It’s an entertainment district, packed with bustling stores and flashy billboards. In it, Katsuki can see the allure that must have drawn Shigaraki in. Here, everyone is invisible. No one’s paying attention to an abandoned building, not if it doesn’t have anything to offer in terms of a fun night out.

“We take a left here,” Best Jeanist directs the driver. “It’s coming up on the right.” To the rest of them, he says, “Keep an eye out for any villains.”

After a minute or two, the car stops. They’re here.

The building doesn’t look like anything special. It’s bulky and dark, the windows boarded up. There’s a banner over it, emblazoned with some bogus real estate number. Katsuki’s ninety-percent sure that calling the number would just result in someone getting Shigaraki on the other line, making weird noises until the caller hung up. 

It’s exactly the kind of thing the other passersby brush past without a second thought. 

“Himiko said the door to the villain bar was on the side of the building, leading out to an alley,” Best Jeanist says. “That’s our best point of entry. If we can take out the villains quickly, we can go through the rest of the building and find Kirishima.”

Katsuki feels a little underdressed, surrounded by a bunch of pros in their hero costumes, while he’s sitting there in jeans and a t-shirt. It’s not like Aizawa had time to send for his costume from U.A.

Whatever. As long as he gets to kick Shigaraki’s face in, it doesn’t matter what he’s wearing.

He follows Best Jeanist out of the car, Hawks right behind him. All Might and Endeavour meet them on the sidewalk. Police cars block off the street, sirens off for discretion. Alerting the villains will leave them scattering and the goal here is to take them all out at once.

Hawks soars up to the roof to guard the rooftop entrance. He crouches on the edge, waving at them cheerily. If this wasn’t a stealth mission, he’d probably be cat-calling Endeavour. As it is, he settles for making a lewd gesture with his hands that has Endeavour exhaling smoke.

“This is why I hate working with kids,” he grumbles, striding for the side door. Best Jeanist doesn’t say anything but All Might grins down at Katsuki, inviting him in on the joke.

Endeavour tries the handle. Predictably, it’s locked.

Katsuki would have figured All Might would break the lock. Instead, Best Jeanist steps up to the door, fingers pinched as if he was holding a pair of drumsticks. Threads fly from his costume, slipping into the lock and Katsuki holds his breath. 

Watching Best Jeanist use his quirk is like watching the conductor of the symphony. He turns something small, something weak, something that snaps in a toddler’s hands into something quietly powerful, capable of turning metal locks and breaking into a villain’s hideout.

Best Jeanist flexes and stretches and curls his fingers for twenty seconds until the lock finally clicks.

It worked.

In an unspoken movement, All Might breaks in first. Jeanist follows him, then Katsuki, with Endeavour protecting his six.

There is only one villain in the bar and he’s fucking huge. When he sees them, he lumbers to his feet, tilting his head forward so he doesn’t slam it up against the ceiling. “Four of you just for me?” He asks, smirking. “You don’t think that’s overki—”

All Might slams his head down against the bar and it cracks, wood splintering out like broken bone. 

“Kirishima Eijirou,” he enunciates, eyes darker than an oil spill. “Where is he?”

The villain laughs, as much as he can with his head cratering the counter. “He’s gone. You’re too late.”

“That’s not what I asked.” All Might shoves him further into the counter and Katsuki wonders, distantly, how much pressure the human head can withstand. 

Endeavour taps him on the shoulder. “We’ll leave Best Jeanist and him alone for a few moments. Follow All Might out through that door.”

Best Jeanist effortlessly slips into All Might’s place and, with a flick of his wrist, has threads slithering up the villain’s neck, hugging the widest parts of his throat. 

All Might crosses the room to a door opposite to their entrance and opens it, revealing a long hallway. He clears it, then beckons for Katsuki and Endeavour to follow him. Katsuki doesn’t argue, not where the villain can hear. As soon as they step out of the bar, he can’t help himself from looking back, disappointed to find that Endeavour’s closed the door behind him.

“It’s best for him to do it,” Endeavour explains. 

Katsuki just raises an eyebrow. 

Endeavour sighs. “All Might’s the Symbol of Peace, so he can’t. My quirk is too risky in a closed environment, especially with you in the building. Jeanist has plenty of practice and his methods get results. He’ll be fine, it’s on us to check out the rest of the building.”

It’s jarring, how casual Endeavour’s being about it. All Might can’t torture the villain because it wouldn’t fit with his image, not because he personally has an issue with it. Endeavour can’t torture the villain because it’s a security risk. That leaves Best Jeanist, the same bitch who’d lectured Katsuki about public imagery and putting his best foot forward, in there, choking the air out of a villain’s lungs with threads from his own shirt.

“He said Kirishima wasn’t here,” Katsuki says. 

Chase after him if you want, but you’ll be disappointed. They beat you to it. He’s not dead, but he’s as good as.

“Either he’s lying and we find him, or he’s hiding something and Jeanist gets him to speak up,” Endeavour says. “We win either way.” He’s unyielding in his confidence, the weight of it pushing Katsuki down the hallway. 

In front of them, All Might breaks through a door, apparently having given up on subtlety. He peeks inside, then emerges, frowning. “It’s empty.”

Endeavour passes by Katsuki to take a look, then steps aside to allow him some space. 

The room is huge, with high ceilings, and concrete walls. It feels almost like a parking garage—it has the same pointless vastness, the familiar draft that tickets Katsuki’s skin.

“Why would he need a room this big?” He asks.

Neither All Might nor Endeavour seem to have an answer.

They continue on, coming across a flight of stairs. If the villains are hiding Kirishima anywhere, a basement seems pretty fucking ideal. All Might, seemingly coming to the same consensus, wordlessly starts down the stairs, the railing shaking with every step he takes.

The lower level is fucking harrowing. Every room they pass paints a darker picture. 

A freezer with a cot in it, a chair, lined with electrodes—it makes Katsuki want to hurl but All Might and Endeavour look unfettered and he grits his teeth, determined to match their attitude. 

Heroes compartmentalize, he knows this. All Might is Kirishima’s teacher but he’s also the number one hero. He can’t afford to break down over every fucked up thing he sees.

Still, it has Katsuki feeling itchy in his body, like his skin doesn’t fit right. Is he weak for being affected? Shouldn’t this come easily to him, brushing shit under the rug? He’s never given a second thought to Kirishima choking on the smoke from his explosions but this, the implication that he’s been locked in a room and left to freeze, isn’t something that he can calmly look past.

All Might has them split up. The sub-level is large, sprawling, and they don’t have time to check every room individually, not when there’s evidence that they’ve all been used recently. He goes right, Endeavour goes left, and Katsuki keeps moving forward.

He’s nearing the end of the hallway when he hears someone speak. All Might and Endeavour are dead silent when they’re on an op, so it can’t be them. Katsuki moves closer to the nearest door. If he focuses, he can pick up the low, steady murmur of a voice from the other side.

If the villain upstairs was lying, Kirishima’s probably behind that door. If he was telling the truth, though, they’ve got more villains to fight. Either fucking way, it’s imperative that Katsuki gets over himself and sees what’s behind this door.

Steeling himself, he blasts through the door.

Preliminary analysis of the room shows that Katsuki’s just entered the creepiest fucking place he’s ever been in his life, narrowly beating Deku’s homoerotic All Might shrine in his walk-in closet.

It looks like a cross between a medical examination room and a science lab. There’s a dentist’s chair in the middle of the room, although it’s covered in straps and buckles. Katsuki’s not sure what the fuck a dentist would be doing to someone that they’d need to strap them down for it. Given what he’s seen of the basement already, he’s fine living in ignorance.

The back wall is lined with beakers and flasks, neatly labelled. The lab bench is clean and organized. If Katsuki had to choose between coming here for a check-up or having all his teeth fall out, he’d be perfectly fine with the latter.

“It was open, you know.” 

The voice belongs to a guy standing behind the lab bench. He’s small in stature, wearing a lab coat and reflective goggles.

Katsuki throws up his hands, palms bared. There’s no way the creep in the lab coat mistakes it for a surrender. Katsuki’s hands are glowing, a lit match in the dark lab.

“Who are you?” He hisses. “Move one fucking inch and I’m blowing this whole place to kingdom come.”

“I believe you,” the creep says hurriedly. “My name is Dr. Ujiko. And you are Bakugou Katsuki?”

Katsuki freezes. “You stalking me or some shit?”

“I saw you at the Sports Festival,” Ujiko says, shaking his head. “You fought against Kirishima, did you not?”

Right. The Sports Festival had preemptively shot him in the dick when it came to going incognito. 

“Yeah,” Katsuki says, keeping his hands up. “I fought him.”

“They said you won,” Ujiko says.

Katsuki raises his eyebrows. “You don’t think I did?”

“Do you believe you won?” Ujiko asks. He’s the first person to ever ask Katsuki that. More than that, he’s the first person to ever see what Katsuki had seen—that Kirishima was yielding, giving in rather than seeing the fight through.

“Is that why you took him?” Katsuki asks. “Did you want to see what he could do when he wasn’t giving up? You wanted to push him to his limits?”

Ujiko looks stunned. For a full minute, he doesn’t say anything. Katsuki can’t see his eyes from behind the goggles but he knows Ujiko’s taking him in all the same.

“I must admit,” he finally manages, “you’ve surprised me. Am I truly that transparent?”

“Yes,” Katsuki says, because it’s easier than saying no, you’re just the same kind of fucked up as me and I can’t handle thinking about what that means. Better to put all the blame on the creepy scientist than to confront the fact that he and Katsuki looked at Kirishima and thought the exact same thing.

“You’re wondering where he is, I assume,” Ujiko says. “You know, he didn’t believe you would come for him.”

“Of course we would come,” Katsuki says. What the fuck have they done to Kirishima’s brain, that he thinks U.A. wouldn’t move heaven and earth to bring his dumbass back safe?

“His concerns had merit,” Ujiko admits. “Shigaraki and Overhaul have been training him and the results are not something your U.A. would ever excuse.”

So they were right. The villains have already decided on a use for Kirishima, and they’re training him to carry it out.

“What are they training him for?”

Ujiko makes a face. “I’m not sure I know anymore. I believed we were all on the same page, but then there was a setback and now… Well. He’s being wasted.”

Katsuki doesn’t even have to prompt him to keep going, Ujiko continues all on his own. He reminds Katsuki of Hatsume, a little. There’s nothing a mad scientist loves more than talking about their creation. 

“I wanted to create something stronger than All Might,” Ujiko says, hands fluttering. “Not because I hated him, or thought him unworthy, but—it was important to me, that I knew that I could. With Kirishima, I knew I had finally achieved my goal. It was my understanding that we would conduct experimental trials, train him, and measure his strength against All Might’s.” 

He shakes his head sadly, apparently bemoaning the continued survival of the Symbol of Peace. “Instead, he ate through my Nomu’s like candy and now Shigaraki has him guarding Overhaul’s drug shipments. My masterpiece, playing bodyguard.”

“He’s not here,” Katsuki realizes. “He’s with Overhaul.”

Ujiko nods miserably. “Do you know none of them have mentioned my name since I created him? I have received no recognition, no acknowledgement. They take advantage of his strength, his power, and they leave me to rot.”

“How awful for you,” Katsuki says dryly. 

Ujiko doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look ready to poison Katsuki with the contents of any of his test tubes. He’s just looking down at his feet, looking defeated.

Katsuki doesn’t know what to do. There’s no way he can contact All Might or Endeavour without alerting Ujiko and he’s not about to have a fight in a room full of weird chemicals that probably have the ability to melt his face off.

“Where is he?” He asks. “Do you know?”

Ujiko hesitates. “I’m not sure—”

Katsuki steps forward and Ujiko stumbles back, flinching as his back hits the wall. “I don’t—You have to understand, I can’t tell you, Shigaraki would—” 

He’s shaking. He’s a coward.

“Are you scared?” Katsuki asks.

“What?” Ujiko stutters, skin flushing. 

“You look on edge,” Katsuki observes, baring his teeth. “So I was wondering. Are you scared?”

Ujiko cowers behind the lab bench. Katsuki leans over it, bracing his elbows like he’s a teacher having a talk with an unruly student.

“Because I assume,” he says, “that you weren’t scared when you fucked with Kirishima. You’re a coward, you’re perfectly fucking comfortable when you’ve got all the power, but the moment shit changes you’re curled up like a fucking kid.” 

He walks around the lab bench leisurely. Ujiko is trembling on the ground, plastering his hands over his face.

“You’re going to tell me where he is,” Katsuki says, “because if you don’t, I will feed whatever’s in these fucking flasks down your throat until it kills you from the inside.”

“You wouldn’t,” Ujiko murmurs.

Katsuki grins. “Wouldn’t I?”

The lab door opens. The heavy steps sound like All Might—he tends to have a sixth sense for moments when Katsuki’s trying to decide whether or not murder is worth it.

“Took you long enough,” Katsuki says, smirking at Ujiko. “I found someone who can help us.”

Except All Might doesn’t respond. 

Katsuki straightens up, turns to face the door. It’s not All Might.

The newcomer is dressed in a fitted suit, sleeves rolled up to reveal smoky, nebulous forearms. His head is a mess of purple mist.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” Kurogiri says, yellow eyes widening. “As always, your timing is impeccable.”

Kurogiri’s blocking the door. His mist is fast-moving, rushing towards Katsuki, polluting the air. There’s no way he’s getting out of this.

If Kurogiri’s transporting him somewhere, though, there’s a chance that he’ll be sent to wherever Kirishima is. 

So Katsuki doesn’t run, doesn’t duck, doesn’t hide. The mist reaches him and he breathes it in like air.

At Overhaul’s signal, Bakugou flies at Eijirou like a bat out of hell. In combination with the lights, the flash of his explosions is dizzying. Eijirou feels like he’s high, almost, unsteady, mouth fuzzy.

Bakugou’s going to hit him, he’s going to hit Eijirou but he’s the one that’s going to get hurt, and, fuck, there has to be something seriously wrong with Eijirou’s brain, because his first thought is finally. 

His memories of U.A. are dull but everything to do with Bakugou is crystal clear. How couldn’t it be? For all that he’s been a major pain in Eijirou’s ass, Bakugou’s the guy that motivates him to get stronger. 

There’s a ratio, he thinks, something like a one-to-one. For every moment that Bakugou’s discouraged him, made him feel lower than dirt, there's another moment where he’s made Eijirou want to get back up, if only to get strong enough to punch his eyes swollen black.

Bakugou hits him and Eijirou watches him stumble back, his clothes hacked up like he’s straight out of a slasher film. Everything feels out-of-body. Are they both here? Can Bakugou be real?

It takes him a second to realize Bakugou is screaming at him.

“You piece of shit!” Bakugou yells. “You’re still pulling your punches? Here? What the fuck did they even do to you, if you’re still that weak?”

He doesn’t get to say that. Not after all this bullshit, not after Ujiko’s hand down Eijirou’s throat.

“You want me to hurt you?” Eijirou demands. “You hit me and you’re the one bleeding and you want me to stop pulling my punches?”

His time with Overhaul has familiarized Eijirou with what, exactly, people look like when they are well and truly afraid. When their eyes go white, when their knuckles strain against their skin, when they start begging Eijirou to stop, as if he has any choice in the matter—it’s like a sitcom, rewatched over and over until he can quote the lines, beat for beat.

Bakugou does not stare. He does not grow pale and he does not beg. 

What he does do is raise his fist to his mouth and bite down, skin breaking like dried wax and it’s what he does, Eijirou knows, whenever he needs to ground himself. He’ll lower himself down into the pain so that he doesn’t go nuclear, shooting off explosions and losing his energy before he can formulate a plan to win.

“You think you can hurt me?” 

Bakugou’s palms are glowing. The air buzzes, like there’s a thunderstorm approaching, and Eijirou tastes the sharpness of ozone on his tongue. 

“I dare you,” Bakugou taunts, like there’s nothing to be afraid of—like Eijirou has to be coaxed into violence. “I fucking dare you.”

And he detonates.

The blast shatters the overhead lights. Broken glass rains down around them. Eijirou stands, steadily rooted.

Bakugou’s already moving. He ducks underneath Eijirou’s first punch, dodges a second, and comes up behind him, twin explosions going off beside Eijirou’s ears. 

Eijirou hasn’t fought against someone smart in a while. It’s exhilarating. Bakugou’s already done the math in his head. He knows that Eijirou’s shield won’t fall. He knows all that bulk has made him slower, especially in comparison to Bakugou, who moves like a cheetah on steroids. And he’s managed to figure out, at some point, that Eijirou still needs to see and hear, meaning his eyes and ears are the most vulnerable parts of him.

If Bakugou knows all that, he knows that one targeted hit from Eijirou is enough to take him out. He’ll be avoiding that at all costs. 

Eijirou needs to be faster than him. Bakugou’s going to be targeting his eyes and ears. Eijirou needs to meet him there.

It’s second nature by now. He falls into it, reduces himself to the parts that understand how much force the human body can withstand until it breaks in Eijirou’s fist. 

Bakugou blinds him, deafens him, and surrounds him in smoke. For one, achingly short moment, Eijirou can’t see past it and he can almost pretend that he’s sparring with Bakugou in Gym Gamma.

The smoke clears and Bakugou directs his next explosion at the ground, tearing the stage. The foam padding begins to melt and the cement beneath it cracks. When Eijirou moves backward to avoid the melting foam, his foot falls into a crater, tripping him up. He stumbles.

At the side of the ring, Overhaul’s fist clenches. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t speak, doesn’t shout, but his fist is clenched and his eyes are cold. 

The creature you see in the fighting ring is a product of scientific innovation. Tonight, we will all see which will win—quirks or science.

He needs Eijirou to win, so that he can prove that quirks are better off dead.

Bakugou’s hands are glowing again, so hot the air around it distorts. Eijirou hasn’t registered a single change in temperature, even as Bakugou’s forehead glistens with sweat. 

He shouldn’t be here. Eijirou knows why he’s here, knows exactly who picked him out, who brought him in, but Bakugou—Bakugou’s in the air, flying towards him, the fury in his eyes so brilliant it makes the sun look dull. 

When Bakugou hits him, Eijirou goes down willingly. 

Bakugou falls on top of him, stuck like a barely-healed scab, and every point of contact is lit up in red. His hands are bleeding, his jeans are torn. Eijirou’s covered in blood and none of it’s his.

“Are you fucking serious?” Bakugou asks, incredulous. “Get the fuck up!”

“You’re bleeding,” Eijirou says. 

“You think I can’t handle this?” Bakugou snaps, pressing an explosion to his ear. “You still think I’m weak, after this? After I came here for you?”

Eijirou stares. “You came here for me?” 

Bakugou pauses. He looks, for once, at a loss for words. 

Overhaul is watching them. Eijirou doesn’t have time. 

“You need to kill me,” he says quietly. 

Bakugou, picking up on his tone, keeps up a steady pulse of explosions, hiding their faces from the audience. “I came here to save you,” he hisses. “Whatever the villains did to you, we can—”

Eijirou grabs his arm. The skin comes apart beneath his fingers. “This has to be a fight to the death,” he says. “They know how to bring me back but if it’s you, they won’t—they won’t—”

Bakugou throws up a Howitzer and the stage begins to destabilize, cratering around the two of them. Eijirou is cradled in concrete. Overhaul can’t see him.

“However you want,” he rushes, desperation slurring his words, “doesn’t matter, but it has to be me, they’ll bring me back, it’s fine, just—”

“The heroes found the League’s hideout,” Bakugou says. “Alright? They’ve got people in custody, they’re going to find us.”

“Okay,” Eijirou says, playing along.

“I’m serious,” Bakugou says fiercely. “We’re getting out of here.” 

His palm begins to glow. It must be hot. 

Chapter Text

No one seems to know what to do with him.

In the wake of the fight, the room had been dead silent. Shigaraki had stared in disbelief, hand curling into a lopsided fist, thumb stuck out like an afterthought. Overhaul looked at Kirishima’s limp body so coldly that Katsuki felt almost compelled to cover it.

His AP Shot, straight through Kirishima’s ear. It did exactly what Kirishima wanted.

(Even dead, his quirk didn’t let up.)

They wrestle Kirishima away from Katsuki first, struggling beneath the weight of his muscle. Almost as an afterthought, the yakuza drag him back down to a cell in the basement of the base, shackling him to the wall. 

Katsuki sits in silence. No one comes to get him.

They won’t kill him. That, at least, is for certain. If they’re training Kirishima, it makes no sense to kill the thing that beat him. No, they’ll bring Kirishima back and have him fight Katsuki again until he wins, rising to the next level.

The one thing wrong with this plan is that Katsuki didn’t beat Kirishima. He’d lost of his own volition, calculating their chances of survival and deciding on the outcome that got both of them out alive. 

Does Shigaraki know? Does Overhaul? 

They have to. There’s no fucking way this is the first time they’ve seen Kirishima fight. Katsuki’s willing to bet that the reason Overhaul trusts Kirishima to be his bodyguard is because he’s never had an issue finishing the job. He wouldn’t trust Kirishima to protect him if he didn’t believe that he had complete control over him.

Except Overhaul had ordered a fight to the death and Kirishima had refused.

If he knows that Kirishima intentionally ceded to Katsuki, the next logical step is to realize that he didn’t have as much control over him as he previously thought.

They know how to bring me back, Kirishima had said. They won’t let me die.

They won’t make the same mistake twice. Whether it’s during whatever necromantic ritual they’ve got planned or set for once Kirishima’s back on his own two feet, the villains are going to make sure Kirishima won’t ever be in a position to choose for himself again.

There isn’t a point in worrying about things that he can’t control. Katsuki will deal with that when it comes. For now, he has to formulate a plan.

It’s likely that All Might and Endeavour heard his altercation with Ujiko and Kurogiri. Barring that, Hawks could have caught anyone trying to escape, and Muscular might have broken beneath Best Jeanist’s efforts. Between those three scenarios, the heroes almost certainly know where Katsuki and Kirishima are and who they’re being held by.

A yakuza raid requires a larger team and cohesive planning, but Kirishima’s been with the villains for too long already. Those two facts will have the heroes mounting a rescue mission as soon as possible. They’ll be here in twenty-four hours at the latest.

Katsuki figures he can give Kirishima’s resurrection act a similar timeframe. 

That’s done, then. He has twenty-four hours to stall the shit out of Overhaul.

In his current position, he’s a sitting duck. When Kurogiri had teleported him to the base, he’d been sent straight to a padded cell and frogmarched down to the fighting ring. Those scant few minutes hadn’t exactly given him a thorough understanding of the building’s layout. Even if he gets out, the entire yakuza will be on his ass in seconds, and he’s no help to Kirishima if he’s dead.

Lucky enough for Katsuki, he’s hosted by villains who are going to want to know exactly how and why Kirishima let him win. They’ll come to him. They might even bring Kirishima to him and then all Katsuki will have to do is keep them distracted long enough for the heroes to show up.

He settles down and waits. 

The villains are impatient. Katsuki’s internal clock isn’t exact, but he estimates that he’s had around two hours to himself before yakuza are busting the cell door open, guns in hand.  

Overhaul steps inside, his henchmen stepping in beside him. The door thuds closed behind them, the click of the lock clear in the silence.

They’re interrogating him in the cell. They think he’ll scare easy, fall apart because of a hostile atmosphere and an hour of isolation. Katsuki just killed his fucking classmate—if Overhaul thinks a four-by-four room with shitty ventilation is going to be his undoing, he’s got another thing coming.

“Your name is Bakugou Katsuki,” Overhaul states. “You are a student at U.A.”

Katsuki nods.

“You did not find us,” Overhaul says. “You were at the League’s hideout in Kamino Ward, weren’t you? Until you were caught and transported here.”

Katsuki wasn’t fucking caught.

“Oh,” Overhaul says, eyebrows twitching. “Was that not what happened? Did you come here purposefully?”

Shit. Being on the other side of this is a bitch and a half. What the hell is this guy’s quirk, anyway? If it’s some kind of psychic bullshit Katsuki wants out.

“I understand,” Overhaul says, even though Katsuki hasn’t said anything. “You have no intention of speaking to me. That’s smart of you. I supposed I haven’t provided an adequate incentive.”

“There’s nothing you could give me,” Katsuki says finally.

Overhaul crouches down to his level. “Maybe,” he admits, “but do you really think there is nothing I can’t take away from you?”

Katsuki could ask him to elaborate. He thinks about his mom, who’s probably practicing the verbal beatdown Katsuki’s going to be subjected to when he comes back from this mission. 

Overhaul’s prizefighter just lost. He’s really, really angry. Katsuki’s parents are easy to find.

“What do you want?”

“There we go,” Overhaul hums. “I knew we could reach an agreement.” He straightens, black shoes shiny against the grit of the cell floor. “I will say, Bakugou Katsuki, you surprised me today. I didn’t expect you to win.”

“You didn’t want me to win.”

“No,” Overhaul agrees easily. “But you exposed a flaw that can now be corrected. Taken whole, the net effect of your triumph is not entirely negative. To answer your question, while I didn’t want you to win, I am not angry that you did.”

“You’re a liar,” Katsuki says, tilting his chin back. 

Overhaul’s eyes narrow. “Repeat that for me?”

“You’re a liar,” Katsuki repeats, grinning. “You’re mad as hell. You were ready to kill my parents because I wasn’t talking and you think you can convince me that you’re perfectly fine with me putting your pet six feet under? Gotta do better than that.”

Overhaul exhales. “Leave us,” he says softly.

The yakuza exchange glances, then nod, leaving to stand guard on the other side of the door.

Overhaul doesn’t say anything. 

Technically, the power dynamic should come across clearly. Overhaul’s on his turf, with his people, looking down at Katsuki chained at his feet. 

The thing is, he’s already angry, and Katsuki is very, very good at getting under people’s skin.

“You’re very perceptive,” Overhaul says at last. “I am angry. But more than that, I am curious. I was hoping you could answer one question for me.”

“Go for it,” Katsuki says drily.

“Why did it let you win?” Overhaul asks.

“Why do you think he let me win?”

“It’s unbeatable,” Overhaul says easily, and fuck, it brings up all sorts of questions of what, exactly, they’ve been putting Kirishima through if this asshole of a yakuza boss can throw that kind of faith behind him. “You didn’t beat him. It let you win. I want to know why.”

There’s no answer that doesn’t give Overhaul what he wants.

“Does it change anything?” Katsuki asks. “You’ve already got him under the knife again, don’t you? What does it matter why he let me win? Whole thing’s over and done with.”

“It matters,” Overhaul stresses, “because it will fight you until it beats you. And I don’t believe that you want it being experimented on after every single fight that it pulls this same trick.”

Katsuki doesn’t want that. But this is about Kirishima. And Kirishima, Katsuki knows without a shadow of fucking doubt, would go through whatever it took to make sure no one got hurt.

“All he said was that he wanted me to kill him,” he says. “He was fucking miserable here. He didn’t know how to leave and you gave him an out and you’re, what, surprised that he took it? Give me a fucking break.”

Overhaul looks—surprised, eyebrows raised, shoulders loose. “It asked you to kill it,” he repeats, “and you said yes?”

“Yeah.” Katsuki stares him down, daring him to disprove his story. Besides, taken at its core, Katsuki’s telling the truth about what happened. Nevermind that Kirishima’s too fucking honourable to die and leave Katsuki to face the villains by himself. Nevermind that he’d convinced Katsuki using the doctor that had put him in this situation in the first place. Kirishima had asked and he’d provided.

“You know,” Overhaul says, “it didn’t seem miserable.”

“Probably didn’t want to piss you off,” Katsuki says, rolling his eyes.

“Perhaps,” Overhaul allows. “But you haven’t seen it leave men to drown. Shigaraki told me where he found it and I understand that you may have come here expecting to leave with the same person, but I believe you see now that you’ll be disappointed. It’s done things that I haven’t even asked for—what was once your classmate is now Shigaraki’s loyal dog.”

Katsuki bares his teeth. Overhaul sounds exactly like fucking Himiko. None of them know Kirishima.

“I didn’t come here because I thought he would be the fucking same,” he spits out. “That would be naive. I don’t care what he’s done and I don’t care whatever your creep of a doctor is doing to him right now. I’ll take him no matter how fucked up he is.”

“It’ll kill you,” Overhaul says, calm and collected. “Do you understand that? At this very moment, the doctor is fixing the few flaws that remained. Even if it was miserable the way you say it was, it won’t understand the concept anymore. You may have come here in hopes of saving it, but it will kill you without remorse.”

Katsuki laughs, lips pulled wide in a machete-sharp smile. “Then we’ll be even.”

Overhaul doesn’t know who he’s experimenting on. He thinks Kirishima’s inanimate, incapable of thinking for himself. But Katsuki had fought Kirishima, had faced that unyielding power, and he’d watched the split-second where Kirishima had realized that only one of them was getting out of this alive.

And he hates Katsuki. And he’d still chosen him.

“You came here because you wanted to learn about me, right?” He asks. “I get it. You want to know what you’re up against. Tell you what, let Kirishima fight me as soon as they clear him. If your doctor did his job the way you said he would, Kirishima won’t be able to ask for an out this time. I’ll still win. And then I’m going to burn this place to the fucking ground.”

Overhaul is quiet for a short moment. “That isn’t a wise decision,” he says, looking confused. “It is engineered to beat anything that defies its master.”

“And I told you,” Katsuki says, “I don’t care. I’ll take him even when he’s trying to kill me.”

There is a bright light in his face. It stings his eyes, causing them to tear. He blinks to clear them and the stinging intensifies.

“You’re crying.” Ujiko peers over him, bald head haloed by harsh light. “You’re not supposed to feel—Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

He doesn’t say anything. It would be weak to admit that something as intangible as light was irritating his eyes.

“You need to tell me,” Ujiko repeats. “If there is any aspect of this operation that hasn’t succeeded as planned, you need to tell me immediately.”

“The light is irritating my eyes,” he says.

Ujiko pauses. “Oh. Is that all? You could have looked away.”

That would have been an admission of weakness. But if he’s been given permission—“Okay.”

“If that’s all, I feel comfortable announcing that everything looks fine,” Ujiko says, throwing his shoulders back. “I just have a quick test that I’d like to run before you go. You can sit up for this, yes, that’s perfect.” He produces a notebook from the inner pockets of his lab coat. “It’s a simple test, really, just a few memory-related questions. What is your name?”

He frowns, attempting to remember. He must have one if Ujiko is asking him about it. 

“Where are you from?”

Nothing comes to mind.

“What are your parents’ names?”

He stays silent. Ujiko said this was a test. He must be failing.

“Where did you go to school?”

And finally—a reprieve. He remembers a training gym battered with use, a stadium so saturated with audience members it was impossible to pick out whether they were cheering or booing. 

“U.A.”

“And who was your homeroom teacher?”

This one is trickier. He’s unable to call up a name that pairs well with the fuzzy memories in his head, that of a man who never accepted anything less than one hundred percent effort. 

“He was a pro hero,” Ujiko prompts and that, at last, has the name solidifying.

“Pro Hero Eraserhead.”

“Can you name any of your classmates?”

He wouldn’t have attended U.A. all by himself. He’d been in a class with others, he knows this. Students with loud voices, with quirks that had the crowd in the stadium roaring so loud his ears had ached with it.

And suddenly, it’s simple. The stadium. The brutality of the crowd. An explosion that turned his entire world black, the cloying scent of nitroglycerin alerting him like a starting pistol. 

He’d lost. It had made him angry. He’d tried harder after that, clawed his way through every fight until the chemical had stained his skin, becoming the herald of his impending humiliation. 

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he says confidently.

At once, Ujiko begins scribbling in his notebook. After a minute of that, he looks up. “What do you remember about him?”

This is the first memory that is clear-cut, easy to grab. It’s almost overwhelming, all drawn into sharp focus. 

There is Bakugou, pressing him into the floor of the training gym. Bakugou, face contorted into a baleful glare, telling him they would never be equals. Bakugou, the idol cast in gold, the elusive victory, the one who broke through his shield over and over each day. 

“He was strong. Fighting him made me stronger.”

More scribbling. Then Ujiko looks up, asks— “Do you know my name?”

“Dr. Ujiko.”

“Do you know who I work for?”

“Shigaraki.”

“And do you know who Shigaraki is now allied with?”

“Overhaul.”

Ujiko grins. “Well done. That’s all, thank you. I’m sure they will be here in a moment to collect you.”

He’s right. The door swings open a few minutes later, revealing Shigaraki and Overhaul. They don’t look happy. 

“What does it remember?” Overhaul barks.

“The essentials,” Ujiko says lightly. “And, interestingly enough, his classmate. Bakugou Katsuki.”

Overhaul’s expression curdles. “You expected this?”

“I suspected,” Ujiko admits. “I don’t see it as a particular detriment, do you?”

At his side, Overhaul’s hand flexes, tendons drawn into stark focus. He could take Ujiko apart, if he wanted, leaving his atoms to pinwheel in the air, blood thrown up haphazardly on the wall. He won’t do that, though, because Shigaraki is right beside him, and, unlike Overhaul, Shigaraki doesn’t choose what happens when he touches someone. 

Overhaul settles for a tight, barely-controlled rebuke. “You assured me we would not have a repeat of what occurred last time the two of them fought.”

“We won’t,” Ujiko rushes, fiddling with his glasses. “He harbours no feelings of camaraderie for the boy, he only remembers that fighting him made him stronger. In fact, it’s possible that any animosity was strengthened by the operation.”

“It won’t happen again,” Overhaul says.

Ujiko swallows. “No.”

“Does he remember the last fight?” Shigaraki asks.

“No,” Ujiko says. “That was the first thing I scrubbed.”

Shigaraki turns to Overhaul. “That’s all you wanted to know, right?” He asks. “I’m bored of this. He’s fine, let’s take him and go.”

Overhaul scowls at him, but he nods. “Fine. Let’s go.”

There are blank spots in his memory. Moments that must have been scrubbed by Ujiko. They must have been vulnerabilities, things that made him weaker. It makes sense that they are gone now.

The knowledge that he follows Overhaul wherever he goes has not been scrubbed. 

He follows Overhaul below ground, where water drips overhead and tiny things scuttle in the dark corners. Yakuza line the doors, the hallways, armed with guns and batons, which they brandish gleefully to the prisoners locked behind bars.

Overhaul has brought him to their prison.

They don’t tend to use him for torture—or, at least, they don’t tend to have him initiate it. It’s possible there’s a prisoner here who’s too violent for Overhaul to face alone. In that case, it’s his job to defend Overhaul.

Or, maybe that’s not quite right. Overhaul is strong enough on his own. His quirk is capable of ripping up entire worlds and remaking them in a new image, void of flaws. He’s more than capable of facing a small prisoner in a tiny cell.

Except people react a certain way when they learn that they cannot hurt someone. There’s a hopelessness that overcomes them, as if the fight between them and him has been fixed. Considering that, it’s possible his presence alone counts as some sort of psychological torture.

Overhaul has his henchmen unlock a cell door. 

“You can leave whenever you want,” he says, “but only if there is no one left inside.”

The door swings open. Bakugou Katsuki looks up at him from his place, shackled to the wall. There is a metal collar around his neck, which doesn’t seem to serve a purpose other than abject humiliation.

“If I kill him, I can leave.”

“You can leave whenever you want,” Overhaul stresses. 

Bakugou is covered in bruises. His lip is thick, swollen, dried blood crusting his chin. The skin on his palms is cracked, fingers bent at odd angles. 

“It’s not a fair fight.”

Overhaul narrows his eyes. “Does that matter?” He scoffs. “You’re worried killing him won’t make you stronger? Are you that starved of target practice?”

No. Shigaraki provides Nomu on top of Nomu and Overhaul has pitted him against every nook and cranny of the city’s underbelly.

But Bakugou is the strongest fighter he’s ever fought. The most determined, the most impressive, the most annoying. To finally come out on top while he was incapacitated would be—it wouldn’t be a real fight. It wouldn’t be a victory.

Overhaul does not want Bakugou without the chains. That is fine. Once the door is closed, he gets to choose how he wins.

“I understand,” he says. “I will leave. When I want to.”

He steps inside the cell. It is a very small step. The door thuds against his back when it closes.

Bakugou is not glaring at him. He is not snarling or sneering. His cut lip is not curled, his teeth are not bared. His expression is neutral, but his eyes give him away. They flick over him, cataloguing the clean skin, the set of his shoulders, always returning to a spot near his right ear. 

After a minute of this, satisfied with the apparent clean bill of health, Bakugou speaks. “You going to kill me?”

“He’s going to want me for something,” he says. “If I'm not ready to go—” Shigaraki had threatened him with something, before. Something to keep him in line. He can't remember what the threat was, exactly, but it had gotten him off of Ujiko’s table so it must have been something important. 

Bakugou’s still waiting for him to finish the thought. This is unusual too.

“I have to kill you if I want to leave.”

“Do you?”

Is he stupid? “Overhaul said—”

“No, I heard that,” Bakugou says. “But do you want to leave?”

Of course he wants to leave. “Overhaul made me stronger,” he says. “The alternative would be dying in this cell. It’s an easy choice.”

Bakugou’s face is not neutral anymore. “You were already the fucking strongest,” he hisses. “What, you think this is better? You were strong and you were the best and you didn’t have to do their fucking dirty work.”

That’s… not right. “I was weak. They made me better.”

“Yeah?” Bakugou tries to stand. The collar sparks and he swears, collapsing. “Alright, fine. Let’s say you're fucking perfect now. Overhaul and you should agree on everything, right?”

“Yes.” 

“You wanted a fair fight. He disagreed. Why was that?”

That’s—well. They’ve always given him a fair fight before. The Nomu, Overhaul’s clients, Yakuza attempting to defect. It wasn’t like he needed help beating them. He’s never fought someone with an electroshock collar around their neck.

“I’ll tell you,” Bakugou says, determined. “It’s because you're a good fucking person. You think everyone deserves a fair shot and whatever they did to you couldn’t take that away.”

“That’s incorrect,” he argues. “Fighting you like this wouldn’t make me stronger. It would be a worthless victory.”

Bakugou blinks. “Why do you keep—this is all about strength, then?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Bakugou says. He frowns, thinking for a bit. “You gonna take off my chains? It’ll be a fair fight, then.”

He considers saying that he’d been planning on it, before deciding not to. Bakugou has some sort of angle and before he can discern exactly what it is, exposing his plans could give away some vulnerability. 

“Okay,” he says, instead. 

In addition to the collar, Bakugou is chained to the wall with cuffs on his wrists and ankles. The chains break easily. The cuffs themselves are more difficult—he has to be careful not to damage Bakugou’s joints when he breaks them. 

When it is time for the collar, Bakugou bares his throat, red eyes fixed on him. He wouldn’t expose himself like that unless he had some sort of plan.

“It’s too close.”

Bakugou tilts his head. “What?”

“It’s too close,” he repeats. “Your explosions are more precise.”

“Alright,” Bakugou says slowly, raising his hand to the collar. He keeps his eyes open as the explosion goes off, red irises unflinching. 

And then he just sits there, unrestrained. His right arm is a mess, the wrist rubbed raw, the forearm a mess of jagged gashes. 

“You’re hurt.”

“You care?”

“No,” he says immediately. Bakugou’s wellbeing isn’t as pressing a concern as the question of Overhaul’s return. 

“I’m out of the cuffs,” Bakugou says unnecessarily. “It’s a fair fight now.”

He knows. He knows it like he knows Bakugou, like he knows that Bakugou doesn’t like him, like he knows that, despite all of it, Bakugou is still here.

Ujiko had called what he remembered “the essentials.” Things that were fundamental to his progress. He remembers Ujiko because he made him, Shigaraki because he leads him, and Overhaul because he pushes him.

His teacher, Eraserhead, taught him how to be stronger. His mind must have decided that was essential.

Bakugou does not move to fight him. He stands, lightly kicking the pins and needles from his feet, shaking them from his hands. “You haven’t killed me yet,” he observes.

No. He hasn’t.

“Do you want to?”

He hesitates. Overhaul gave him an order. His orders have never harmed him, never set him back, never taken away his strength. 

Bakugou peers at him. “Do you know me?”

“Yes,” he says. “Your name is Bakugou Katsuki. We went to school together.”

“Yeah,” Bakugou says, voice trailing off. “That’s right. You remember anyone we study with?”

“No.”

“Ashido Mina,” Bakugou says. “Kaminari Denki, Sero Hanta, Yaoyorozu Momo. Midoriya Izuku. None of them?”

He shakes his head.

For a moment, it looks like Bakugou wants to say something, before he smoothens his face and leashes control of his tone. “Your name,” he murmurs. “Do you remember your name?”

“No.”

Ujiko had asked the same thing, but he hadn’t seen bothered by the answer. It was fine that he didn’t remember his name—favourable, even.

“I know your name,” Bakugou says, voice carefully neutral. “Do you want to know it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

The tension breaks. Bakugou glares, eyes flashing, sharp points of his teeth brilliant in the dim light. “It’s your fucking name! How could it not matter?”

It just doesn’t. There is no underlying reason. There are many things that contribute to his usefulness. A name is not one of them.

“Kirishima,” Bakugou says flatly, the syllables underwritten with fury. “That’s your fucking name. It’s yours.”

Kirishima.

There is no burst of recognition, no familiarity. Even it was his name (and Bakugou doesn’t seem to be lying) it is clearly not one of Ujiko’s “essentials.”

“I’m going to call you it anyway,” Bakugou says, clearly picking up on his disinterest. “That’s who you fucking are, alright?”

Bakugou’s going to be dead in a little while. The name he chooses to refer to him in that short time frame is inconsequential. He says as much, because Bakugou seems to think he’s doing something, but all it does is get him to laugh meanly.

“You’re not killing me,” Bakugou says confidently, once he’s done snickering. “I bared my fucking throat to you and you let me take the collar off myself. I’ve been free, what, a few minutes now, and you’ve done jackshit. You’re not killing me.”

So that’s his angle. Bakugou’s trying to twist the scenario, trying to convince him that he doesn’t want to kill Bakugou. He knows he won’t win the fight and he’s trying to let his words get him out of the situation.

It makes him angry. There’s no reason for the confidence. He’s not weak, Overhaul wouldn’t have left him in a cell with a former classmate if he didn’t trust him, and that trust is well-earned, well-placed.

He slams Bakugou into the floor of the cell, right hand like a vice around his throat. Blood drips between his fingers, casing Bakugou’s neck in a garish reminder of the collar.

“I have my orders,” he growls. “There’s nothing you can do to convince me. I’m more than strong enough, so shut up and fight me.”

Bakugou looks delighted. “There you are,” he breathes. “You want a fight?” His face settles into an expression and the name he’d declared had rung no bells but this, the spark in his eyes, the snarl to his lips, the unfurling of his palms—Kirishima remembers this. This is the face Bakugou makes right before he beats him.

It is the last time he will ever see this expression. He finds himself savouring it.

Chapter Text

Stall him, stall him, stall him. 

Katsuki can’t think of a reason why Overhaul would leave Kirishima alone in the cell unless he had something more important to take care of—say, for example, a whole baseball team’s worth of pro heroes on his doorstep.

Kirishima had faltered enough, unsure despite the bullshit Overhaul’s filled his head with, but he’s beginning to shed his hesitancy like snakeskin. Beneath that is something that has Katsuki’s heartbeat going static.

Kirishima doesn’t look like himself.

Before all this, he’d been built out of hard muscle, the only noticeable fat on his cheeks. Now, he looks to be constructed from sheets of rock, the plates overlapping like chainmail. He’s big and bulky and he should be slow but the way he flies at Katsuki disputes that. 

Someone that big shouldn’t be that fast. 

Kirishima shouldn’t be that big. Kirishima shouldn’t look like someone carved him out of the mountainside with a rusty chisel. 

Katsuki’s fought his quirk more than anyone ever has and he knows it, he knows what Kirishima looks like at his most fierce, when he’s reinforcing his quirk to bear Katsuki’s Howitzer Impact. This isn’t that. What he’s looking at now is engineered strength, forced into existence by survival and desperation. 

Kirishima’s always worrying about hurting the people he saves, which is why he has those stupid fucking sleeves, the jagged rope that extends across his torso. I can’t be a hero if I hurt the people I save, he always whines, whenever Kaminari rags on him for the dumb-looking add-ons.

If he hadn’t been careful with the cuffs, Katsuki knows, Kirishima would have crushed in joints in his fist, flesh and bone crumpling like the sticky wrapper of a hard candy.

But that’s the difference, isn’t it? Kirishima didn’t need to be careful, but he was, and Katsuki shouldn’t still be alive, but he is, and between the two of them they’ve got a good fucking shot of making it out of here with everything still attached.

Katsuki’s never really been the type to stall. He prefers going in headfirst, palms detonating. Kaminari’s a bonafide master at it, though, and Katsuki decides to take a page out of his book and starts running his mouth.

“You know this is kind of pathetic of you, right? You went from a hero to Overhaul’s bodyguard. Does he even need you?”

Kirishima swings a punch, unaffected. “Yes.”

Katsuki rolls out of the way and tries again. “You even know what his quirk is? I saw him use it on one of his guys. Tore the guy apart like it was nothing.”

“I know what his quirk is,” Kirishima says, still monotonous.

“My point,” Katsuki says, blasting AP-Shots right at Kirishima’s eyes, “is a guy with a quirk like that doesn’t need protecting. So what the fuck is he using you for?”

It’s bullshit, is all it really is, but the second Katsuki registers what he’s just said, he realizes there’s actually truth to it. What is Overhaul using Kirishima for? How’d he even end up here, if it was the League of Villains that took him first?

Katsuki’s just here for Kirishima, but the deeper he goes, the more it’s starting to look like he’s cracked open a can of worms that’ll only start to spill over once he brings Kirishima home.

Kirishima, for one, doesn’t seem too impressed with his efforts. 

None of Katsuki’s attacks get him anywhere and he finds himself on the defensive, dodging Kirishima’s relentless attacks.

“You’re fucking yourself over,” he tries. “The heroes are here, I’m here, we’ll get you home and you’ll still be a hero.”

“Stop,” Kirishima says, frustrated. “Lying won’t keep you alive, just—I freed you. Fight.”

“I’m not lying,” Katsuki snaps. “Sure, you’re a bit behind but you were already ahead of everyone else, you’ll be fine.”

“Not about that,” Kirishima says. He slams Katsuki into the wall, then, and Katsuki realizes that Kirishima’s been playing with him this entire time. “You think I can go back?” He asks. “After all of this? You weren’t supposed to come get me.”

“Shit, sorry I’m not a pro hero,” Katsuki scoffs, “but if you’d seen how fucking incompetent they are—”

“No. Any of you. None of you.” He exhales, visibly struggling with the words. "I can’t be a hero after this,” Kirishima says. He says it flatly, like he’s stating a fact, independent of feeling. His ambition, the career to which he’d tied his livelihood—and he doesn’t care that it’s been taken away from him. “They built me to hurt things. I’m the best at it. I don’t—After everything that I’ve—”

It’s the same bullshit Overhaul had tried to spew. Katsuki’s not anymore willing to hear it now than he was then. 

“Overhaul already told me everything,” he says. “He told me about the shit he made you do, about the person that you are now. Alright? He told me.”

Kirishima’s hands have torn through his clothing. His hands, which look more like stone than skin, are miraculously still warm. Somewhere inside him is blood and a heartbeat.

“You’re taller than me now,” Katsuki observes.

“What?”

“You’re shorter than me, usually,” Katsuki explains. “Guess the quirk adds a bit. Sucks for you, once we reverse this you’ll go back to looking up at me.”

“I’ve never looked up at you,” Kirishima says dryly.

“How would you know?” Katsuki asks. “Not like you can remember.”

Kirishima sends him a glare so unimpressed that Katsuki has to bite his cheek not to laugh in his face. 

“I could have escaped by now,” Katsuki says. “These yakuza are dumb as shit, you know that. I could have killed you and gotten the hell out of dodge and the heroes wouldn’t have blamed me for it.” He stares up at Kirishima, refuses to let him look away. “But I’m here, aren’t I? You’ve got it in your head that I care about what they made you, but I don’t. That’s them fucking with your head, making you think you’re not good enough on your own.”

Kirishima shakes his head. “You made the wrong choice.”

“No, I didn’t,” Katsuki says. 

Kirishima’s eyes widen—the slightest, unconscious twitch. Katsuki’s not sure why he’s the only one Kirishima remembers, not sure why he doesn’t already have a crushed windpipe and blood pouring out of his ears, but Kirishima, at least, believes him. He knows that Katsuki’s being honest, and he’s surprised by it.

For a moment, Katsuki almost thinks he’s getting somewhere. If he can get Kirishima to trust him, maybe they can get out without having to wait for the heroes.

Christ. When he’d been explaining his plan to the boys’ cabin, he’d never expected having to convince Kirishima that he should want to be saved. 

And then the door swings open. 

Kirishima immediately swings them around, slamming Katsuki harshly into the ground, knee pressed to the center of his back, arm braced across the nape of his neck. His head hovers near Katsuki’s ear, the sound of his breath steady and sure.

One of the guards walks inside, stopping just inside the cell. “He needs you,” she says, presumably motioning at Kirishima.

“I understand,” Kirishima says, voice cold and dull. Katsuki listens as every scant inch of progress he’s fought for gets snuffed out after three fucking words. 

The guard must catch sight of Katsuki. “He didn’t say anything about—” 

“It’s done,” Kirishima says, cutting him off. His knee comes down harder. Nothing breaks. 

He’s being careful.

Kirishima presses two sharp fingers to Katsuki’s pulse point. His voice is low, ground out, invisible to the guard’s ears. Katsuki hears the plea like a siren in traffic, like the alarm in a house on fire. 

“Play dead,” Kirishima growls.

And he stands up and leaves.

The guard doesn’t question him. His loyalty is suddenly a blessing—no one under Overhaul’s command has ever had a reason to question his loyalty, and that cushions any concerns they might have held about locking him in a room with Bakugou and telling him to deliver the killing blow.

It doesn’t mean he’s not still loyal. He is. He’d left Bakugou bloody and bruised in the cell. He’ll finish the job later, after whatever emergency they’ve called him for has passed.

It was a choice between Bakugou and Overhaul, and he’d chosen Overhaul. He’d chosen Overhaul’s safety, his continued livelihood, over an inconsequential fight. That’s the choice he made. 

He hadn’t told Bakugou about Origin, the thing Overhaul really did need him to protect. He hadn’t fed into his dawning realization that the city’s underworld was shifting, the beginning stages of something that would disrupt hero society. 

That was loyalty. He had remained loyal.

The guard curses as the floor undulates beneath her feet. 

He hadn’t noticed, but the entire hallway is shaking, almost sinusoidal, rippling outwards, flat cement remolding itself. 

“Mimic’s quirk,” the guard murmurs.

Mimic is the general manager of the Shie Hassaikai. He’s only ever seen him counting money, fingers reverently handling the bills.

“He’s in the ground?”

“His quirk lets him transfer his body and mind into an object to control and manipulate it. Trigger must have boosted him,” the guard contemplates. “I’ve never seen him control entire locations before.”

Unlike Origin, Trigger is a drug the heroes already know about. Shigaraki enjoys watching news reels of fights where the heroes come away on stretchers, beat to hell and back by villains with enhanced quirks. 

“The heroes,” he says. “They’re here?”

There is no other reason why Mimic would be in the floor, the walls. No other reason why Overhaul would call him out of a cell before assuring Bakugou’s death himself.

Bakugou really is strong. The heroes are so worried about his power in the villain’s hands that they came running mere hours after he’d gone missing. 

There’s shouting in front of them, interspersed with gunfire and the sounds of heavy impact. He picks up the pace, feet coming down hard against the unsteady ground.

“Hey!” The guard snaps. “We’re on your fucking side, cut that shit out!” She shakes her head when Mimic doesn’t stop. “Unstable fucker. Heard Trigger fucks with your head—not like he needed it.”

And then she’s drawing her gun, black metal steady in her hands, because someone runs in from the right and, suddenly, they’re not alone in the hallway.

It’s All Might. 

A hero he dimly remembers.

He does not remember him ever looking like this, eyes white with shock, hands limp at his sides. All Might's surprise makes him vulnerable, weak points popping up in quick succession. 

“Kirishima,” he says hoarsely. “It’s good to see you.”

So Bakugou hadn’t been lying about his name. He’d been sure of it already, but this, at least, is confirmation. 

“He’s straight ahead, in the basement,” the guard murmurs. “That’s where he wanted you. With him.”

All Might is blocking the way.

What was it, that Ujiko had said when they’d first met? 

Would he kill you? Would he rip you limb from limb? Would he destroy you, as he destroyed my soldiers?

“Go,” he tells the guard. “He won’t kill me.” He wouldn’t have a problem killing her, though, and they can’t risk the loss in manpower, especially if All Might is in the building.

She nods and turns on her heel, sprinting back the way they came. The base is sprawling, labyrinthine. There are a hundred ways to get to any room, most of them invisible or out of the way. She’ll make her way to Overhaul one way or another.

He will too, once he gets past All Might.

“Kirishima,” All Might says again. His eyes don’t follow the guard, don’t calculate her steps, don’t stop to consider whether there’s someone waiting to meet her, someone who might find themselves on the wrong end of her gun. He looks shaken, unsure, not at all like the hero he’s meant to be. “They told us you might be here,” he says, finally. “I’m—I’m glad. That we found you.”

He’s lying.

Bakugou had been good for one thing, and that was teaching him what honesty looked like on a hero. The certainty in his eyes had been unbreakable. He’d had nothing to hide, he’d bared everything on the table.

“You’re not,” he says. 

All Might flinches. “Of course I am. I don’t hold any of this against you, I know you didn’t choose it. If you come with me now—”

“You’ll lock me up,” he interrupts. 

“We wouldn’t,” All Might says, looking pained. “We’d bring you back to U.A. and we’d get you the help that you need.”

He hasn’t disproved the point. “It’s the same thing,” he says. “You’ll realize there’s no fixing this, and you’ll lock me up. It would be the right thing to do.”

Ujiko is a very, very smart man. He treats his experiments like chess boards. Every move of his is purposeful—the smallest pawn opens the gate for the death of the king. Undoing his work is impossible. He would have made it so.

The heroes would take him weak, defenceless. They would strip him of his strength and bury him under non-disclosure agreements. They would take him as Kirishima, as the person he used to be, the boy who had no idea what he was capable of.

They would not take him as he is. They shouldn’t.

“Don’t waste your time,” he says honestly. “I’ve heard it all from Bakugou already.”

All Might’s face contorts painfully. “You’ve seen Bakugou?”

“I killed him,” he says flatly.

And All Might—transforms, almost. The beginnings of grief are washed clean from his face. The shadows beneath his browbone darken and he straightens his shoulders, the top of his spun-gold hair brushing the grimy ceiling.

Finally, he looks like a hero.

“What did he tell you?” All Might asks.

“That I used to be shorter than him,” he responds. “He said you would reverse this, make me shorter again. He believed it. But I know better, and you do too.”

Bakugou had been sincere because he hadn’t known any better. But All Might knows better, and he lies because of it.

“I need you go past you,” he says honestly. “Will you let me?”

All Might rolls his shoulders back. Regret steals over his face, before it fades back into forced neutrality. “I cannot,” he says.

But he can. He will.

All Might makes the first move. He wants to end this cleanly, quickly—his student immobilized beneath his palm. On anyone else, it would be more than possible. All Might’s offence is the best in the game.

Ujiko’s defence is inimitable.

His shield holds up against All Might’s first punch, then his second, then his fifth. He doesn’t move, doesn’t attack, just watches All Might’s skin split on his quirk.

“It’s not enough,” he says calmly. 

“Kirishima,” All Might says, voice raw with pain. The facade of the Symbol of Peace melts away, and then there is the teacher, face made ugly by grief. He’s already lost Bakugou, and he’s confronting the reality that Kirishima is gone too.

All Might doesn’t want to kill his student. He plays it up—he is the boy who respects his teacher, not the dog that bites when Shigaraki says bite and kills when Overhaul says kill.

“You’re my teacher,” he says. “I don’t want to hit you. I won’t. But the only way you can beat me is by killing me. They made me unbreakable, and you can’t beat that with anything less than a fatal attack.” He straightens up, makes like he’s just casually standing in line for class, hands in his pockets. “Kill me, or let me go.”

All Might folds.

He understands. All Might is loyal to his student the same way he is loyal to Overhaul. They’ll always choose the other person’s life. Always.

“You’re late,” Overhaul says shortly, looking up as he enters the basement. “I called for you twenty minutes ago.”

“I had a run-in with All Might,” he responds. “Who else is here?”

Overhaul’s head snaps up. “He just let you go?”

“Yes.”

He seems to accept that, because he nods, before moving on. “Endeavour, Hawks, Best Jeanist. Eraserhead. A few others.” He narrows his eyes, cold and calculating. “It might be good for them to see you. What did All Might say when he saw you?”

“Nothing,” he says. “He hit me a few times and then gave up.”

“Did he ask about the other boy?”

“I said I killed him.”

“Did you?”

If Overhaul finds out he lied, the trust he’s so carefully built will be broken. “Not yet.”

Surprisingly, Overhaul accepts that with little more than a furrowed brow. The heroes have taken over his focus—one boy half-dead in a cell isn’t a threat that registers. They might even be able to use him as a bargaining chip.

He moves on, then, to the plan. Mimic is disrupting the invasion attempt, but he won’t be able to keep it up for too long. Trigger is strong, but it can’t compete against the body’s exhaustion. Mimic’s never controlled something so large before, and if he shows his face for even a moment, Eraserhead will shut him down.

The important thing is hiding Origin from the heroes. Overhaul is more than capable of guarding it himself, if it comes to that, so he’s flooding the halls with yakuza, to combat the police presence. The League of Villains will be fighting the heroes. 

“They’re here for Bakugou Katsuki,” Overhaul says. “If we lead them to him, they’ll take him and leave, ignoring Origin completely”

“They want me too,” he says. Except, that’s not quite true. “They want to take me back. All Might mentioned it.”

Overhaul tilts his head. “Well,” he says, after a moment, “I’m sure if we make it a choice between you and him, they’ll choose quite easily.”

Unsurprisingly, Katsuki gets tired of playing dead after the first gunshot rings out.

Kirishima’s going to be busy for a while and it makes no sense to lie down like a lead in a soap opera while the asshole is out there playing guard dog for a budget-Tokoyami. 

He army-crawls to the door and peeks outside. The hall is bereft of guards—Kirishima must have convinced them he was dead. No point guarding a corpse when there’s an invasion at your doorstep.

On the bright side, it means Kirishima was at least listening to what he had to say. He could have killed Katsuki before leaving, or even when the guard came in. But he’d disobeyed orders. He’d disobeyed orders to keep Katsuki alive.

Katsuki wonders what it says about him, that he’d killed Kirishima without hesitation but Kirishima, with his brain tied up in knots, still hesitated. Almost as quickly, he feels dumb for even considering it, the difference is that obvious. Kirishima had asked.

Newly free, he faces a different problem. He has no idea where anything is. 

He’s in some sort of isolation ward, so it’s bound to be cut off from the rest of the base. The mustiness of the place suggests he’s underground. The fighting will be above ground, since that’s where the major entrances are. He just needs to figure out how to get there.

Except Kirishima doesn’t need his help. Having Katsuki near him might actually put him in deeper shit, since Overhaul would realize pretty fucking quickly that Kirishima had disobeyed him. 

You think I can go back? After all of this? You weren’t supposed to come get me.

No, Katsuki’s going to find that fucking doctor, and he’s going to find out exactly what he did to Kirishima, and what he needs to do to get him back. That way, when he finds Kirishima again, he’ll have something more useful to offer than a quick death.

All things considered, Katsuki finds Ujiko’s lab pretty quickly. The creep seems to be fond of underground labs, given his setup back at the League’s base in Kamino Ward, so he only needs to explore the wing surrounding the isolation ward before he comes across it.

The door is locked, but an explosion to the handle takes care of that.

The lab is smaller than the one at Shigaraki’s, but Ujiko’s managed to fill it with a number of creepy as shit items, including the ever-familiar dentist’s chair. Katsuki kind of wants to burn that thing to the fucking ground.

Ujiko is in the lab, bent over something on the back counter. Fucker doesn’t seem to have learned from last time. 

“Hey!” Katsuki shouts. 

The doctor jolts up, the force of it displacing his goggles. One of his eyes is still large, grotesque behind the thick lens, but the other is bared, wide and afraid, staring at him from beneath a bushy eyebrow. 

“You got out,” he says, as if Katsuki is some sort of escaped zoo animal.

Katsuki leers at him, delighting in the way he flinches back, back smacking against the lab table. “Yeah. Wanted to see you. Got some questions, you think you can answer them for me?”

Ujiko’s eyes flicker to the door. 

“No one’s coming to save you,” Katsuki intones. “They’re busy with the heroes which, I don’t gotta tell you, if they show up…Well, you’re lucky all you got is me.”

Ujiko doesn’t look particularly grateful. That’s fine, he’ll come around. 

“You answer my questions and I leave you alone,” Katsuki says. “Sound fair to you?” 

Ujiko nods.

Katsuki leans back against the door, palms laid flat. The handle digs into his back, but if it twitches for even a second, he’ll be ready. He smiles, wide, casual. Relaxed. “What’d you do to Kirishima?”

“I made him stronger,” Ujiko says stiffly. It seems Katsuki’s touched a nerve. For a brief moment, his pride overshadows his fear and he lifts his chin, daring Katsuki to disagree. 

“I can see that,” Katsuki allows. “But I want to know what you did.”

Ujiko surveys him. “It can’t be undone,” he says, shakily adjusting his goggle until they cover both his eyes again. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it? It’s permanent. I changed the way his mind reads his quirk, there’s no undoing that.”

He’s lying. He has to be. 

“No way,” Katsuki refutes. “No fucking way, you wouldn’t build something that didn’t have an escape route if things got bad.”

“Things weren’t supposed to get bad,” Ujiko says, lip curling. “He was my masterpiece, he was perfect, and then he let you—”

“Kill him? Make you look weak?” Katsuki grins. “Yeah, he really fucked you over with that one. Bet Overhaul doesn’t trust you anymore, huh.”

Ujiko bristles. “It won’t happen again. Overhaul knows that.”

“I don’t think he does,” Katsuki says slowly. “Y’know, when Kirishima and I fought in that ring, he didn’t mention you once? You built him, you were the one who figured out how to get his quirk like that, and Overhaul’s the one that gets the credit.”

Forget touching the nerve, he’s just held a knife to it. 

Ujiko steps forward, fury writ in every line of his shaking body. “You think I wanted this?” He demands. “I built him to overcome All Might, to bring the villains out of the shadows. Then Shigaraki signs him away to Overhaul because he was too impatient to let me solve the problem and now he’s skulking around the underground, peddling drugs to Overhaul’s clientele.”

“And he would be better off, what,” Katsuki scoffs, “taking on pros for your fucking amusement?”

“For progress,” Ujiko says, eyes gleaming. “Kirishima is my life’s work. He is everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve learned. If people knew what I’ve done, if people could just see him—it would change everything, everything we know about quirks, about how they work, how they’re handled—” His mouth flattens into a hard line. “But no one has. Overhaul only unveils him to the untouchables.”

Katsuki hadn’t expected this. Ujiko—in a creepy, disturbing way—cares about Kirishima. He wants him to be revered, respected even. His motivations behind it are about as clean a pigsty but it’s a step up from Overhaul.

“If he comes with me,” Katsuki tries, “people would see him. The news would go nuts. Everyone would know it was you.” Ujiko moves to speak and Katsuki interrupts before he can get a word in. “Think about it,” he says. “It’s permanent, it’s undoable, the heroes would have to tell people and the entire country would know what you’ve discovered.”

Ujiko hesitates. Katsuki latches onto it like a starving man. “This can’t be what you wanted for him,” he urges. “You know there’s more. If you keep going like this, your life’s work, all of it will be for nothing and Overhaul’s probably going to end up killing Kirishima before he moves onto something else.”

“He wouldn’t,” Ujiko says, but it’s feeble, stuttering over the precipice of belief. 

“You said he’s protecting Overhaul’s drug trade,” Katsuki says. “He knows too much. Once he doesn’t need Kirishima anymore, you think he’s going to want to keep him? When he knows enough to take Overhaul down from the inside out? You’ll be done before anyone knows your name.”

“So what would you suggest,” Ujiko says, at last. “Say I give him over to you. The heroes would throw me into Tartarus for tampering with a hero student.”

Katsuki can’t argue with that. He’s ready to walk the good doctor in himself.

“No,” Ujiko says, shaking his head. “No, no, you’re good, Bakugou Katsuki. I understand why they sent you. But Kirishima…he is invaluable.”

And the fucked up thing is, Katsuki knows that. He knows exactly what’s going through Ujiko’s mind. Kirishima is an unbreakable shield, the impossible defence. If he had something like that in his hands, he’d never let it go.

Ujiko is a coward and a creep but he’s smart enough to know when he’s got it right.

This whole thing was a waste of time. The only reason he’d put himself in this position was to find a cure and here is Ujiko saying there isn’t one, that he’s molded Kirishima’s brain beyond hope of retrieval. 

The door handle jerks. It digs into Katsuki’s ribs, a sharp reminder that there’s a raid going on outside the lab, a more pressing concern than his pity party. 

He backs away from the door, one palm glowing—casting Ujiko’s terrified face in golden light—the other facing the door.

It swings open and he’s itching for a fight, hungry to put these fucking yakuza into the ground.

It’s not yakuza.

“Are we late?” Shigaraki asks, tugging Kirishima in behind him, rotting fingers like a collar around his neck. “I figured you’d like to see him.”

Kirishima’s eyes are fixed on Katsuki, the already-hard lines of his face crumpled up into a familiar glare. Katsuki can see him thinking, Hey, what the fuck, I told you to play dead.

As if you would stay in that cell, Katsuki thinks, glaring right back.

Kirishima doesn’t look appeased. 

“You don’t have people to fight?” Katsuki asks, dragging his eyes away from Kirishima, from his encased throat. “All Might, Endeavour—”

“Are being taken care of,” Shigaraki says, flippantly waving a hand. Five fingers brush against the door and it crumbles into ash, the entryway left open. He blinks, as if only just noticing Ujiko. “Leave us,” he says, motioning mockingly at the door-turned-archway.

Ujiko scurries outside, lab coat disappearing down the hallway.

The casual display of power is unnecessary. Shigaraki acts like Katsuki needs a reminder of what it means, that he’s got his fingers around Kirishima’s throat.

It’s too close. Your explosions are more precise.

Suddenly, Katsuki is consumed by anger. Kirishima got his brain gutted out, memories thrown out with the bathwater, and he’d still cared about hurting Katsuki when he’d freed him from the collar. Katsuki’s never met anyone so enduringly good and it tears at his teeth, at his lungs, that Kirishima is surrounded by so many people who don’t fucking give a shit.

Do you know what you found? He feels like screaming. You struck fucking gold. Do you see that? Do you?

“You’re pretty fucking lazy, aren’t you,” he says, goading Shigaraki. “Got everyone else on the frontlines and you’re fine washing your hands of it, hiding away from it all down here.”

Shigaraki narrows his eyes. “It would be in your best interest to be careful with the way that you speak to me.”

Katsuki laughs, the edge of it borderline hysterical. “Yeah?” He challenges. “The fuck are you gonna do? Kill him again? I think I’ve made it pretty damn clear that I don’t have a problem with that.”

Kirishima doesn’t move at the admission. 

“I can do it again,” Katsuki says, letting the words spill out like bile. As long as it keeps Shigaraki’s attention on him, away from the pulse beneath his index finger, he’ll keep going. “You wanna see? Wanna see how he lets me kill him?”

“I will admit,” Shigaraki says softly, “that does interest me.” But he blinks, shakes his head, eyes going bright. “No,” he says, “unfortunately, I don’t think that’s how this is going to go.” He turns to Kirishima, voice sugar-sweet. “Overhaul gave you orders, didn’t he?”

Kirishima nods.

“And what were they?”

Kirishima looks up. Meet’s Katsuki’s eyes. “To kill him.”

But Katsuki’s not fucking taking that. Kirishima’s had all the time in the fucking world, could have given Katsuki a quick, painless death back in the cell and no one would have been the wiser or given him shit for being soft.

Play dead, he’d said. Like he wanted Katsuki to stay there, in the cell, where Kirishima would at least know where he was. Where he could have the slightest assurance that Katsuki was safe, held apart from the fight.

Kirishima knows his orders, Katsuki’s not contesting that. But he knows Katsuki too and, so far, that's seemed to matter more.

“So kill me, then,” he challenges, glaring at Kirishima. “We’ll do it here, get it the fuck over with. I’m tired of waiting for a fight.”

Shigaraki grins back at him. “Well,” he says, jostling Kirishima as he steps backwards into the hallway, “I’d say it’s a little cramped in here. Let’s go somewhere with a little more space.”

And he leads them out into the hallway, which expands, suddenly, cement rippling outward as fluid as water, until it’s the same width as Overhaul’s fighting ring. It’s blocked off on both sides, thick cement cutting them off from the rest of the base. 

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the time constraints,” Shigaraki says, eyeing Kirishima, who nods blankly.

And then, finally, Shigaraki lets go of Kirishima’s neck, and Katsuki feels the relief like a knife in his gut. 

Whatever happens from this point forward is on Katsuki. Kirishima is as safe as he can be and Shigaraki is too fascinated by the one person Kirishima’s left alive to try intervening. Katsuki’s not going to get a better shot than this.

Because Katsuki had made a choice too, hadn’t he? He’d asked to come with the heroes, to play in the big leagues, to shoulder the same burden, to tie it to his back and never set it down. It was his mistakes that got him captured, his hand that led to a blank-eyed Kirishima unresponsive to his own name.

Katsuki’s old man is a neat freak. He was raised to clean up his own messes. 

Kirishima, surprisingly, makes the first move. He darts forward, open hand like a Venus flytrap, and Katsuki, for a moment, sees the next few seconds. Sees Kirishima’s hands around his neck, the bone snapping out of place.

He detonates a Howitzer, the force of it ricocheting up his arm, turning the skin an angry red.

The explosion shakes the ceiling, the walls. Dust rains down around them, causing even Shigaraki to cough. Kirishima should be thrown back, should be burned, should be something other than mildly disoriented. 

The noise is probably the thing that bothers him, then. Katsuki can work with that.

He keeps up a steady rhythm of explosions, things that are more noise and light than they are actual force. Kirishima is strong, sure, but his eyes and ears work just fine and, when it comes to Katsuki’s quirk, that’s more of a detriment than anything else.

Katsuki closes the space between them and whips his arm around, sets a second Howitzer right by Kirishima’s ear, and he stumbles, narrowed eyes blowing wide, white.

“You—” He freezes, throwing a sloppy punch that Katsuki easily dodges. “You did that, before.”

Katsuki stares. “Yeah,” he manages, pain coursing through his forearms. “Yeah, when I said I had killed you, you thought I was joking about that?”

“He doesn’t care about you,” Shigaraki interjects, staring at Kirishima. “You told me you didn’t want them here, do you remember that? You knew, even then, that you didn’t need saving. Your classmate came here, and he killed you, and we brought you back.”

God, of course they’d twist that memory. Of course they’d turn it into something it wasn’t, make Katsuki out to be some sort of villain, paint it like he’d killed Kirishima because it was something he wanted. Because it was something Kirishima would believe, wouldn’t question—that Katsuki would choose to hurt him like that.

Kirishima’s lip curls. It exposes his teeth, bone-white, long ropes of spit dripping from his canines. 

Katsuki’s seen the look before, on feral dogs, right before they strike. He throws up explosions, brilliant in their power, turning the air toxic, and Kirishima refuses to be thrown back by it. He grabs Katsuki’s neck in his fist, re-opening the crusted-over cuts, and slams him into the ground.

It hurts. 

The reverberation is the biggest thing. It shakes Katsuki’s brains, running in through his ears and echoing long after the initial hit. He’s good with fighting dizzy, has learned how to because of his quirk, and he manages to get his arms up, clamp his hands over Kirishima’s ears.

Kirishima claws at his right arm with his empty hand and it drops, but the left hand still lights up and Kirishima’s head jerks away, eyes widening again. He clutches at his skull, looking, for the first time, like he’s in pain.

You need to kill me.

“You know he’s lying to you!” Katsuki shouts, praying Kirishima can hear it with his good ear. “You fucking remember what happened, I fucked with your ears and you died, but—”

Kirishima, furious, slams him into the ground again, and Katsuki’s pretty sure it knocks a tooth loose because there’s blood in his mouth, maybe that’s his tongue, maybe he’d bitten his tongue, no, wait, he has to say—

This has to be a fight to the death. They know how to bring me back but if it’s you, they won’t—they won’t—

“You remember,” he says again, left arm trying in vain to reach Kirishima’s ear again, like if he blows it up enough Kirishima will remember, unspool the fucked-up mess that’s his brain and remember that—that—

The cement wall shakes. It must be because of his explosions, except the spiderweb cracks in it are growing bigger, wider, and he’s not doing that, he’s here, trapped beneath Kirishima’s hand.

Kirishima doesn’t look away from him, pupils dilated. 

However you want, doesn’t matter, but it has to be me, they won’t let me die, it’s fine, just—

“They told you to kill me and you said no,” he gasps. “Do you remember that? We’ve been here before.” And Kirishima’s hand squeezes tighter around his neck, thumbs digging holes into his skin. “You said no,” Katsuki repeats, black spots dancing in his eyes. “I kill—I killed you because you asked me to.”

The wall caves in.

I’m serious. We’re getting out of here.

Chapter Text

He comes to in a very small room.

It is four by four metres. There is light coming in from a small window, barely bigger than both his hands, splayed out. There is a sizeable cot on one side of the room. There is no door.

“Welcome back.”

There is a voice coming from—from the ceiling. There is a speaker in the top corner. It is a woman’s voice.

“It was pretty hard to keep you asleep,” the voice continues. “You took a lot out of me, you know that? It was a fun challenge, though, I can’t be upset.”

He does not sleep. He has seen Overhaul’s goons slumped over each other, sometimes, snoring after long nights, but he is stronger than them, and he does not need it.

“Do you remember me?”

The voice is not familiar.

“I am Pro Hero Midnight. I’m also your teacher.”

He remembers—yellow goggles. A monotone voice. This is not the same. If he does not remember it, then it is possible this is all a test from Overhaul, in order to gauge his loyalty, or his memory, or some other variable that Ujiko thinks deserves experimenting. 

Or it could be that he doesn’t even remember his own name, and his former teacher really is speaking to him through the ceiling.

“You are in a holding room at U.A.,” the voice, cautiously identified as Pro Hero Midnight continues. “We think letting you see us face-to-face may help you recover your memories. Do you agree to that?”

There is no obvious trap in that.

“I agree.”

His voice is like gravel. It comes out half-stifled by his dry throat. Still, Midnight must understand—she says “Alright” and the intercom crackles and turns off.

The wall with the window glitches, like an old television screen—and turns to glass. When he reaches out to touch it, it still feels like cool cement, but it is undeniably transparent.

A woman stands on the other side of the wall. She is not obviously armed, wearing only tight leather pants and a loose white shirt.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

He shakes his head.

“We found you at the yakuza hideout. I had to put you to sleep in order to get you out of there easily, and then keep you asleep until we brought you here. That’s my quirk—I produce a mist that makes people fall asleep.” Her lips tilt up. “It only has to be breathed in so—you know, it even works on you.”

“Oh.”

He’d thought he was unbeatable. They said he was invincible and she’d beat him by putting him to sleep.

Maybe this is all real, then. Overhaul and Shigaraki made him strong but everything before that—he can only ever remember being weak.

“This is too much,” Midnight says suddenly. “Here—talk to someone you know a little better.”

She walks away. The wall turns back to stone, complete with the little window. It is all fake—the light does not come from outside but from a sanitized hallway. 

The League does not have the money for technology like this. Overhaul is doing better, from Origin sales, but he chooses to spend his newfound fortune on weapons and increased drug production, not technological illusions.

And the last thing he remembers—the heroes had raided the yakuza, and there was a very loud noise, and dust in his eyes, and—Bakugou, who looking at him through the glass.

“Kirishima,” he says, grinning. “I told you, didn’t I? We got out, just like I said we would.”

Bakugou looks smug and proud. The little inflections of his face are clear, even through the thick wall between them. 

“You got out,” he corrects. “Do I need to stay here?

Bakugou’s open pride flickers, dims. “They want to keep you here for a bit. Until they know more.”

“More.”

It is the same. He is still Ujiko’s masterpiece. He is still the thing they marvel at, and prod and poke at, and wonder if it can truly be real, if it is possible for something so strong to need so little.

“What do they need to know.”

“Important stuff,” Bakugou says flippantly, eyes flickering to the side, then back again. “They need to know how to take care of you properly.”

He knows that much.

“I do not need food,” he recites. “I can survive for long periods of time in extreme heat and cold.” He looks at the intercom. Midnight may still be listening. “I do not need sleep.”

When he turns back, Bakugou looks as if someone has held his head underwater and told him to scream.

“She put me to sleep,” he clarifies. “I do not need that.”

“You didn’t sleep,” Bakugou says quietly. “The entire time you were with them, you didn’t eat and you didn’t sleep.”

“Ujiko has pills. They are specially formulated. Anything else is incompatible.” 

“Okay,” Bakugou says, looking to the side again. “They’ll figure that out. But—you need sleep, Kirishima. Everyone needs sleep.”

“We are different,” he says. It is very simple. Bakugou needs sleep, or he will die. But he does not need sleep, because he has not slept in a very long time, and he is not dead. 

Bakugou’s fist slams against the wall. It glitches, turns to concrete, then back to glass. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He demands. “What the fuck do you think you are? You think you’re a machine? You think you’re one of those Nomu? You need all of that, you stupid fucking—”

It’s interesting. He does not feel anything, most of the time. Bakugou always manages to change that.

“I’m not stupid,” he snarls back. “Bring All Might out, ask him what I said, and he’ll tell you that I was right. With Overhaul I was able to move, I could fight, I could be strong—but you put me in a prison and call me stupid for not being grateful.”

“It’s not a fucking prison,” Bakugou yells. His face is like balled-up paper. “It’s a shitty little room because they can protect you in this shitty little room, and the second you’re out of it, it’ll be easier for the villains to get you. Everything we’re doing is to protect you, can you fucking understand that?”

Bakugou is the stupid one here.

“I protected Overhaul from every underground villain,” he says. “I was his right hand. I broke every hand that tried to touch him. And it was easy to do because I was stronger than all of them. I don’t need protecting.”

“You need protecting from your dumbass self,” Bakugou says mulishly. “The fact that you can say that like there’s not something massively wrong with all of it is the reason you’re here.”

Oh.

“You think I’m going to go back,” he says.

“Well,” Bakugou says, “when you say shit like that as a statement and not a question, it does kind of make us wonder, yeah.”

He has nothing to say to that.

“Right,” Bakugou says. He turns his head and scowls at someone out of view. “I—yeah, I’m going, I see you, thanks for that—look. Kirishima. Maybe you’re right, and this is a fucking prison. Sorry, I guess, that you have to sit in a little room and be safe and get some fucking rest. That’s real cruel of me, to put you in that position. But if you wanna get out, a good first step might be understanding that you’re supposed to be here, with us.”

And then he leaves.

“I fucking hate him,” Katsuki hisses, stabbing at his rice. 

“Lunch Rush is doing his best, man,” Kaminari says.

Katsuki debates stuffing wasabi into his eye sockets. He doesn’t, only because he barely has the energy left over to mutilate his dinner, let alone Kaminari’s ability to see.

“Your stupid fucking best friend,” he hisses, instead. “He’s an idiot. A moron. An ungrateful fucking piece of—I brought him back. I fought to go with the heroes and I fought him in the arena and I beat that creepy fucking doctor and Overhaul and everyone else in my way just to get to him and bring him back and he still —”

“You talked to him?” 

Kaminari’s chopsticks clatter onto his plate. One sticks, but the other goes toppling over the edge, and dropping onto the grass.

Maybe Katsuki should have led with that.

Their whole class is clustered out on the grounds. Sitting in the cafeteria, separated into little groups, the subject of the entire student body’s scrutiny…left a lot to be desired. It’s easier to be outside.

“They were monitoring him. He woke up. They called me down, because I was the last person he—yeah. And then Midnight was talking to him, and I didn’t think she was gonna let me, I thought I’d have to, like, fucking fight her, again, but she just. Told him I was there. And we talked. And then he fucking shit all over everything I’ve done for him because he’s an ungrateful bitch, and I left. And that’s it.”

There’s a brief silence.

And then the class erupts.

“What did he say exactly?”

“You can’t call our tortured classmate an ‘ungrateful bitch’, what is wrong with you—”

“How did he look?”

“Did he ask about us?”

“She let you talk to him? Just like that?”

“Wait, if she let you, when can we see him?”

Katsuki’s tempted to just get up and eat in the sanctity of a janitor’s closet. 

But Kirishima would want his friends to know he was okay. If it was up to him, he’d be sitting cross-legged on the grass with them, poking a straw through a juice box and refusing to shut the fuck up about his brief stint as a bodyguard for a yakuza boss.

“First of all,” Katsuki says, scowling, “I got him out of there, so I’ll call him whatever I want.”

It’s silent. No one argues. 

“He talks weird. Not—like before. It’s all stilted. Like he learned to talk from someone my fucking grandpa’s age. He was saying all this shit about how he didn’t need sleep, or food, or water. They’re trying to figure that out, right now, how to feed him, ‘cause he’s—they don’t know. What was done to him. Medically.

“He looks—” Like nothing I’ve ever seen. “Like shit. It’s harder to see, cause his posture’s fucking perfect and his face is too fucked-up from his quirk to see the dark circles or whatever, but he just. Seems fucking exhausted. But he doesn’t know he’s tired. Fucking idiot.

“He didn’t ask about any of you. I mentioned your names while we were at the hideout and he didn’t react. Might come back. I dunno, I don’t know what’s going on with all the psychological stuff, but—he’s missing a lot of shit. I don’t know how much. And I don’t even know if she was supposed to let me talk to him ‘cause fucking Endeavour was up my ass to leave him alone, so I don’t think they’ll let you either. 

“But they keep changing their plans every two fucking seconds so who knows. Maybe it’ll be a damn reunion. Maybe they’ll fly his parents down to show them what UA did to their kid.”

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until his plate falls off his lap.

No one moves to touch him.

“What the fuck,” Katsuki gasps, dropping his head between his knees. “I don’t—I can’t even fucking conceptualize how bad it was for him there. I didn’t even fucking see it. But they had him—it was like he was this—this fucking dog, for them to muzzle, and lead around, and tell where to stay, and shit, and fight. And he just—the last thing he said to me, before they fucked with his mind—” 

Katsuki feels like he’s going to throw up.

It feels like Kirishima’s dead-eyed stare is still watching him from inside his little room. The most vividly alive person Katsuki’s ever met in his life, the guy who laughed in the face of failure, who was physically impossible to demoralize—just. Standing there, like a soldier waiting for orders, dead-eyed and wary.

“He wants to go back,” he chokes out. “They did everything but kill him, and he wants to go back.”

“He’s not going to,” Uraraka says, determined. “Listen, Bakugou, you did such a good fucking job bringing him home. And the rest of us—we’re going to help bring him back, alright? You’re not alone.”

“I’m fucking fine,” Katsuki says, head still between his legs, feeling nauseous. 

Uraraka snorts. “No, yeah, I can see that. But whatever. What do you think he needs right now? What can we do for him?”

It’s time to stop being a fucking child.

Uraraka’s ready. Everyone’s ready.

Kirishima’s the one that actually went through something. Katsuki’s the one who committed to getting him through it.

He hasn’t pulled through yet.

Katsuki lifts his head. “I think we need to let him go.”

Iida, immediately, raises his hand. “You just said he wants to go back. How can letting him go be the solution?”

“I don’t mean releasing him to the underground, I mean—right now, they’ve got him in a box. And he can’t go outside and he can’t piss without being on camera and it’s—it’s better than what he had before, but not by much, and he doesn’t see the difference. He’s still being measured, quantified, and just—” Katsuki exhales. “Neglected.”

He looks at Iida.

“Give me a minute,” Iida says quietly.

That’s one thing Katsuki can respect about him. He takes his time thinking an idea out. Arguing with Iida is insanely difficult and no fun at all because he spends so much time thinking about how to compromise, and how best to get his point across, and how to maintain respect throughout it all, that Katsuki just leaves feeling suicidal.

“I think your idea has merit,” Iida says, after a minute. “There will be things to clear up—the specific boundaries, whether he can go outside, the extent of his supervision—but that can be done in companionship with the teachers and the other pro heroes.”

Katsuki looks around. People are nodding, in agreement. 

He rolls his head back, closing his eyes. “Gonna be fucking hell convincing them.”

He can see it now, Endeavour, incensed—“You brought him out just to lose him again? You think you can trust him? He’s not even human!”

“We’ll go together,” Yaoyorozu says, eyes sparkling. “Present a united front.”

Katsuki scoffs.

“I’m serious!” Yaoyorozu protests. “It’s always you on your one-man frontier, you know, you against all the pro heroes. And your batting average isn’t terrible. But, for once, if the numbers are a little more even, it’s bound to be easier, don’t you think?”

And that’s how they end up, all nineteen of them, piling up in front of the principal’s door.

Iida, as class president, knocks—a short, polite rap.

“Man,” Hagakure says, under her breath. “That is one sexy knock.”

Jirou lets out a noise like a deflating balloon. “ What?”

“No, I’m just saying, like—” And Hagakure’s sleeves flutter as she gesticulates. “That’s a knock that’s assertive, y’know? Like, ‘I’m here to get shit done. But I’m gonna be a total sweetheart about it.’”

Jirou looks at her like she’s unwell. Iida’s face is a light, embarrassed pink.

Right then, the door opens, saving him from any future potential humiliation.

“Ah,” Aizawa says, looking about as enthused to see them as he would be about a box full of dead rats. “Do you all need something.”

“We’d like to speak to every available hero on the subject of Kirishima’s presence at UA,” Iida says, every syllable clear and succinct.

“What did I say,” Hagakure intones, and Katsuki has to hand it to her, even if Jirou is rolling her eyes with the ferocity of a hundred men.

“Of course you are,” Aizawa mumbles, shoulders slumping. “You’re in luck, we just finished a meeting. Come in.” He raises an eyebrow, surveying the crowd. “...All of you.”

Shouji’s the last one to make it inside, his broad shoulders just barely finding a space in between Todoroki and Deku. He shuts the door behind him.

Their class stares out at the round table of heroes.

It’s most of the faculty sans All Might, plus Jeanist and Endeavour.

They didn’t rehearse this. Maybe they should have.

But no, it doesn’t fucking matter. Katsuki’s right. No amount of rehearsal’s going to make up for a shitty idea, just like no amount of awkward stumbling is going to detract from the right fucking thing to do.

“This situation isn’t working for Kirishima,” he begins. “I know it’s short-term. I know he just got here. But I think we need to give him more freedom.”

As expected, Endeavour’s face is already contorting, mouth forming the beginnings of a rebuttal. Katsuki forges ahead before he can interrupt.

“The way things are right now isn’t helping him. He doesn’t see the difference between us and the villains. In fact—if you asked him, right now, he’d go back to them. Because at least they were upfront about what they were doing.”

“And your plan is… to let him go,” Jeanist says dryly. “Back into the arms of the villains, as you’ve so aptly predicted.”

Katsuki bites his tongue.

“I understand why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Ashido pipes up. “But the thing is—I’ve known Kirishima since he was a kid. And he is the most irritatingly stubborn person I’ve ever met in my whole life. If he makes up his mind that we’re out to get him, he’s not going to get better. He’s not going to cooperate. And he’s not going to be able to help us end this.”

“We are not saying that he should be allowed to freely walk out of grounds, like a normal student,” Iida reiterates. “But—allowing him to train with us, to eat alongside us. To encourage the normalcy that he has been so deprived of, recently.”

“We should involve him in the details of his own treatment,” Yaoyorozu adds. “I can explain the chemical makeup of his pills so that he isn’t taking anything blindly. We can all talk to him, bring him back into the fold.”

“He’s not back,” Cementoss says. “You understand that, don’t you? There is something deeply wrong with him, and we don’t know what it is.”

“I was the last person to speak to him before they wiped his brain,” Katsuki says bluntly. He feels the weight of his words drop.

And yet—his shoulders are lighter.

Katsuki prefers to operate under total and complete control of his situations, the people around him, and his own behaviour. This is familiar ground. There is no one alive who knows more about Kirishima Eijirou than he does.

The heroes have more experience, decades of cases, similar drug busts, similar trauma. But Katsuki was the only one in that area, the only one with his palms against the soft shell of Kirishima’s ears.

Katsuki doesn’t feel the need to bite his tongue anymore. He’s calm. He’s in the right. “You saw the difference, between how he reacted to Midnight, and how he reacted to me. Sure, he was a little more aggressive, but he was more human, wasn’t he? You’re all treating him like a science experiment, which is the exact thing we just got him away from. If you want him to get better, you need to show him that that’s allowed. And you need to do that by treating him like a person.”

“He won’t be alone,” Deku says. “It’s a big school, with heroes everywhere. Even if one of you isn’t there, he’ll still be surrounded by us. There’s always going to be someone protecting him.”

And Katsuki would rather eat his own vomit than congratulate Deku on fucking anything, but at last, finally, someone gets it. Protecting Kirishima. That’s what this whole thing is about.

“Our problem isn’t protecting him, it’s protecting you,” Endeavour snaps, flames flaring up. “You have a lot of nerve, coming in here, accusing us, when all we’re trying to do is ensure your safety. If you’re protecting him, who’s protecting you?”

“Each other,” Kaminari replies fiercely. “He would do the same for any of us. You think anyone here wouldn’t lay down our life for him? Not saying it’ll come to that, but between risking a few broken bones and letting my best friend sit all by himself in a basement—it’s an obvious choice.”

Endeavour looks stunned still. 

Did no one expect that? This is a class of hero students. They’re trained in the lack of self-preservation.

Aizawa coughs. “We were having a meeting about a construction project,” he says. “After the events that led to Kirishima’s kidnapping, it’s been decided that it would be safer for you all to be in one place. From now on, all U.A. students will be living in dorms.”

That makes it all easier then.

“A dorm room’s probably the same size as what he’s got right now,” Katsuki says. “Problem solved.”

Endeavour blows smoke out of his nose, but Aizawa’s mouth tilts up to the side, and Katsuki knows they’ve won.

“We can’t just immediately change his privileges,” Aizawa says. “But in the meantime, while the dorms are being built, I’ll allow a small amount of interaction with him, provided his doctors clear it.”

He doesn’t say it like he’s asking for permission.

“Man, Eraser,” Mic says, whistling through his teeth, “it really serves you right to be stuck with the most hands-on class in the history of U.A.”

“Every day on this job is a wonder,” Aizawa says flatly, before slouching out the door.

Katsuki looks at his classmates. His classmates look at each other. One by one, they file out behind him, and Katsuki does his level best not to think about mother ducks or ducklings.

The light in the window changes.

It’s fake. But it still changes. It dulls, steadily, as if the sun really is moving, hitting it from different angles. If it was real, he’d use it to estimate the time. But it isn’t.

Instead, he counts. One to thirty-six hundred. He gets through it twice, and then the intercom crackles.

“Hello, Kirishima,” says a man’s voice. “This is Eraserhead, your homeroom teacher. A few of your classmates would like to speak with you. If you’re alright with that, we’ll let them in one by one. But if you’d prefer your space for now, just say so.”

It’s probably a trap.

He yawns.

Without Overhaul, he’ll probably just collapse again. They won’t know what to do to fix him. Maybe he’ll just die. It would be a pathetic end for Ujiko’s magnum opus, but it is what it is.

He’s too tired to think about it further. He’s bored. Talking to someone will stave off the exhaustion.

He nods.

“Alright,” Eraserhead says. “If, at any point, you want them to leave, just say so.”

They’re probably using that as a metric of… something. He just nods again.

The person who walks up isn’t Bakugou. He’s got blond hair as well, but it’s darker and longer, a black lightning bolt striking through it. The other differentiating factor is that he doesn’t look at him like he wants him dead.

He just looks… sad, really.

Where Bakugou stood, this guy just plops down on the ground, cross-legged, dropping his backpack beside him. “Hi!” He waves, visibly brightening his features. “It’s cool if you don’t remember me, but I’m Kaminari Denki. We’re best friends.”

“We are not best friends,” he says. Kaminari might be stupid. “I don’t know you.”

“That’s not true!” Kaminari squawks, offended. “You don’t remember me, it’s different. Here, look, you definitely know me. This one’s a selfie we took at that concert when your favourite band came to Tokyo, remember?”

He finds himself scooting closer, just to see.

“Babymetal?”

“Hey, see!” Kaminari grins. It looks less forced, now. “Your memory’s coming back already.”

“It says on your T-Shirt. And my headband.”

“Nope, I think you unearthed that all on your own.”

He’s ridiculous.

He’s… a little funny.

“Show me more,” he says.

Kaminari agrees easily. He swipes through his camera roll, and he only pauses when there’s a question. Where did they take this, who are the other people in the photo, why does Bakugou look murderous in the background (they’d met his parents during parent-teacher conferences after he told everyone he was an orphan).

Kaminari’s stories are interesting. He shares stories of the two of them doing very stupid things, accompanied by various members of the class. 

He can’t imagine doing any of that. He can’t remember any of it either. But the proof is immortalized on Kaminari’s phone.

He had… a life. He had a real, normal, fun life.

“Wait, what’s wrong?” Kaminari leans closer until his forehead bumps up against the wall. “I’m sorry! Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry, man, I didn’t mean to, I’ll fix it, I—”

“Stop.”

Kaminari stops.

“You didn’t…” He exhales, long and slow. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a lot. That’s all.”

“Oh.” Kaminari sets down his phone. “I get that. We can take a break.”

“I don’t—I don’t want—” The words are mixed up in his mouth. Kaminari waits patiently until he figures it out. “I don’t want you to stop. Just. I like. Seeing them. The photos. I just.”

He growls, frustrated.

“Hey, man, no worries,” Kaminari says gently. “I get it. We all need a break sometimes. Besides, this way I can build intrigue.” He rifles through his backpack, emerging with a thin comic book. “I brought some of your favourite Crimson Riot volumes. I thought we could read one together?”

His fingers would shred the pages. Having them shown to him is smart.

“Crimson Riot… the hero?”

Kaminari’s fingers tense around the cover of the book. “Yeah. He’s your favourite hero of allll time. You even named yourself after him! Red Riot, the Unbreakable Hero. You’re his legacy.”

“Red Riot.” It’s a good name. Solid, strong. “I like it.” 

He pauses. Blinks at himself. He likes it. The name makes him happy. When his mouth wraps around the syllables, his chest sparks. He wants to get up, wants to break a wall down with nothing but his fists.

“Well, yeah, of course you do,” Kaminari says like he’s being weird. “It’s yours.”

Kaminari flips open the first book and starts reading.

He scoots closer and closer to the wall until he’s propped up against it. Kaminari’s voice is quiet, rhythmic, and he makes sure to hold the pages up, so he can look at the pictures.

Crimson Riot is an amazing hero. He’s strong, and kind, and he never gives up. Near the end of the arc, he breaks into a prison to save his best friend. 

“I’m bleeding all over you,” Kaminari reads. “Let go of me, I can walk on my own.”

You’re my best friend, Crimson Riot responds. How could I let you do that?

He can’t help laughing, a little.

Kaminari pauses, curious. “You find that funny?”

“No.” It’s just. “Bakugou said. Something kind of similar. At Overhaul’s hideout. We—fought, apparently, and he could have left, but he stayed. Found me. And then we fought again. And I said he made the wrong choice, that he should have gotten out, left me alone. But he disagreed.”

Kaminari’s mouth is doing a funny thing. “You guys fought in the middle of a rescue mission?”

He stares at him. “Have you met Bakugou?”

Kaminari snorts. “Yeah. Yeah, only he would—yeah. Makes everything real fucking difficult, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Always.” He shakes his head. “Keep reading. Sorry. I just—it reminded me of him. Even if he’s not as cool as Crimson Riot. And kind of a dick.”

“Definitely a dick,” Kaminari agrees, snickering. He keeps reading. His voice lends itself well to reading. He’s expressive. He’s got a nice tone. The story itself is—really nice to listen to.

Being propped up against the wall hurts his neck, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a dull pain, and it, along with everything else, gradually fades to black.

Kaminari’s been with Kirishima for a while. It’s late. His parents called to ask why he wasn’t home yet. 

Katsuki—technically—isn’t allowed down there while another classmate is talking to Kirishima. Something about overwhelming him. He goes anyway. 

Kirishima’s slumped against the wall, eyes closed. Kaminari’s just looking at him, a Crimson Riot comic forgotten in his lap. He turns to look at Katsuki, and there are very, very clear tear tracks down his face.

“He’s asleep,” Kaminari says, voice hoarse. “Fell asleep a couple hours ago. I was reading to him. He liked the story.”

“Your parents called,” Katsuki says. “They want you back home."

“What about yours?”

“I told them I was staying the night.”

“With who?”

Katsuki looks at Kirishima. Waits for Kaminari to get it.

“With—Bakugou, you’re gonna fuck up your neck. Go home, man, we’ll leave together.”

Katsuki glares at him. It’s not something he wants to talk about. 

Kaminari, the piece of shit, seems to be perfectly happy standing there, with his arms crossed, waiting for Katsuki to explain himself.

“If you tell anyone else this I’ll kill you,” Katsuki says.

“Sure.”

Katsuki means to glare at him again, but he catches sight of Kirishima again, this hulking mass of stone and strength, curled up like a kid in their parent’s office chair, and he can’t look away. “...I don’t like not seeing him. The last time I lost sight of him they fucked with his brain and he came back different. And I know that nothing’s gonna happen to him here.”

“But you can’t make yourself stop,” Kaminari says quietly. “I get it. If anyone’s got the right to feel like that, it’s you.”

Katsuki doesn’t say anything to that.

“Those are for him,” Kaminari says, gesturing to the comics. “Maybe read to him, when he wakes up? He likes that.”

“Okay.”

“Cool. Um… goodnight.”

“Night. Get home safe.”

Katsuki settles down opposite from Kirishima. He’s gonna have a killer crick in his neck when he wakes up. 

There’s a perfectly good cot in the corner. He must have been exhausted, if he couldn’t even manage to make his way three meters over. 

Katsuki finds himself wishing the wall between them would come down, if only to shove Kirishima onto an actual mattress. His entire body’s been relentlessly abused for too long. No need to add a fucked up neck to the list as well.

Chapter Text

He wakes up in a hospital bed.

He starts thrashing. His arms hit—things, little things, small things, that hit the floor. 

“Hey! Hey!” There’s a small explosion, a sharp pop that hurts his ears.

There’s only one person that can be. And if Bakugou’s here—it means he’s safe. He’ll be annoyed, and condescended, and just generally will have a bit of a shit time—but nothing’s gonna happen to him. 

“Jesus Christ, you fucking drama queen,” Bakugou grumbles, once he stops thrashing. “You’re in Recovery Girl’s office. She’s U.A.’s personal doctor and she was taking care of you because you slept for forty-eight hours straight and everyone thought you were dying, alright? And I told them that you were just faking it and no one believed me and here you are. Fine. Awake. What was that about, anyway?.” 

“Quirk drains my energy,” he tries to say, but his throat is dry and the words don’t come out.

Bakugou rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, water. Y’know, if you slept a normal fucking amount this wouldn’t be a problem.” 

And yet, Bakugou’s hands are gentle, when they tilt his chin up, when they tip water into his mouth—one hand on the glass, one hand spanning his jaw. 

“Fucking relax,” he grumbles. “No one’s trying anything. Can’t even get a needle in you anyway, even if all they wanted to give you was saline. There’s ice chips too, you want some of those? That’s just cold water, right, your body can have that.”

But Bakugou still waits for the nod, and only then does he come up with a cup and a spoon.

He stares at the spoon. It’s wooden. There’s a sharp bite of humiliation—with Overhaul, he’s the strongest. But now he does things like sleep for two entire days and he can’t even hold the spoon because it’ll splinter, break—best case scenario it’ll just slip through his fingers—

Bakugou picks up the spoon, and holds out the ice cube.

He stares at him.

Bakugou raises his eyebrows. “What, you can’t open your mouth?”

The ice is silky sweet on his tongue. Logically, he knows that there’s nothing in it, but it tastes like ambrosia. The first, second, third ice chip, he waits for it to dissolve, swirls it around his mouth—but on the fourth, his hindbrain kicks in, and he bites down.

The ice breaks easily. It’s shockingly cold. 

“Oh,” he says, delighted. “Oh, man, that’s really fucking cold.”

“Well, yeah, it’s ice, moron, what do you think—” Bakugou stops. Looks at him. And he gets it. His eyes go bright and he gets it. “Give me a sec,” he says, grinning, “I’ll get you some hot water, I’ll be right back—”

“Boiling,” Kirishima says. “I want it boiling hot.”

Bakugou doesn’t take longer than a few minutes—the anticipation makes it feel longer, makes the time stretch out, but he comes back with a kettle and two mugs and he plugs it in beside the bed and they both watch, as the temperature climbs, from fifty to sixty to seventy, from ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine—and the kettle whistles and he pours the steaming water into both mugs, hands the first to Kirishima—

And it burns, it’s so hot, it burns his tongue, carves a path down his throat—

“I used to get nightmares, as a kid,” Kirishima says, the words spilling out of him. “And my mom, I’d run to her room, and she’d get out of bed at three in the morning, dead tired, and make me hot cocoa. And I’d always drink it too fast, and the first sip always hurt, just like this.”

He and Bakugou stare at each other, amazed.

That’s a memory. That’s a memory from before Overhaul, from before Shigaraki, from before Kaminari’s phone, even.

“So listen,” Bakugou says, after a moment. “I’m gonna call Yaoyorozu in, because she’s probably the best person to talk about this, but about those pills that they used to feed you—it’s not. It’s not anything crazy, it’s just because they were too lazy to give you actual food, so it was easier for them to put all the nutrients you needed into one thing. And you need a lot of fucking food. But you ate like a horse before anyway so it’s not a huge difference anyway. We just need to get you acclimated to it again.”

“Okay,” Kirishima says, taking all that in. “When am I going back to the cell?”

Bakugou looks very proud of himself. “There’s been a change of plans. They’re building dorms for every student. You’re gonna stay in those from now on.”

“For the… students?”

“That’s what you are,” Bakugou says bluntly. He narrows his eyes. “Don’t go thinking you’re too good for us, now, after all your fighting experience. You’re gonna study and train just like everyone else.”

That is… the exact opposite of what he meant. Bakugou has this really special talent for going for the exact opposite of what Kirishima’s trying to say and building a whole case around it.

There’s a knock at the door. 

The man who pokes his head in wears yellow goggles perched atop his head.

“Eraserhead,” Kirishima says.

Bakugou looks at him sharply. “You remember him?”

“You remember me?” Eraserhead is standing but he looks—limp. Unanchored. 

“Sure,” Kirishima says. “You were my teacher.”

Eraserhead strides across the room, stops right beside the hospital cot. “I am your teacher,” he corrects. “Bakugou, give us a moment?”

Bakugou makes a face, but he slouches outside, although his footsteps don’t go far before they stop. 

Regardless, this seems to be enough for Eraserhead.

“My full name is Aizawa Shouta,” he introduces. “My Pro Hero name is Eraserhead. I’m an underground hero, as well as your homeroom teacher. I apologize if any of that was information you already knew. I just wanted to make sure we were starting on the same page.”

“My brain is broken,” Kirishima says. “It’s okay.”

“What? No.” Eraserhead looks offended. “Your brain is… incredibly resilient, Kirishima. In a short amount of time, you’ve been dealt—a very difficult hand, but you’re still conversing with your classmates, and doing your best to get better. You should be very proud of yourself. I apologize if I’ve done anything to contradict that.”

He sighs and sits down in the bedside chair, vacated by Bakugou.

“The truth is, the reason I haven’t spoken to you yet is because I was being a coward. Losing you was my failure, as both a teacher and a hero. I failed to protect you, and, as a result, you went through—too much. For you to handle. For anyone to handle. I didn’t know how to approach you. It would have been selfish of me, to come at you on the first day with nothing but apologies, but—” 

His mouth flattens. “I am deeply, deeply sorry, Kirishima. I can never take back what has happened to you, but I promise that, no matter what happens from here on out, you will always have a supporter in me.”

“You didn’t fail me, sensei,” Kirishima says. He doesn’t know where the moniker comes from, but it slots itself neatly at the end of his sentence, and it feels right. 

Aizawa frowns. “You don’t need to—”

“Look at me,” Kirishima says, flexing. He tries to grin. “I’m invincible. Sure, Midnight knocked me down for a little while, but once you figure out what to do about my energy levels, I’ll be unbeatable. Isn’t that what we went to Training Camp for, in the first place? To get stronger?”

Aizawa’s face goes pale. “That’s not—that is not—”

Kaminari’s sense of humour had made Kirishima feel a lot better, last night. His own attempt seems to have fallen a little flat.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“You didn’t offend me,” Aizawa says, dragging one hand down his face. “You’re okay, don’t worry. It’s just—a lot to handle, even for me. All of this. I can’t make it clear enough how much respect I have for you.”

Kirishima stares at him, open-mouthed.

Overhaul lied like it was his mother tongue. Shigaraki was only honest because he didn’t give a fuck about how anything he said affected Kirishima. Ujiko lived in such a delusion that it didn’t matter, whether he believed he was telling the truth or not. 

But Eraserhead is like Bakugou. Every word delivered from his lips is done with brutal, unflinching honesty.

I’m proud of you, says Eraserhead, meaning it. I have so much respect for you, says Eraserhead, and he means it. 

The pride, the respect—it’ll go down the drain once everything he did for the villains is uncovered. His strength, his one bargaining chip, won’t matter then. The pride is misplaced, the respect unearned.

He wants to move on from it as fast as possible. The only thing that’ll make everything worse is when Eraserhead, in hindsight, will picture him gorging himself on everything he didn’t deserve.

“Bakugou said something about dorms?”

“Yes,” Eraserhead says, visibly relieved to move on to a lighter subject. “Recovery Girl wants to keep you here for another two days, for observation. To get a handle on your needs, in terms of rest, nutrition, physical activity, all of it. After that, you’ll be moved into the dorms.”

“Will I get my own room?”

Eraserhead smiles wryly. “No. But you’re free to choose a classmate to share with.”

Kirishima looks over at the open door. Bakugou’s far enough away that he can’t hear them, probably. He’s not the type to eavesdrop. Still, if he found out that Kirishima asked for him specifically—

“Can you tell everyone that you chose for me?” He asks quietly. 

Aizawa’s eyes crinkle. “Sure.”

They sit in silence for a little while. Kirishima’s stomach growls. Aizawa apologizes and reaches for a bottle of pills at the side of the table. Explains exactly what’s in them, and tells him that, although they aim to move to real food as soon as possible, right now at this moment Kirishima’s body is running on empty and he needs something familiar.

Kirishima takes the pills. They don’t sate the hunger, but he’s used to that.

After, Aizawa clears his throat. “I’ll leave you alone, for now. Please call for me if you need anything.”

He’s a good teacher.

Kirishima’s lucky to have had him for this long.

Aizawa leaves. 

Kirishima shifts in his cot.

And Bakugou storms in. 

“What the hell was that?” He demands, eyes blazing. “You have all this shit about how you can’t remember anything, can’t remember your classmates, can’t remember your own fucking name—and all of a sudden you remember what he said about Training Camp? Is this a fucking joke to you? You have all these people bending backwards to fix your fucking brain and the whole time you’re hiding shit?”

Kirishima rears back. “What? No! It just—I saw him, and it just came out. Like before, when you gave me the water—it just happened.”

“He didn’t even give you anything! You’re saying you came up with that all by yourself just by, what, by looking at him?” 

Bakugou’s acting like he’s a liar, prying his mouth open, searching for the lie.

So what? So he gave Kirishima ice, so he gave Kirishima hot water, so Kirishima’s indebted to the guy who makes him feel like scum on the bottom of his shoe—does he really need to twist the knife? Is Kirishima supposed to roll over and bare his stomach and beg for dignity? 

“It’s not a fucking competition,” Kirishima snarls. “You don’t get to make it a fucking game, of how much you can give me and see how well I perform.”

Bakugou takes a step back. 

Good, Kirishima thinks savagely. He knows exactly what that sounds like.

“Why’d you even come get me?” He demands. “What was the point—so you could just prove to everyone, how good you are, for putting up with me? Was that your plan? Fix me and take all the credit, so everyone could see how strong you are, for figuring out what to do with a ruined hero student?”

If this was the villains, he wouldn’t still be talking. Overhaul would have remade him without a nose and mouth, would have taunted him to make his argument as he suffocated on the floor.

But Bakugou just takes it.

Kirishima, only recently having been given a rope, feels the strange, exhilarating need to pull as hard as he can.  “Get out,” he orders.

Bakugou’s features curl up, like rice paper in hot oil. “I’m not doing that.”

“You are,” Kirishima says, buoyed by adrenaline. “They said I got to tell people when to leave, and I’m telling you to get the fuck out. I don’t want you here, get out .”

They stare at each other for a beat, maybe longer.

Then Bakugou turns on his heel and leaves, steps thundering down the hallway. Again, Kirishima hears it when it stops abruptly.

Doesn’t Bakugou have a house? Kaminari said he had parents, that Kirishima had, at one point in time, met his parents, so why doesn’t he go stay with them instead of orbiting Kirishima and waiting to take credit for every single inch he gains?

Yelling at him to go home seems like a little much, though, so Kirishima just lies down and simmers in anger until the anger turns into exhaustion.

Katsuki understands that he fucked up.

His head knocks against the cool plaster of the wall. This is the second night in a row that he’s sleeping sitting up. When this is all over, he’s gonna need the best chiropractor that his summer working minimum wage at his local Walmart can buy. 

He doesn’t even know why he’d gotten so fucking angry.

Well—he does, because it sounded like Kirishima was playing him, and that pissed him off.

But if he’d stopped to think for two fucking seconds, he’d have realized that Kirishima isn’t actually smart enough to play anyone.

Or cruel enough. Whatever.

It might’ve been something he learned with the villains—how to manipulate people, how to share only what helped him, how to hide everything else—

Katsuki laughs at himself. He’s not Toga. If being Overhaul’s bodyguard didn’t ruin his ability to care, it’s highly unlikely that it made him proficient in psychological warfare.

Now that he’s had a few minutes to think about it, he’s actually—happy. Kirishima’s getting better. Being in that villain hideout wasn’t doing him any favours. Surrounded by his friends, people who support him—being able to feel physical sensation other than, presumably, torture—it’s all helping. 

Katsuki was right. Getting out of that little room helped him. 

Yelling at him for making progress probably didn’t though. There’s tough love and there’s—whatever he just did.

It’s just that—

Well—

He thought he was the only one Kirishima remembered. 

Your name is Bakugou Katsuki. We went to school together. 

Kirishima said it like it was a common fact. Like it was an item on a grocery list. Milk, eggs, the name of the guy that I fucking hate, even though I’ve been mindwiped. Is that everything? Yeah, looks like it. 

And Katsuki’s self-aware enough to know that he has an ego, and smart enough to know that it doesn’t really fucking matter as long as he can back it up with skill, which he can.

But this—

He hadn’t done anything to deserve it. The opposite, if anything.

And yet, Kirishima still remembered him. Not Kaminari, not Ashido, not even his own fucking name. And he’d deluded himself into thinking that meant—something. 

But then Aizawa walked in and Kirishima said Eraserhead, said you were my teacher, said sensei, like it was just another thing he had to pick up from the store, like Katsuki wasn’t the exception, just a member of an ever-expanding rule, and he’d been—

Katsuki drops his head into his hands. His hands are clammy.

“Oh my god,” he mumbles, a little hysterical. “Oh my god, this is a new fucking low.”

“Young Bakugou? Are you alright?”

Katsuki bites back the reflexive curse. 

All Might stands over him, blue eyes more shadowed than usual. Even from this angle, his shoulders are visibly slumped. It looks like he’s fighting against gravity just to stay upright.

“Fine,” he says. “You?”

All Might doesn’t answer. He’s not even looking at Katsuki—his gaze is fixed on the ward at the end of the hallway.

“Is he doing alright?”

“Sure,” says Katsuki. “He’s just resting.”

“Oh,” says All Might, in a very spacey voice that basically confirms for Katsuki that he’s not listening. He could say anything he wanted right now. He could confess that he used to have trouble sleeping as a kid so his parents bought him a giant All Might-themed teddy bear and it actually fucking worked. 

“How is he?”

Technically, it’s the same question as is he doing alright? But Katsuki gets what All Might’s trying to say.

“He’s coming back to himself,” he says. “Just a little. Still isn't talking like he's walking on sunshine yet but—whatever. He’s getting there.”

“He asked me to kill him,” All Might says.

Katsuki’s neck snaps up. 

All Might’s hands are shaking. The fine line tremor runs from his fingertips to his thick wrists, his forearms. 

Hysterically, Katsuki thinks, wow, two for two.

“I didn’t, of course,” All Might says—and Katsuki decides not to share his own experience with murdering Kirishima—“But he asked me. He’s sixteen and we lost him for a matter of days and he… he… Has he told you? What they did to him?”

“Not really,” Katsuki says. “Some. A little. He can hold his breath underwater for a long time, apparently.”

“And I bet he can stand the cold well enough,” All Might says, and Katsuki bets he’s remembering the freezer from Kamino Ward. He sees it every time he closes his eyes, and he wasn’t even the one locked in. 

“Heat, too,” he says.

“Sure.”

They stay there for a moment, just looking at each other.

“He probably remembers that part well enough,” All Might muses. “It’s just everything from before that’s fuzzy to him, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Katsuki says. “If you asked him, he’d probably tell you.”

He has this real sick desire to know every single thing that happened to Kirishima. He has an equal, childish urge to close his eyes and stick his hands over his ears and scream lalalala until it all goes away.

“This is embarrassing to admit,” All Might says softly, “but I’m a little afraid to ask him..”

“Me too,” Katsuki says, because apparently it’s sharing-is-caring hour, and All Might, despite everything, is always going to be his hero. Maybe he should tell him. All Might might understand.

There’s a loud, panicked yelp. Unintelligible mumbling carries down the hall, burgeoning in intensity.

“He’s having a nightmare,” Katsuki says dully. He’s watched Kirishima have at least five of these. 

All Might’s hands twitch, grasping at nothing, before falling limply at his sides. “Should we—”

There’s a loud crash. Several follow. 

Katsuki leaps to his feet. Stops, nails digging into his palms.

“You have to go,” he says.

All Might looks like a deer in headlights. “What?”

Irritated, Katsuki explains. “He doesn’t want me in there. He told me to—to get out, and he doesn’t—ever ask for things. It needs to be you. Just check on him, make sure he’s—”

All Might doesn’t wait for him to finish. In the blink of an eye, he’s across the hallway. The crashing crescendos, then stops.

Should Katsuki call Recovery Girl? 

Not now, maybe if All Might comes back and tells him to. She’d sat vigil for twenty hours straight, when Katsuki had first brought Kirishima to her. That’s a long time for anyone, let alone a little old lady. 

He waits for another two seconds, and feels like peeling his skin off.

Maybe it’ll be okay if he just—goes up to the room. Doesn’t go inside, doesn’t interact with Kirishima, just makes sure everything’s alright.

Katsuki gingerly walks down the hallway, and pokes his head around the edge of the doorway.

And runs forward.

Kirishima’s got one big hand clamped around All Might’s throat. Blood kisses his skin like a lover, running down his fingers, the divots of his wrist. All Might’s trying to pry him off, but Kirishima’s body plays both offence and defence immeasurably well, and the skin of All Might’s palms is shredded through.

He can’t get Kirishima off him without hurting him badly.

He asked me to kill him, but it’s different, because when Kirishima had asked Katsuki he’d been begging, desperation like a gun to Katsuki’s head. 

When he’d asked All Might… it had been an ultimatum.

Kill me, that’s how he must have said it, because he was prepared to go past All Might either way.

Kirishima’s face is ferocious in its fury. Katsuki isn’t close enough to see whether he’s all there or not, but he can hear the wheezing underlying All Might’s panicked gulps for air, sees, for a brief moment, what will happen if he doesn’t do something, All Might’s skin breaking under the pressure, throat forced open, blood running dry.

“Hey,” he says sharply. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Kirishima doesn’t look at him.

Katsuki detonates. A flurry of pops, one after the other, waits for Kirishima to flinch, to hurl himself away from All Might’s body, flush with apologies.

“You don’t need to wake me up,” Kirishima says quietly. 

It feels like being shot.

“I mean, I wasn’t awake at first,” Kirishima says. “He woke me up and I freaked out. But then I had him on the ground, and I was thinking—hey, this is what I was made for. You know? This is why they took me. This is why Ujiko fucked with my quirk in the first place. Because I’m his student. That’s what Eraserhead said, right? I said he was my teacher, and he said he still is. And it’s the same for him.” His fingers squeeze for emphasis. All Might whimpers. “I mean, didn’t you think it was too easy? You’re a kid. And you come in, and the League, and the yakuza, they, what? They let me go, because I got put to sleep? You think that’s how it ends?”

“That’s not how it ended,” Katsuki says, mouth dry. “You think it was that simple? You think Midnight just strolled in and put you to sleep and we waved goodbye to Shigaraki?”

“No,” Kirishima says. “But they burned down a forest to find me. And then I killed the guy who burned down the forest, and nobody said a thing to me about it. I collapsed once, and Shigaraki went and allied with Overhaul just so I would be okay. I’m important to them. I’m really, really important to them.”

Katsuki doesn’t know what to say.

He needs to say something. 

He could regale Kirishima about all the people he’s important to, but that probably wouldn’t have much of an effect. He could ask him about what his endgame is, if he really wants to waste the rest of his life away in prison—but it wouldn’t matter, because the villains would find a way to get to him even in the depths of Tartarus. 

Katsuki thought they were making progress. But the little kid who burned his tongue on hot cocoa isn’t the one calling the shots. The hero student who got taken apart and put back together in the villain’s image is.

And the only thing he really values is strength.

“This is the coward’s way out,” he says.

Kirishima rolls his eyes. “Okay.”

“No, I’m sure it must be easy for you to kill him like this. With the strength that Ujiko gave you. After, what, you laid in bed for two days straight? The rest of us are training, the rest of us are actually getting stronger, and you’re here, stagnating.” Katsuki laughs, takes to the familiar cruelty like a fish to water. 

“You know it’s not gonna mean anything, right? Sure, it’s what they made you for, but it doesn’t actually mean anything. You couldn’t beat him before, and then a doctor made it so that you maybe could, but like you said, he’s not even trying to kill you. Weren’t you the one who was telling me about a fair fight, when I was chained to the wall? How the hell are you justifying this? Or what about when it was us in the ring, huh? When you begged me to kill you? Do you think that was a fair fight, too? Do you think I won?”

“You keep talking about that,” Kirishima says, frustrated. His fingers loosen incrementally. “I don’t fucking remember it, so what does it matter?”

“It matters because you chose dying over killing me with strength that wasn’t yours,” Katsuki snaps. “If you killed me without being in control of your quirk, it wouldn’t have fucking mattered. And it’s the same now. This is worthless. Whatever you’re trying to do, getting back at him for everything that’s happened to you—it’s worthless. It’s weak.”

Kirishima exhales. One long, shuddering breath.

All Might stares up at him.

“This is the only chance I’ll get,” Kirishima says, almost mournfully. “You all thought I was fixed. That’s the only reason you said all that stuff, about dorms, about training.”

“No it’s not,” Katsuki says. “You’re still doing that. Just—he probably won’t be the one training you.”

“Are you stupid or something?” Kirishima asks.

“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” Katsuki says. “He won’t, either.”

They both look down. All Might shakes his head, with the limited movement that Kirishima’s increasingly lax grip affords him.

“Fine,” says Kirishima.

Very casually, he removes his hand and sits back with it lying beside him.

Slowly, All Might gets to his feet. When Kirishima doesn’t make any move to claw his eyes out, he backs up into the doorway, eyes flitting between Kirishima and Katsuki.

“Relax, teach,” Katsuki says. “You’re the one he wants dead, not me. Call in Aizawa, if you want. We’ll be fine.” 

All Might nods, and then he leaves.

It’s strange, but most of the tension leaves the room. Katsuki can’t find it in himself to be angry at Kirishima, because he was right.

It had been too easy. He’d thought that with Kirishima back, at U.A., everything would go back to normal. But that’s not how it’s going to work. This isn’t close to over yet.

“Sorry,” he says.

Kirishima looks at him like he’s an idiot. “What?”

“For coming in,” Katsuki says. “You said to leave you alone. And—you know, obviously I don’t really give a shit what you say, but—I know they didn’t really listen to you when you said you didn’t want something. So I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Kirishima says. “Thanks.”

He looks down at his hand. It’s smearing blood on the floor. 

“I’ll clean it up,” Katsuki says.

“Yeah, but I made the mess.”

“Yeah, but you’ll rip the cloth.”

“Ugh,” Kirishima says, with feeling. “God, I miss when I could just—turn it on and off. I can’t do anything anymore.”

He stops, and they stare at each other. Katsuki doesn’t try very hard to hide his raised eyebrows.

“Shut up,” Kirishima mumbles.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“I can see —”

“No, it’s just funny ‘cause that’s exactly what I fucking said—”

“I heard you loud and clear, you don’t need to—”

“Just move your fucking hand so I can clean, do you think you can do that?”

Kirishima wrinkles his nose and, concentrating very, very hard, swats him in the arm with all the momentum of a ninety-five-year-old getting up in the morning. Despite this, he still tenses, peering at Katsuki’s arm like it’s going to start gushing blood. Which it doesn’t. Because a six-month-old infant would hit harder than that.

Katsuki laughs before he can bite it back. 

Kirishima looks up at him. Beneath all the ridges and cracks of his face, his eyes curve into soft little crescent moons. 

Chapter Text

Kirishima wakes up to the dulcet tones of Bakugou cursing. 

“One at a fucking time, jackasses, you’re not all about to pile in here at once—hey! Deku! Back of the fucking line, who do you think you are?”

He pushes himself up in bed, peering at the other end of the ward. 

Bakugou’s standing in the doorway, arms crossed—and Kirishima can’t see him, but he can picture the irritated expression on his face perfectly—eyes narrowed, temple pulsing, mouth drawn into an expletive-ridden snarl.

“C’mon, man, why’re you acting like a bouncer?” Kaminari whines. “I haven’t seen him in forever! I miss my guy!”

“I haven’t seen him at all,” a female voice jumps in. She sounds like champagne bubbles. “Come onnnn, just give me, like, five minutes with him.”

“Bakugou?” Kirishima says.

Bakugou instantly slams the door closed, locks it, and turns to face him.

“The class is here,” he says, looking about as enthusiastic as a hip replacement. “They want to see you.”

“Oh.” He’d liked talking to Kaminari. But a whole class, all at once… “Who’s here?”

“Everyone,” Bakugou says. “Kaminari. Ashido, you’ve known her since fucking forever. Middle school. Maybe kindergarten, I don’t fucking know. Sero, too. Remember any of them?”

“Kaminari.”

“From before, or from two days ago?”

“Second one.”

Bakugou nods. His shoulders loosen. “Those three, they’re your best friends. And you already know Kaminari.”

“Yeah.”

The other side of the door is quiet. Everyone’s waiting for his decision.

“I can send everyone away,” Bakugou says, after a moment. 

“Won’t they get mad?”

Bakugou shrugs. “They’ll get over it.”

Kirishima snorts. Bakugou makes everything seem so simple. Oh, you tried to kill your teacher? He just won’t be training you one-on-one. Oh, you want to ignore a class full of people who have been nothing but kind to you? They can handle it, no big deal. 

“Is there anyone you think I should talk to?”

Bakugou tilts his head, thinking. “Yaoyorozu. Her quirk means she expends a shit ton of energy. It’s kinda similar to what you’ve got. She’s got good ideas for helping you.”

“Okay, then,” Kirishima says. “The three you said—Kaminari, Ashido, Sero. And then Yaoyorozu, after. That’s it.”

Bakugou nods and unlocks the door.

“Listen up!” He hollers. “Dunce Face, Black Eyes, Horse Teeth, you’re in. Ponytail, stay. The rest of you, get the fuck out.”

The clamour doesn’t sound like anyone’s getting over anything. Bakugou shuts the door behind him and yells some more. The soundproofing in the ward is pretty good—whatever he says is completely unintelligible. Eventually, the noise subsides, and the door opens, letting in Kaminari, with two others in tow. 

“Hey, man!” He waves, beaming. “This is Ashido and Sero. They were in, like, half the photos I showed you, remember?”

Kirishima nods. He does, at least, remember this. 

“Hi!” Ashido squeals, darting up close. She leans down, poised to give him a hug—and he flinches back. Ashido’s cropped tank top bares the muscles in her arms and abdomen pretty clearly—but she’ll still cut herself on him, and it’s not the best first impression.

The consequence of this is the pain that flashes across her face as she freezes in motion.

Kaminari and Sero look stiff, uncomfortable. Kirishima doesn’t know what to say, staring at Ashido.

She looks hurt.

He doesn’t know her.

He should know her. He should know exactly what to say to make her feel better. Bakugou said that the two of them were kindergarten friends. How pathetic is it, that he doesn’t even know her first name?

“Oh, man,” Ashido says finally, her voice wobbling. “You need a root touch-up, these are grown out.”

The tension breaks, and Kaminari and Sero laugh.

Kirishima can’t help but smile. “Wasn’t a priority,” he says.

“I can see that,” Ashido says, grinning. “You’ve gotta let me fix it, I’ll do such a good job, I promise!”

“Sure,” Kirishima says. He doesn’t actually know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a try. It’s nice to make people laugh, for a change. “We can do Kaminari’s lightning bolt, too.”

“Excuse me?” Kaminari squawks, affronted. “This is all-natural, baby!”

“I don’t know, man, it’s looking a little faded,” Sero muses, yanking Kaminari over by his hair to better appraise it. Kaminari makes a noise like a possum being stepped on, and that’s when Kirishima can’t stop himself from laughing.

Ashido giggles as she forcibly turns her head to ignore the spectacle beside her. “Can you believe we’re going to have to deal with this all the time, from now on?”

“Sorry?”

“In the dorms,” she clarifies. “I’m kind of excited, to be honest! I think it’ll all bring us closer together. Now, Todoroki won’t be able to run home away from me, he’ll have to be my friend.”

“Why doesn’t he want to be your friend?” Kirishima asks, confused. He’s barely known Ashido for a minute, but she’s bright and energetic and funny. What’s there not to like?

“I think I scare him,” Ashido says, tapping her chin. “Pretty girls can be intimidating, I get it. Also, a lot of people say he wasn’t, like, socialized properly, you know? That his dad raised him in the jungle so that he would understand the law of animals.”

Kirishima blinks. “What?”

“Todoroki’s Endeavour’s son,” Sero explains, letting go of Kaminari’s hair. “You know, the number two hero? Fire quirk?”

“Like Dabi,” Kirishima says, without thinking.

And everyone goes quiet again.

“Like who?” Kaminari ventures.

Kirishima bites his lip. It makes a noise like striking flint. “Dabi,” he repeats, wary. “One of the guys from the League of Villains. Do you—uh. How caught up are you guys?”

“Not very,” Ashido says, exchanging a look with the other two. “But we’ll listen to anything you wanna say.”

Want is a weird word.

Kirishima doesn’t want to tell them about killing Dabi, about holding his face in his hands and squeezing until the bones crack. He doesn’t want to tell them about everything that came after that, about being Overhaul’s bodyguard, about kicking people into deep water and watching them drown. About delivering little green pills to four-year-old kids. 

He just feels like he’s going to die with it all inside him. Like there’s this ever-present, gnawing ache to vomit out everything he did, everything he can remember, so that it’s all out in the open. They might hate him, they might lock him up, they might put him to death, but at least the ledger in his head—of how much everyone knows, and what he can share, and what he has to keep to himself for fear of a bad reaction—will be clear.

The thing with vomiting is that once you start, it’s basically impossible to stop.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he says. “But thanks.”

“The offer stands,” Sero says, smiling at him. It’s not one of his broad, toothy grins—just a little uptilt to his mouth, but it’s still sincere.

“So, listen,” Ashido says. “When you’re in the dorms with us—I know it’s bound to be overwhelming, and I don’t know who you’re going to be rooming with—but I hope you know that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, and that includes talking with anyone you don’t want to. Or whenever you don’t want to. Or, just in general—” She huffs, frustrated. “I’m trying to say that you can have as much space as you want. And no one’s going to be offended if you need to take time to yourself to just acclimate.”

“Thanks,” Kirishima says faintly.

He hadn’t even thought of that. Living with twenty other people who are going to have access to him at all times. Is he just going to hole himself up in Bakugou’s room, leaving occasionally to speak to Kaminari or Ashido? What is he gonna do then, end up spending all his time with Bakugou? 

That’s bleak.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe he’ll acclimate.

Except what no one knows is that last night, he tried to kill All Might. Last night he was ready to kill All Might, and the only reason he stopped was because Bakugou, as always, had to run in and make things difficult for him.

He’s not the guy they remember. He’s not their friend, not the guy who knew exactly what jokes would land, the guy who Ashido could hug without a second thought.

“I’m looking forward to rooming with you,” he says, trying for the smiles. 

They come, but look pasted-on, and everyone just mostly looks sad, and he’s more than a little grateful when Kaminari takes the initiative to usher everyone out and give him some time alone.

The conversation with Yaoyorozu is a lot easier. She demonstrates her quirk for him and explains how U.A. accommodates her energy levels. It’s not really comparable to his, since she’s not making large, energy-taxing things every hour of every day, but it offers a baseline. It turns out that he physically can’t survive without the pills, but that they’ll be able to offer him some real food so that he’ll stop feeling so hungry all the time. 

Yaoyorozu has that same look in her eyes like she’s crying behind her smile, which is weird because he’s the one that everything happened to and he’s actually trying to talk and joke and laugh.

Before long, the room is empty again.

Kirishima lies down and stares at the ceiling. If every day going forward is just this—just talking to people about various things and lying in bed and pretending to ignore that everyone in the room is two steps away from sobbing, he might just resort to drowning himself in Recovery Girl’s sink.

Katsuki’s dorm room is the same size as everyone else’s. To his knowledge, every building in Heights Alliance is the same—five floors, two wings, thirty-two single rooms. 

Aizawa had pulled him aside when they’d all been moving in to let him know that Kirishima would be staying with him. Kirishima probably would have preferred being put with Kaminari, but Katsuki understands why Aizawa chose him. He’s the one who’s seen the most of what Kirishima’s gone through.

It would have been nice to know before bringing a bunch of stuff that’s going to be stuffed underneath his bed to make room, though. Aizawa isn’t detail-oriented like that.

Each dorm is furnished with a bed, desk, and dresser. Katsuki employs Shouji’s help to carry another of each in from the room between them and orient the room in a way that maximizes the efficiency of the space.

It ends up with the second bed placed perpendicular to the first, the two desks pressed together in the furthest corner, and the dressers placed against the opposite end of the wall. Kirishima’s probably not going to have much to put in there, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“You’re not decorating?” Shouji asks.

“What, you are?”

“Sure,” Shouji says. “I mean, nothing crazy, just some pictures from home—and my grandfather gifted me this globe when I was a little kid, so I’ve got that too. Some of the others are going all out, I think. Apparently, there’s going to be a room tour contest thing tonight.” He side-eyes Katsuki. “I don’t think you’re going to rank super high.”

“That’s because they have nothing better to do,” Katsuki snaps. “And no one’s coming into my room.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Shouji says, holding his hands up in surrender. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks,” Katsuki says grudgingly.

With Shouji gone, the starkness of the room is a little more apparent.

Katsuki’s room back home has a healthy, normal, regular amount of All Might merch. There’s a poster or two on the walls. A couple plushies in the closet. Some figurines on the shelf. Maybe a bedspread. Maybe a lamp. Maybe wallpaper.

Bringing any of that into a building with nineteen students with zero fucking boundaries is out of the question. What’s more, he wouldn’t put it past Deku to sneak in while he’s not there and put his grubby little hands on everything. Katsuki’s merch is out of his merch’s league by a long shot.

Besides, the pictures of family are dumb. He’s not going to forget what his parents look like just because he doesn’t live with them anymore. 

The room is pretty spartan, though. There isn’t a huge difference between it and the room U.A. initially stuck Kirishima in, or Recovery Girl’s ward. 

Kirishima does better surrounded by life. Good food, actual sensation, lighthearted conversation. The room should be another thing that helps him get better.

An hour into disparaging his life, it occurs to Kirishima that he could just get up and leave.

Recovery Girl got called away for a “move-in emergency” in one of the buildings—someone named Monoma apparently got trapped beneath a bookshelf. That leaves Kirishima with an empty ward, and no supervision.

There has to be a camera somewhere. 

Someone has to be watching him, right?

Except, if there was a camera, he definitely would have been facing consequences for his attempt on All Might’s life. But no such consequence came.

Where would he even go?

He wouldn’t leave. He doesn’t want to go back to the villains, that much is clear. For one, they’d handed him All Might on a silver platter and he hadn’t taken it, so he doubts they’d want him back.

And two… he likes his classmates. Or, at least, the ones he’s met. Sure, they depress him sometimes. Sure, every conversation is more awkward than Shigaraki confronting Kurogiri about the moisturizer testers he sneaks into his pockets. But they’re good, and they’re kind, and they read to him and make jokes about his hair and it’s better than being treated like a dog on a leash. 

Besides, it doesn’t matter where he’d run off to. Bakugou would chase after him and drag him back, insulting him all the way. It’s just not worth the hassle.

Still, he’s going stir-crazy. 

If the heroes were going to let him live in the dorms, they’d have to be okay with him walking around U.A., otherwise they wouldn’t have extended the invitation in the first place.

Mind made up, Kirishima swings out of bed and gingerly sets his feet on the floor, gritting his teeth through the pins and needles.

Something about his quirk makes his circulation absolute dogshit, and his hands and feet go numb if he’s not constantly moving. It hadn’t been much of a problem on Overhaul’s schedule, but now that U.A.’s determined to turn him into the spokesperson for Ikea’s new bedroom line, his feet scream at him every time he puts the slightest bit of pressure on them.

He shakes them out until the sensation lessens, and then he’s off. 

Outfitted in baggy sweats and a loose T-shirt emblazoned with U.A.’s logo, he’s probably not fitting the dress code. Still, it’s all he has. With luck, most everyone’s going to be busy moving into the dorms and he’ll have the main building to himself.

Kirishima pokes his head out the door. 

Coast: clear.

Stepping outside doesn’t immediately trip hidden alarms. He’d imagined it would be more monumental—that All Might would materialize out of the shadows and suplex him into unconsciousness.

What actually happens is he just…keeps walking. 

The hallways are clean and bright. His footsteps are loud, but no one comes running. He passes by empty classrooms, blackboards wiped clean, desks arranged in neat rows, chairs pushed in.

He was right about move-in day. There’s no one here. Even the teacher’s lounge is empty.

He turns the corner, and promptly yelps.

Katsuki doesn’t fucking screech.

What Katsuki does is maturely express his shock and irritation at finding Kirishima Eijirou two inches away from his face when he is in fact supposed to be minding his own fucking business in Recovery Girl’s ward.

“What kind of noise was that?” Kirishima asks.

“You sounded like a hyena giving birth,” Katsuki says. “Focus on yourself.”

“I can admit that about myself,” Kirishima says. “What about you? Why are you living in denial?”

“I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about,” Katsuki says. He pauses. Blinks. Why the fuck is he even arguing with this jackass? “What the hell are you doing up? Go back to bed!”

“I’m bored,” Kirishima says.

Katsuki stares at him.

Kirishima stares back innocently. Or, it would be innocent to anyone else. Katsuki, however, clocked Kirishima as a sneaky little bitch from the very first day of school, and nothing is getting past him.

“You are going to collapse,” he says flatly. “The energy output of putting one giant fucking foot in front of the other is going to drain you, and you are going to collapse, and I am going to stand over your body and laugh.”

Kirishima grins. “Sounds like a plan. Where’re we headed?”

“Nowhere,” Katsuki says, through grit teeth.

“Is that far from here?”

What was that Ashido had said, about Kirishima being the most stubborn son of a bitch to ever walk the earth? It’s rearing its head now. He’s found a game that Katsuki does not want to fucking play, which obviously means that it’s his new favourite game of all time ever.

Kirishima has this really special talent for knowing exactly what irritates Katsuki and dialing it up to one hundred. 

“Fine!” Katsuki snaps. “You wanna know where I’m going? I’m going to the Hero Support Labs, and I’m going to build myself a time machine, and I’m going to use that time machine to go back to the hospital on the day that you were born and commit infanticide.”

“I was a petri dish baby,” Kirishima offers. “You could save yourself the trouble, go back a little further, and just bleach me with some Clorox.”

They stare at each other. 

Katsuki raises his eyebrows. “Are you being serious right now.”

Kirishima looks confused, like he’s also trying to figure out if he’s being serious right now. Eventually, he nods. “Yeah, I think so. I remember my mom joking about it.”

“I’m going to the library,” Katsuki blurts out. “Gotta use the colour printer.”

“Cool,” Kirishima says, beaming. “Lead the way.”

Katsuki rationalizes it to himself like this. He’s not a kindergarten teacher. He’s not going to hold Kirishima’s hand and walk him back to the nursing ward and tell him now say bye-bye Bakugou! and wait for Kirishima to say bye-bye Bakugou! The mature thing is to just let him come along.

They walk in silence for a bit.

Kirishima’s the one who breaks it.

“What do you need to use the printer for?”

“Pictures.”

“What are you printing?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Is it porn?”

Katsuki refuses to give in. “Yes. Of your mother.”

“That’s creepy,” Kirishima says. “Is it because you can’t have me?”

Katsuki slams an explosion into the side of Kirishima’s face. All he does is laugh, squinting his eyes against the light. 

He’s tempted to frogmarch Kirishima back to the ward, when Kirishima’s face lights up and he points at the double doors ahead of them. 

“Hey, we’re here, right?”

Katsuki sighs. “Yeah. Come on.”

He reaches to open the door when Kirishima freezes. “Wait.”

“What.”

“Librarian.”

Oh. That’s actually… smart. Kirishima is most definitely not allowed to be frolicking around U.A. right now. So far, they’ve gotten pretty lucky by avoiding the hot spots, but there’s bound to be at least one librarian ready to send them both over to Nedzu’s office.

“You don’t need to do that,” Kirishima says, looking unamused.

“What?”

“That thing with your face, where you’re surprised I’m not dumb,” Kirishima says. 

“Of course I’m surprised when you’re not dumb,” Katsuki says. “You’re a fucking moron.”

“Come up with a plan, then, if you’re so smart,” Kirishima dares.

Katsuki glares at him. “Fuck you, I will!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

They both just stand there for a second, baring their teeth at each other.

Katsuki shakes himself out of it first, and, very quietly, cracks open one of the doors and peeks his head inside.

It creaks. Loudly. 

“Smooth,” Kirishima mutters.

He’s lucky that he’s too invulnerable to be gutted with a filet knife. 

There’s no one seated at the circulation desk.

“No librarian,” Katsuki reports, opening the door fully. “Fuck you.”

“Your genius plan was to just look inside,” Kirishima says. “What were you gonna do if someone was actually there, just close the door and run away?”

No. 

He would have walked.

Katsuki doesn’t dignify that with a response. The downside of this is that he has to listen to Kirishima’s inane snickering all the way over to the printers.

“Hey, those are actually really pretty!” Kirishima says when he sees what he’s printing. “Are you just printing stock images, or…”

“They’re my pictures,” Katsuki says, inwardly preening at Kirishima thinking they’re professional. “I took them.”

“Really? Wow!” Kirishima sticks his face up close to the screen. “I wouldn’t have expected that from you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, you dress like shit and you act like shit so I guess I just figured any photos you took would also be—”

It’s grounds for another explosion.

Kirishima’s laughter rings out in the quiet library. Katsuki turns his head to look at him, just to tell him to shut the fuck up—but the words don’t come out of his mouth.

Kirishima’s teeth are on display when he’s laughing, too. 

It’s… interesting. The same act of aggression, the same thing he does whenever Katsuki insults him, challenges him, fights him. 

Katsuki looks away quickly, before Kirishima can accuse him of anything, and clicks print.

“What are you printing them for?” Kirishima asks, once he’s caught his breath. 

“Our dorm room,” Katsuki says. He pauses. “Aizawa told you he put you with me, right?”

Kirishima looks—for a moment—unbalanced. Then he grins. “Yeah, he mentioned it!”

“Cool,” Katsuki says. “I’m printing these out for my wall.”

“You’re putting your own pictures up on the wall?” Kirishima asks. “Isn’t that kind of narcissistic?”

“They’re good pictures,” Katsuki says. “What the fuck else am I gonna do with them?”

“Put them in a scrapbook,” Kirishima suggests, as Katsuki packs them all up in an envelope. “Lots of glitter and washi-tape. Title it Bakugou’s Adventures.” He spreads his hands out, framing the words in mid-air.

Katsuki inhales. Exhales. Counts to ten. “Kirishima,” he says, refusing to acknowledge Kirishima’s shit-eating grin. “I am really, really not looking forward to living with you.”

“That’s rude, I can’t wait,” Kirishima says, and he—he actually means it.

It’s easy to talk to Bakugou. He isn’t afraid to hurt his feelings, because Bakugou’s a dick, and he says fucked up stuff all the time. It’s nice. He can say whatever. 

“Well of course you do, your life is shit,” Bakugou says.

Exhibit A.

“Are we just going straight to the dorms, then?” 

Bakugou tilts his head, thinking. “Let me ask Aizawa,” he says. “The room’s ready for you, it should be fine.”

Kirishima waits while Bakugou texts Aizawa. The typing bubbles pop up quickly.

Sure, is the non-committal response.

“All good,” Bakugou says. “Come on.”

No one stares at him.

In contrast to the main building, the grounds are filled with students and parents alike, bogged down with moving gear. A few people look over, sure, but their attention is more quickly diverted to their parents, or their phones, or a meowing suitcase.

Kirishima and Bakugou, in unspoken unity, stop and watch as one student warily unzips her suitcase, only to reveal a fat orange cat curled on top of her clothes.

“You got any pets?” Bakugou asks.

“Nah, parents are too busy for one,” Kirishima says. “I’m pretty sure I keep them busy enough as is. You?” 

Bakugou responds without hesitation. He’s getting more used to Kirishima remembering things. 

For Kirishima, it’s a different story, and he can’t even focus on Bakugou’s response. Every memory makes him hungrier for the rest. He feels like a starving man sitting at a buffet table who was told he can only eat one thing at a time.

Who wouldn’t want to gorge themselves? Who wouldn’t get sick from the sheer desire?

Seeing his parents would probably help unearth more of it, but even the idea fills him with nausea.

He doesn’t want his parents to see him like this. Their faces are fuzzy in his mind, but he knows that he used to be their baby, their little boy, the child they prayed for, the child they woke up in the middle of the night for. To see him like this would hurt them. Scare them. It would be like his classmates, but a million times worse.

Have they tried to see him? It’s been a long time. He doesn’t know how long he’s been gone, but it had to have been longer than the original school trip. They had to have contacted the school, demanded answers—

Maybe they’re waiting in the dorms, ready to move him in, like every other family here. What if there’s some kind of reunion waiting for him? The whole class, his family, everyone ready to bear witness to the monster he’s become, the monster he doesn’t completely regret—and isn’t that damning evidence, in and of itself?

“We’re here,” Bakugou announces. 

By some miracle, no one’s out on the porch.

The common area is empty, too, although there’s evidence of the class’s presence—non-perishables stacked on the kitchen counters, slight depressions in the couch cushions. 

He hears footsteps above him, people moving around, people laughing.

“Why isn’t anyone down here?” He asks as they get into the—empty—elevator. 

“Texted everyone to stay on their floors for now,” Bakugou says, punching in floor number four. “You can meet the rest of them on your own time.”

“Oh,” Kirishima says quietly.

The elevator dings. They step out into an empty hallway. “The girls live across,” Bakugou says, gesturing. “On this floor, it’s you, me, and Shouji.”

He unlocks the second-closest door—the closest, presumably, being Shouji’s.

Once it locks behind them, Kirishima feels a bone-deep sensation of relief.

His parents aren’t here. In fact, no one is here. It’s just him and Bakugou. And it can stay that way until he chooses to go out and meet people.

The room is a good size. It’s made cramped by the extra bed, the extra desk, but it’s better than a cell.

Bakugou’s bed is made. He has slate grey sheets, two matching pillowcases, and a soft- looking black comforter.

Kirishima’s bed is unmade. This is fine, as it will be going unused.

He’d pulverised the cot in the hospital ward. The one in the cell had gone unused for a reason. As much as he’d like to lie down in something soft and comfortable, there’s no point.

“I’ll get you sheets,” Bakugou says, following his gaze.

“Don’t bother,” Kirishima says. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“You’ll—what? There’s a bed right there.”

“And I’ll tear out the mattress stuffing on day one,” Kirishima explains, suddenly exhausted. “Seriously. Floor. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Bakugou says, looking furious. “You’ll hurt your neck.”

“My neck will be fine,” Kirishima says. “Are you worried about me scratching up the floor? Because that’s fair, I can sleep sitting up, or something—”

“Are you a fucking idiot? We’re not doing that, just—just sleep, and if you fuck up the mattress, we’ll get a new one.”

“I’m not making U.A. pay for a mattress a day—”

“Well, they let you get abducted so I’m sure they can handle it—”

“They didn’t let me do anything, Dabi just—”

“Hey, I have a question, why the hell didn’t you tell anyone when Dabi came up to you in the mall?”

Kirishima stares at him. “What?”

Bakugou looks like even he didn’t expect the words that came out of his mouth. “Before Training Camp,” he says, eventually. “We were at the mall, getting shit for the trip, and Dabi came up to you, and you didn’t say anything. We only found out after you—you didn’t say anything. To anyone.”

“I don’t know,” Kirishima says. He doesn’t even remember the interaction.

“Well, it was a real stupid move,” Bakugou says. 

“Whatever,” Kirishima says. 

Bakugou’s face twitches.

His Ma’s face does the same thing, whenever he says ‘whatever.’ Somehow, he gets the idea that sharing this little tidbit with Bakugou won’t be met with a favourable reaction.

He casts around for something to do. “Where are you going to put up your pictures?”

Bakugou points to the blank expanse of space above the desks. 

“Do you need help?” It comes out before he can think about it and remember that his involvement would be the opposite of help.

“No,” Bakugou says, instead of echoing the statement. “Uh… I didn’t know what you’d want to decorate with, but I’ve got all your shit that you packed for camp and the books Kaminari had of Crimson Riot.”

The comics are stacked neatly on one of the desks. 

Beside the bed pressed against the far wall are a suitcase, a duffle, and a carry-on.

Kirishima frowns. “You’re sure that’s it? Weren’t we supposed to be gone for a week?”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Bakugou mutters, and stalks over to the desks without further comment.

It was a genuine question, but it’s possible that he spends so much time ribbing Bakugou that he can’t actually tell the difference.

He unzips the suitcase, first. Everything in it is unremarkable—just clothes, hiking boots, things that definitely aren’t going to fit him anymore. He can put them in the dresser anyway, just to fill up the space. Or… maybe Bakugou can put them in. He doesn’t really want to ask for that. It’s not a big deal to just let the suitcase sit in the corner.

The duffle is almost completely filled with large containers of protein powder. The flavours look yummy—strawberry lemonade, chocolate peanut butter, pancake batter. 

“Hey, do you guys think you could give me protein powder, instead of the pills?”

“Are you fucking stupid,” Bakugou says. 

Kirishima waits.

“...Maybe. We’ll ask.”

He sifts through the rest of the bag. Energy gels (and these flavours seem yummy, too) a muscle alarm clock, and two picture frames. One of them is broken, missing almost half the glass.

One is an older picture, taken on a film camera, of two girls splayed out on a college bed, holding glass bottles aloft. They’re both tall, broad-shouldered, sharp-jawed—the one on the right has his teeth, the one on the left has brilliantly red hair, gelled up in a mohawk. 

His parents met in college. His mom majored in political science, his ma majored in commerce—but she only ended up doing that for a year or two after graduating before she decided to use her business-savvy knowledge to start a bakery, instead. They weren’t roommates—rather, they lived across campus from each other, but they’d make the trek even in the dead of winter.

His mom described it as having an invisible string pulling at her, at all hours of the day. Gently prodding, nudging, hinting, saying hey, c’mon, isn’t there somewhere you’re supposed to be? 

“I just wanted to be with her all the time,” his ma would say, shrugging, not even the slightest bit embarrassed. “I’d sit in her classes, doing my own work. I was there so often they thought I was auditing.”

The girls in the picture don’t know they’re going to get married.

The women in the second picture, flanking a red-headed, broad-grinned boy, already are.

It’s from the first day of high school. They’d taken it in the morning, placing the camera, timing it, running back to make sure they were all in. It’d taken three tries. This one is the third.

The memories slot into place, one after the other.

“Done,” Bakugou says. “What do you think?”

Kirishima doesn’t say anything.

“Hey,” Bakugou says sharply. “All good?”

Bakugou sits down beside him and—and all at once, it’s too much.

“Oh my fucking god,” Kirishima snaps. “Do you think you could give me space for two fucking seconds? Would that kill you? It’s bad enough that you never left me alone when I was in the fucking ward—yeah, I heard you, you weren’t slick, but now we’re in the same fucking room and you still can’t leave me alone?”

“I was just trying to check up on you,” Bakugou snarls, face screwed up.

“Well, don’t,” Kirishima exclaims. “You’ve always been a fucking asshole to me, and I don’t know why you’ve suddenly turned it around, and decided to—to fucking follow me around, the same shit you’ve always yelled at Midoriya for doing—”

“Watch it.”

“Or what? What are you going to do?” Kirishima would invite a fight. Would fucking love a fight, would love for Bakugou to dig his knuckles into his skin and come away from it bloody. “You’re the stupid one, you understand that, right? What more do I have to do? I tried to kill All Might last night! I tried to kill you before the heroes stepped in. What the fuck is wrong with you, that you keep coming back? Why can’t you take the hint and just—just leave me alone?”

Bakugou clenches his fists. Kirishima waits for the punch, blood thrumming.

“I’m going for a walk,” Bakugou says, abruptly getting to his feet. “I’ll let Shouji know you’re in here. He’s got good hearing, he’ll hear if you try to break out or kill yourself. Bye.”

And he just storms out, the door slamming shut behind him.

Kirishima just sits by himself for a while. 

In the silence of Bakugou’s wake, the photos seem—unimportant. Everything seems unimportant. His outburst, when he plays it back in his head, is overly aggressive, though not completely unfounded.

But how could he have said that in a nicer way?

He was right, is the thing. There has to be something wrong with Bakugou. There has to be something he’s waiting for, something that Kirishima’s going to be forced to give up under the guise of owing him for something he never even asked for. That’s how this works. 

It’s always how it works.

Kirishima has nothing to offer but unending, unbeatable strength. There’s really only one thing anyone could ever want from him.

He watches the door.

Bakugou doesn’t come back.

Kirishima kept waiting to push his limit, to find the line in the sand that Bakugou won’t step across—and it just never came. Bakugou took all his punches in stride. He wasn’t patient about it, or nice or caring or gentle—but he stayed. 

Until now, that is.

Kirishima won. He found the limit.

Well, Bakugou has to come back at some point, it’s his room.

Maybe he’ll come back just to kick Kirishima out to stay with someone else. Kaminari, maybe, or Sero. Someone who makes Kirishima normal and quiet and not as aggressive as a fighter dog.

There’s a knock at the door.

That’s not Bakugou. It’s short, sharp. Aizawa.

“Come in,” Kirishima says, exhausted. 

Bakugou’s sent Eraserhead to do the kicking out for him. Kirishima can’t say he blames him.

“Is everything alright?” Aizawa asks.

Kirishima doesn’t want to look up at him—but it’s the respectful thing to do, to at least make eye contact with his teacher. 

Aizawa’s dark eyes are not angry. He looks solemn, focused—and in one graceful movement, he sits down in front of Kirishima, like they belong on the same ground. “What happened?”

It’s embarrassing. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Aizawa prods gently. “But I won’t judge you. I promise.”

A promise from Eraserhead is worth its weight in gold.

Kirishima is growing tired of keeping everything to himself.

Maybe one thing. This one thing, he can allow himself.

“He won’t leave me,” he says, lowering his head. “I don’t know what to do, to make him understand. He’s always there. He found me in the yakuza lair and he hasn’t left me alone since. It’s too much. He just—sat down beside me, and it was too much, and I got angry, and I wanted him to leave.”

And Bakugou had, to his credit. He left. He’s gone. 

So why doesn’t Kirishima feel better?

“I made a mistake,” he says. “Can you move me to someone else’s room?”

Aizawa’s face doesn’t move. “Why?”

“I messed up,” Kirishima says, haltingly. “He’s—he’s not going to want to live with me, after this.”

Aizawa is quiet for a minute. Kirishima mistakenly assumes it to be him rearranging arrangements in his head, thinking about who to talk to—

“Has anyone told you how you left the yakuza? Before you were brought here?”

Kirishima shakes his head. “Just that Midnight put me to sleep.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” Aizawa says wryly. “When the wall came down, we were faced with you strangling Bakugou. All Might managed to take you by surprise and throw you off him, but it wasn’t a very calculated move, and he threw you in the direction of Overhaul.”

“Accidentally,” Kirishima murmurs.

“Yes,” Aizawa says. “He took Bakugou behind him, because—well, I don’t know how much you remember, but he was close to passing out.”

“I did a number on him,” Kirishima says, doing his level best not to sound proud about that.

Aizawa seems to hear it regardless, lips tilting up for a split-second, before settling back into the familiar, flat line.

“Overhaul had you, and we had Bakugou. And he started negotiating. He told us that we had what we wanted, that they had what they wanted, and that if we left with Bakugou, they would let us go freely.”

“Overhaul always lies,” Kirishima says, but maybe he was being serious. Maybe he really would have let the heroes leave, just like that, just to keep Kirishima, and his drug trafficking safe.

“It wasn’t a deal that we would ever trust,” Aizawa agrees. “But before we could say anything, Bakugou lit up his hand, you know, the way he does before his AP Shot, and he pressed it against his temple. And he told us that he wasn’t leaving without you.”

Kirishima stares at him. “I keep calling him stupid,” he says faintly, “and I keep feeling bad about it, but I’m starting to think that I’m just right.”

“We would have taken you anyway,” Aizawa says, but that’s not quite true. He would have taken Kirishima anyway, but All Might—well, he’s the strongest hero of all time. How could he accidentally throw Kirishima into Overhaul’s clutches? How could he pause long enough for Bakugou to think they were going to leave Kirishima there?

It’s understandable. Kirishima doesn’t fault him for it. He’d told All Might he’d killed Bakugou, after all, and when All Might had broken the wall down the first thing he’d seen was Kirishima two seconds away from ending Bakugou’s life for real. 

Kirishima wasn’t a sure thing. He wasn’t the priority.

And yet, to Bakugou…

“My point is, he just needs some time,” Aizawa says. “It’s true that he’s—been around you often, lately, and I can understand why you would want your space after everything that’s happened. I can speak to him and make that clear.”

“Okay,” Kirishima says. He isn’t sure what to say, how to feel, still stuck on Bakugou threatening to shoot himself over being told to leave Kirishima behind.

There has to be something wrong with him. There has to be. Who is that self-sacrificial? What kind of person puts someone else’s life above their own like that?

Kirishima isn’t even nice to him. Why the hell—

“I’ll go talk to him, now,” Aizawa says, standing up. “Unless you need anything else?”

“I had a question,” Kirishima says, belatedly remembering to stand, to look him in the eye. “About my parents.”

Aizawa tenses. “Of course.”

“Do they… what do they know?”

“They know,” Aizawa says slowly. “We didn’t alert them to anything until—until you were back in U.A.’s custody. It’s our policy, as involving parents in an active investigation tends to… complicate things. They wanted to come here. We told them that you were in a difficult situation, and that seeing you might upset them. That seeing them might upset you. I believe your mother is in the process of mounting a lawsuit against us.”

“She’s a good lawyer,” Kirishima says. His mouth is dry. 

His parents want to see him. He does not want to see them.

“If you’d like to see them, you can,” Aizawa says. 

“I don’t,” Kirishima says, too quickly.

“That’s alright,” Aizawa reassures. “Would you like to call them? Write them a letter?”

A letter would be alright. Anything that doesn’t involve speaking to them in real-time. Besides, it would be good to alleviate their worries and avoid a lawsuit. The only thing is, “I can’t hold a pencil.”

“You can dictate.”

“Okay. …Can I have some time to think about what I want to say?”

“As much time as you would like,” Aizawa says easily. “Whenever you’re ready, just have Bakugou call for me.”

That actually sounds nice. Aizawa has a solution for everything. Except the elephant in the room, of course. It’s nice for the moment. Kirishima endeavours not to waste it while he has it.

“If you’d like to stay here, you’re welcome to. I believe most of your classmates are congregating in the common room for a pizza and movie night.”

“I can’t have pizza,” Kirishima says.

“Is that your only objection?”

“I’ll see.”

“Alright.”

Katsuki ends up on the roof. 

He is not the only one on the roof.

Iida whirls around to face him, shoving something behind his back—but he can’t do anything about the plume of smoke that exits his mouth when he tries to say hello.

“Oh my god,” Katsuki cackles. “Smoking? You?”

Iida splutters, cheeks flushing a dark pink. “I—um—”

“This is insane,” Katsuki says, delighted. “You’re the reason we gotta deal with all those nicotine addiction presentations?”

“No one’s seen me,” Iida blurts out, face burning even warmer when he realizes that that’s not actually a defence.

“I don’t even smoke,” Katsuki wheezes.

“Well, of course you don’t,” Iida says.

Katsuki stops laughing. “Excuse me?”

“That wasn’t meant as an insult,” Iida says. “I just. It makes sense. You like rules.”

“You’re the class president,” Katsuki says. “You are the rules.”

“Yes,” Iida says, and doesn’t elaborate. He drops his cigarette and crushes it beneath his shoe.

“You don’t need to do that,” Katsuki says, because he doesn’t. Katsuki inhales smoke from his explosions all day long. Iida’s cigarette isn’t going to be the thing that fucks up his lungs.

“It’s not polite,” Iida insists. “What brings you here?”

Fun’s over.

With the cigarette gone, and Iida increasingly shameless, Katsuki has nothing left to distract him from the mess of feelings inside him.

“Kirishima,” he grumbles, stalking over to the edge of the roof. Iida sits down, legs hanging over the edge, and Katsuki sits beside him. 

“You’re rooming together, right?”

“Not anymore,” Katsuki says, glowering at the sky. I’m calling it quits. You were right, I’m in over my head, I never should have gotten involved. I'm done.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Fuck!” Katsuki yells, palms detonating. The sparks fly over the edge of the roof, cascading down in a shower of heat. “I’m not! Of course I’m not! Why can’t I stop? Why can’t I just—all he wants is for me to leave him alone and I just—I—I…”

“He doesn’t want that,” Iida says confidently.

“You didn’t hear him.”

“Come on,” Iida says. “Nobody wants that. He’s just—he’s going through a lot right now. He doesn’t know how much he can handle yet. He doesn’t know what he wants, what’s comfortable. You’re the first person in a while who’s really, truly been there for him. He doesn’t know what to do with you.”

It sounds like he’s speaking from experience. Katsuki tells him so.

Iida smiles ruefully. “My brother,” he says. “After what happened in Hosu, I was afraid that he would be upset with me. I felt that I had failed him. So I was cruel to him. I barely spoke to him, and, when I did, I oscillated between being overly affectionate or aggressive. And he just… took it all.”

He’s looking out at the horizon, but his eyes are soft, warm, like it’s not the clouds that he’s seeing. “I thought I wanted space to lick my wounds in peace. But what I really wanted was my brother. And he was right there. Despite all the abuse I hurled at him, he was always there.”

“Cool,” Katsuki says. 

“Very,” Iida says.

The sun is low and orange in the sky. 

“Have you decorated your room for the dorm decoration contest?”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “For the last fucking time, no one is coming into my goddamn room.”

When they make it back down to the common room, Katsuki is greeted by an odd, unexpected sight. 

Kirishima, sitting around a table with more than half the class, playing a drinking game with a mostly frozen bottle of Perrier.

“Never have I ever vandalized anything,” Uraraka says.

Hagakure, Deku, Tokoyami, and Jirou all take sips. 

“I bet you’ve done that too, huh,” Katsuki accuses.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Iida says calmly. Then, louder, “What are you all playing?”

“Never have I ever,” Ashido says, grinning. “Fun way to see how much we can jog Kirishima’s memory!”

That’s… not a bad idea. Make it a game. He can’t remember and there’s no pressure. He can remember and he gets to have something in common with everyone else.

“We’ll play,” Iida says. 

Katsuki glowers at him for including him without asking, but he’s not about to kick up a big fuss over something so stupid, so he just acquiesces. 

“What would you like?” Yaoyorozu asks, gesturing to a giant cooler packed with drinks. There’s pop, lemonade, iced water, and cans of bubble tea, among other things. Iida grabs a Diet Coke. Katsuki settles with water.

“It’s more fun when it’s an actual drinking game,” Kaminari says, sipping on his raspberry lemonade. 

“I can’t drink,” Kirishima says.

“Yes,” Kaminari says, nodding. “That is the only reason why I am not condoning drinking.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes. “Never have I ever thrown up after taking literally one shot.”

The class bursts out laughing as Kaminari sullenly takes a long swig of his lemonade. 

“I never even told you that,” he complains, wiping his mouth.

“You didn’t need to.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I have eyes.”

“Never have I ever told everyone I was an orphan when both my parents were alive and lived, like, twenty minutes away,” Kirishima interjects.

“Who told you that?” Katsuki barks. It’s overtaken by the class’ raucous laughter. 

Kirishima looks pleased with himself, teeth bared in a smug grin. “Take a sip, c’mon.”

“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Katsuki says, taking a vengeful sip of his Fiji water.

“Never have I ever dyed my hair,” Hagakure says, rubbing her hands together gleefully as Deku, Kirishima, Iida, Ashido, and Kaminari all drink.

“I knew the green wasn’t natural!” Sero exclaims, pointing at Deku.

Deku stares at him, confused. “What? No! I just bleached it once for an All Might cosplay. Did you think—my freckles are green, how dedicated did you think I was?”

“When did you dye yours?” Uraraka asks Iida, mystified.

Iida rubs the back of his neck. “It was for Halloween. My brother convinced me. My parents were not happy.”

Katsuki’s learning a lot about him today. He considers saying Never have I ever ripped Sakura grape but Aizawa interrupts his fun, looming over their little circle like a socially inept Grim Reaper. 

“Lights out in thirty minutes,” he says blandly. “Anyone caught outside after that will be sleeping on the roof.”

Bakugou refuses to let him sleep on the floor.

“Just don’t roll around,” is his solution. It’s a shit one, and Kirishima gladly tells him so.

“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” is the next big idea from one of U.A.’s best and brightest. Kirishima’s ready to argue that one too until he actually sits down in the thing and—he hasn’t been this comfortable since he left for Training Camp.

“See?” It’s too dark for him to see properly but he can hear Bakugou’s smugness, and just about see the expression, too. It’s a very unpleasant look on an already unpleasant face.

“Just for tonight.”

“Sure.”

Kirishima lies down. Bakugou had nonchalantly provided him with a neck pillow that props his head up. Despite the spikes that protrude from the back of his scalp, he can actually lay his head down now without any added strain on his neck.

After a few minutes of dead silence, Bakugou clears his throat.

“Aizawa told me you needed your space. Is that true?”

Of course Aizawa carried through. It just puts Kirishima in the awkward position of having to take back everything he’d been so passionate about, just a few hours ago. 

“No.”

Bakugou doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “You’re not just saying that, right? I’m not gonna get mad if you need to be alone for a bit. I get it. I do too. I just—it’s my own shit, where I can’t let—I get it. If it was me, and someone was around all the time, I’d get pissed off too.”

Kirishima’s response snaps out of him, quick, almost desperate. “No. I don’t want it.”

Bakugou’s grin is as audible as his pride. Moreso, even, like a nightlight in the pitch-black room. 

“Okay.”

Chapter Text

Katsuki’s a light sleeper.

He’s always found it difficult to sleep in the same room as other people, even his parents. The slightest change in his mom’s breathing would stress him out too much to sleep well.

Kirishima seems to be having more nightmares the more his memories come back, if the constant, panicked noises he makes are any indication. He needs sleep, after having had it denied for so long—but something deep in his subconscious hasn’t quite gotten the memo.

Katsuki’s a little irritated that own night's been ruined.

He’s fucking furious at the fact that Kirishima can’t have one fucking second to himself. Every second of his life is governed by Ujiko’s slimy hold. Either he’s awake and facing all the things he can no longer do by himself, or he’s asleep and living his worst fears until his body yanks him awake just to make sure he’s still alive.

Kirishima doesn’t say anything when he wakes up. Katsuki always clocks the irregularity of his breathing, when he gains consciousness—but it never lasts long enough for Kirishima to say anything.

That is, until approximately three in the morning, when Kirishima wakes up and stays conscious. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t lash out, panicked or otherwise. Katsuki just listens to the irregular pattern of his lungs.

This goes on for a long moment. Katsuki’s debating saying something, asking if he wants water, or a pill—but he’s trying to be better about unconsciously smothering Kirishima, even if he’d said he didn’t actually want more space—when Kirishima’s breathing starts to pick up.

“Bakugou?”

His voice is small. Scared. 

“Yeah,” Katsuki says immediately. “Yeah, I’m here, Kirishima.”

Kirishima’s breathing slows down gradually. Katsuki waits for him.

“Cool,” he says, after a minute. “Sorry for waking you up.”

“It’s fine.” Kirishima probably won’t tell him, because he fucking sucks, but— “Everything good?”

“Fine,” Kirishima says. 

Point proven. But Katsuki’s trying to be patient, so he doesn’t yell at him.

A minute later, Kirishima inhales sharply and says— “It’s just… sometimes, when we went on long car rides… Overhaul wouldn’t want me to know. Where we were going. So he’d blindfold me, and plug up my ears, and—my other senses are basically non-existent when I’m… like this. I couldn’t feel anything. And it was kind of like I didn’t exist, until he took me outside. 

“And I was just—you know, lying down, and it’s really dark, and I couldn’t really see or hear anything either and it was—it just feels like—sometimes I’m not a fucking person? You know? I’m like—a chair. That sounds stupid, but that’s what it feels like… like—like I’m just another thing in the room, and not someone living in it.”

Katsuki doesn’t say anything immediately.

What does he even say to that?

It’s not something he’s ever thought to be grateful for—the ability to feel just how uncomfortably warm his pillow is.

He wants to tell Kirishima that he’s one of the most brilliantly alive people he’s ever met. He wants to tell Kirishima that when he walks into a room it’s like the walls reconfigure to put him in the centre. He wants to tell Kirishima that there is nothing in Katsuki’s whole life that has made his hands spark quicker than the promise of striking them off Kirishima’s skin.

“If you’re not gonna sleep, do you wanna hit the gym instead?”

“Is that allowed?”

Katsuki snorts. “You’ve killed people and you’re asking if it’s allowed to use the school facilities that you pay for?”

Kirishima chokes out a rough but genuine laugh. “You have no idea how to talk to people, huh?”

Katsuki isn’t known for his social skills, no. 

That was always Kirishima’s forte.

Kirishima walks into the gym and stops abruptly, just inside.

His fists slamming into cement. Dust everywhere. Someone beside him. The walls coming down slower and slower. His arms burning. His shield cracking.

A loud ringing. Shame overflowing.

“Everything okay?” Bakugou asks warily.

“Fine,” Kirishima manages. “Just… remembering the last time I was here.”

Bakugou’s nose scrunches up as he thinks. “Oh, yeah,” he says, after a minute. “The last time you were here you were doing your exam. You were paired with the metal idiot from Class 1-B. You both failed.”

Him saying it helps fill in the blanks. Kirishima remembers Tetsutetsu beside him, the sharp fear of realizing that his quirk wasn’t strong enough to keep going.

Well. He’d pass just fine, now.

It’s a little funny, actually. That all feels like so long ago. And it hadn’t been, not really, but in Kirishima’s head, it feels like decades. It’s better than the abject divide he’d had before. This, at least, feels like it happened to him. 

Bakugou had hesitated for the same reason. It felt like a long time for him, too.

So maybe Kirishima’s not crazy for feeling like that. Bakugou’s not a metric for normal behaviour by any means, but his bar is marginally higher than Kirishima’s.

At the very least, he’s not alone in it.

Bakugou asks, “Do you want to train individually or spar?”

“Whatever you want.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I’m saying whatever you want!”

“What I want is for you to make a choice.”

“That’s not how that works.”

They glare at each other for a second. Kirishima breaks first, laughing, and Bakugou grudgingly follows him, the hard set of his mouth loosening into a lax smile.

“Seriously, come on—”

Bakugou cuts him off. “Don’t ask me to choose.” His eyes are serious, and Kirishima stills.

“What?”

“I…” Bakugou looks uncomfortable. Like he’s trying to regurgitate a very large turkey leg. “I don’t like. Making choices for you. It feels like I’m just telling you to do shit.”

Which would be fine, because Bakugou loves telling people what to do.

Except Kirishima spent a little blip in time being told what to do every moment of every day until it literally unmade his brain and sense of self. 

“Oh.” 

Bakugou’s more sensitive than he thought.

“I make you feel like the villains?”

Bakugou looks away. “Sometimes. Not on purpose. You’re not smart enough to think of that.”

It’s a very weak insult. Kirishima realizes, with a small, steadily growing feeling of relief, that he’s actually starting to know Bakugou. 

Everything, for a while, has been unsteady. Unsafe ground. Sometimes he’d put his foot down and it was fine. Sometimes it was quicksand. Sometimes it was a man’s vertebrae, poking out of his flesh like blood diamonds. 

Sometimes he gets the joke right and everyone laughs. Sometimes he doesn’t, and everyone goes quiet, and he can see the ghost of who he used to be, superimposed over his body, reminding everyone of what they’ve lost and will never get back.

But Bakugou is starting to become something Kirishima can’t get wrong. He knows when he’s okay to talk. When he needs a break. When he means an insult and when he doesn’t. When he’s uncomfortable, not because of Kirishima, but because he doesn’t like talking about his feelings. 

“You know you’re not like them.”

Bakugou rolls his eyes. “I know I’m not a fucking villain, thanks. You don’t need to tell me that.”

It’s a nice change of pace. Bakugou being angry while Kirishima stays relatively calm. Lately, it’s been the other way around. Good of Bakugou, to be the annoying, irrational one for once. Keeps things balanced.

“But you still feel that way,” Kirishima says. Bakugou’s jaw clenches. So he’s right, then. “Why?”

He can actually hear Bakugou’s teeth grinding.

Maybe Bakugou feels like fair’s fair, because Kirishima had indulged in some sharing thirty minutes ago.

“I met Ujiko, when I was looking for you. He told me that he saw us fighting at the Sports Festival. Do you remember that?”

“A bit. I lost, right?”

“You didn’t lose,” Bakugou snaps. He lets go of his breath slowly, hands curling into fists at his side. “He—he’s a fucking idiot, but he knew you didn’t lose. And he saw that I knew you didn’t lose. And it fucked me up, a bit. That we had the exact same thought process.”

Oh.

Well, that is a little fucked up.

Bakugou must see a look on his face that reflects this, because he snorts. “You get it now, yeah?”

“Hold on a minute,” Kirishima says. “That is fucked up, but it’s not—I mean, you didn’t have the exact same thought process. You both thought I won. But you just… I mean, you were a dick to me after it, but that’s all. He turned me into one of his Nomu.” He shrugs. “Sure, it’s not like you’re smart enough to do that, but even if you were, I don’t think you would.”

“Wait a minute, I—” Bakugou stands there, face convulsing, as he wars between defending himself against Kirishima calling him an idiot, and asserting that he’d be both able and willing to re-engineer Kirishima’s DNA, transforming him into a soulless weapon.

Kirishima tries not to laugh at him.

“That can’t be your reason,” Bakugou says when he stops scowling long enough to say actual words. “Really? I’m not a villain because I’m too fucking dumb to be one?”

“Well, I guess you have some things that would make me think of you as one,” Kirishima says. “I mean, those loafers you wore the other day were pretty criminal. You don’t have the ankles for them.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you.”

“My mom runs a vintage shoe depop. As, like, a side hustle.”

“How does she feel about your fucking crocs.”

“Oh, she’s super supportive!”

“That’s your amnesia talking.” Bakugou squints at him. “Do you even remember what crocs are?”

“Yes, obviously I remember what crocs are.”

“Describe them. Quickly.”

He pauses for just a little too long, and Bakugou cackles.

“Individual training,” Kirishima says loudly. “I’ve made my choice. Go train over there.”

Bakugou laughs, but does as he says.

Kirishima is shocked out of his training by an ear-piercing bang. 

He turns to examine Bakugou, who’s too focused on his own training to notice his new audience. Bakugou angles, surveys his target—a makeshift cement block on the other side of the gym—and his AP Shot spears forward, whistling through the air. 

Kirishima stands up, walking over to get a better view. 

AP Shot has cut a clean, precise hole through the centre of the block. The first shot is directly above it, separated by only a few inches of cement.

“That’s what you used to kill me.”

It’s an offhand remark, just the first thing that comes to mind, but Bakugou turns very suddenly. His eyes are wide. His face is white. “What?”

“They said it was like a bullet went through me,” he says. “This is what you used, right?”

Bakugou swallows. Kirishima watches his throat move. “Yeah. Good eye.”

“Why are you freaking out? You’re the one who’s always bringing up how you killed me,” Kirishima points out. It is maybe a little insensitive. Good thing that doesn’t matter when it comes to Bakugou. 

“I didn’t think you actually remembered it,” Bakugou snaps. His eyes dart over to Kirishima, and just as quickly move away. “Did it hurt?”

“...I don’t actually remember. Just what they told me after. I mean, I know it happened, but that’s only because you, you know, keep bringing it up. Kinda shot yourself in the foot there.” He laughs. “Hey, get it? Shot? Because you shot me?”

“Do you want a list of all the shit I didn’t miss while you were off getting tortured?” Bakugou asks flatly. “Because your sense of humour is right there at the top.”

“Don’t lie, I make you laugh.”

“Sure,” Bakugou allows. “In the same way that I laugh at videos of kids falling over.”

“That sounds a little sociopathic,” Kirishima muses. “Maybe you are more like Ujiko than I thought.”

“What the fu—you can’t use the shit I fucking communicate to you against me.”

“That’s literally all you do. Every conversation you’ve ever had. With anyone.”

Bakugou’s face goes blank, and he launches a volley of explosions at Kirishima’s face. They don’t really have much of an effect other than inducing black spots in his eyes. Kirishima just laughs, until he gets an idea.

“Do you want to try AP Shot on a moving target?”

Bakugou stops. “That… sounds fucking sick. You up for it?”

Kirishima spreads his arms. Bares his teeth. “C’mon. Hit me.”

Bakugou looks downright bloodthirsty.

They sneak back in the early morning.

Katsuki opens the front door to Heights Alliance and hears people moving around the common area—but it’s not like any of their classmates are going to snitch on them, so he moves forward without hesitating.

Actually entering the common room, though, he realizes it’s a weird amount of people, just the early birds—Hagakure, Iida, Yaoyorozu, and Shoji—but the slackers who are usually still in bed. 

“Oh, hey!” Hagakure waves, her hand refracting rainbows on the walls. “Where were you guys?”

Kirishima stiffens.

Katsuki just says, “Training.”

“Aw, yeah, I should have figured. That’s smart, though, we’ve definitely gotta up our game for Provisionals.”

Shit. Provisionals.

Katsuki hadn’t even thought of Provisionals. He’d been a little fucking busy, considering everything. 

“I was wondering if we were still going ahead with it,” Yaoyorozu says. “I asked Aizawa about it and he said they’ve already postponed his request, but any further and—well, we won’t be able to do it until next year, which obviously isn’t feasible.”

That’s why Uraraka, Todoroki, and Jirou, among others, have all dragged themselves out of bed. In only a few days, they’ll all have to prove themselves as card-carrying heroes-in-training, and all the responsibility that comes along with it.

“At least there isn’t a written component,” Ashido says brightly. “It’ll be like the entrance exams more than anything else, right? And obviously we all killed that.”

“Except a hundred times harder,” Jirou points out. “That was before we’d learned anything. Since then we’ve fought actual villains—the standards are going to be way higher.”

“For everyone else, maybe,” Todoroki says. “It’s unusual for a first-year class to deal with what we’ve dealt with. We are the standard. Everyone else will be measured up to us.”

“What are Provisionals?” Kirishima asks quietly.

Everyone turns to look at him. 

Sure, their class has done a hell of a lot. They’d beaten the villains at USJ, escaped their fire at Training Camp. Katsuki went headfirst into a villain hideout and came out swinging.

But Kirishima is in a league of his own.

A league that most likely won’t be allowed to participate.

“It’s an exam we have to take that gives us provisional licenses to act as heroes in public,” Kaminari says, after a moment. “We usually do a second internship after, where we can act as proper sidekicks.”

“Oh,” Kirishima says, voice flat. “Cool.”

“Yaomomo, Iida,” Deku says, turning to the two class leaders. “Did you ask about…”

“We argued in your favour,” Iida says, facing Kirishima, who meets his eyes. “Aizawa told us he did as well, but the Commission wasn’t in favour of it. They said it would be… an unfair advantage.”

“That’s fair,” Kirishima says, tone light. “They don’t let people use steroids in the Olympics, right?”

It’s stupid. Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Iida have been getting access to top-notch training since they were kids. If they’re going to talk about things being fair…

But it’s not the same thing. It only gives them a slight advantage.

Kirishima survived in a den of villains. They’d had to gut his mind just to keep him down. A bunch of hero students don’t stand a chance.

“But then… are you not going to do an internship, either?” Sero asks, frowning. “We told them that you needed to come out with us, be treated like a regular—”

“I’m not a regular hero student, though,” Kirishima says abruptly. When he gets angry his voice drops low, sounding like it’s being grounded in his throat with a mortar and pestle. “It’s fine. Besides, it’s not like I was able to train with you guys at Training Camp. I’m behind.” 

The subtleties of his usually expressive face don’t come across well now, interrupted by the clutter of his quirk. Still, it’s obvious that he’s frustrated. With who, though, Katsuki isn’t sure. The heroes? The villains? The class? Himself? Knowing Kirishima, it’s all of the above. 

“Who cares about Training Camp?” Kaminari asks. “You’ve had the most experience out of all of us.”

“In being a villain,” Kirishima says.

Kaminari’s jaw clicks shut.  

Kirishima speaks, and no one interrupts. 

“If it’s about getting your hero licenses, they’re going to care about more than just strength. You need to show that you can protect civilians well. That you can take care of people, and make them feel ready to be saved. I don’t know how to do any of that.”

“You don’t need to,” Uraraka says, fists clenched at her sides. “You ranked second in the entrance exams. You were the only person who had an almost even split between offence and defence. You’re a natural at protecting people.”

“Listen, I don’t want to talk about this,” Kirishima says. “Why don’t you guys go train and just get someone to monitor me.”

“Just train with us,” Kaminari says. “You’re stronger than all of us, aren’t you? You’re the best person to train with, then, to prepare us properly.”

He’s identified one of the best ways to handle an angry Kirishima—which is basically to appeal to nothing other than his strength. It’s safe ground. Talk about his feelings and he’ll blow up at you. Act like he’s nothing more than a mindless soldier to practice off of and he’s happy as a clam. 

Katsuki would try to smack it out of him if trying wouldn’t sever his hand from his body.

“Alright,” Kirishima says. The tension lessens, just a little. “You ready to go now?”

“Yeah, Sero and I were just about to leave,” Kaminari says. “Who else is coming with?”

“Me!”

“I will.”

“Me too!”

“I’m going on a run first but I can meet you guys after.”

“I’ll catch up, I need like thirty minutes.”

“Didn’t you just come back from training, though?” Hagakure asks.

Kirishima shrugs. “It was mostly me running around while Bakugou tried to hit me. Not super intensive.”

“I hit you plenty of times, you just couldn’t feel it because you’re a fucking freak,” Katsuki barks, palms igniting.

“See?” Kirishima smirks at Hagakure. “Light work.”

She snorts. “Alright, well, I’ll catch up with you guys later. Have fun.”

When the training group eventually filters out of the room, Katsuki turns to Hagakure. “Are you busy?”

“I mean, I was gonna have breakfast, but what’s up?”

“I was gonna go downtown. If you want to come. Since you and Ashido are always talking about wanting to skip class to hit up Aritzia.”

“Uh…” Hagakure’s glittery headband tilts to the side as she thinks. “Sure, if it’s just a quick trip! What do you need to get?”

“Not sure,” Katsuki says.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you meant on, like, an errand. Hour tops? I don’t really have time to just wander around downtown, man, with Provs coming up—”

“No, I meant—” Katsuki stares at the ceiling so he doesn’t need to make slightly off-mark eye contact with Hagakure while he admits what he’s about to say. “I’m not sure what to get him. But I want to get something, ‘cause he can’t do Provs with us, because of something that’s not his fucking fault.”

Katsuki’s been dreaming of having a hero license since he knew what it was. Kirishima must have been too. Every hero wannabe has. 

And now it’s in sight. And it’s not his to have.

A present isn’t going to fix anything, but it’ll be a distraction, at least.

“Awwww! Bakugou! That’s so sweet, I didn’t know you had it in you! You want to get him something to help him feel better?”

“Your words,” Katsuki grumbles.

“Your actions, though! Yeah, of course, I’ll come! Hey, I can be your brainstorm buddy, what were you thinking of getting?”

“Calm down, I still need to shower. And then we can leave.”

“That works! I needed time to eat, anyways. Hey, did you have anything before you trained?”

“No.”

“You cool with oatmeal?”

Katsuki stares at her. 

“We don’t have all day, man.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I know. You’re definitely paying for coffee when we go out.”

Katsuki, despite himself, feels his mouth curve up. “Fine. Fucking freeloader.”

They’re all stressed about the exam. Hagakure doesn’t need to come out with him. That part could be excused as her fondness for Kirishima. But she doesn’t need to make breakfast for him, either. Katsuki figures he can spare a couple bucks on a latte.

“Alright, idea man, hit me!” Hagakure declares. “What’s something he would enjoy?”

“He likes comic books,” Katsuki says. “But he can’t turn them without ripping them.”

“I know he really likes gym stuff,” Hagakure says thoughtfully. “We used to work out together after class. But there’s that same problem, huh. He would probably break the dumbbells.”

“Sensory things,” Katsuki says. “He got all happy when I got him literal hot water. Cause he’s been living life in a vacuum or whatever. So more things like that. Shit he can taste, smell, all of that.”

“Can he eat? We could get him, like, Warheads or something. Definitely a sensory experience.”

Katsuki snorts. That’s evil. “His stomach’s fragile. They’re acclimating him to food, but he can’t have anything intense yet. We can order those online, save them for later.” As funny as it would be to watch Kirishima’s face curl up from the intense sourness, there’s a non-zero chance that it would actually kill him.

That leaves smell, then.

“Could get him a candle,” Katsuki says doubtfully. “Is that gay?”

Hagakure stops in the middle of the sidewalk. “Excuse me?”

“That’s not what I—I mean, that’s not something guys get guys,” Katsuki says. “Why are you—why did you stop walking.”

“I need to go through this with you logically,” Hagakure says. “Do you think that someone who has had every semblance of his humanity, down to his ability to touch other people, ripped away from him through repeated torture —do you think he would care about the homosexual implications of a candle?”

Katsuki shoves his hands in his pockets and examines the mannequins in a storefront. “Well, when you say it like that.”

“It’s a cute idea, Bakugou,” Hagakure says, softer. “Besides, you’d be burning it in your room. Plausible deniability.”

“You’re saying I’m the gay one.”

“Aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Um.” For the first time, Hagakure sounds out of her depth. “Sorry, I just kind of thought—ignore me. Ignore me! I don’t know what I’m talking about. Hey, look, it’s a home goods store, they probably have candles there—”

“Do you think I’m gay?” Katsuki asks. “Does—do other people, or is it just you?”

Katsuki can’t see Hagakure’s face, but he can hear the long, awkward pause just fine. The silence speaks volumes.

“You’ve talked about this before.”

Silence.

“With Ashido.”

Silence.

“With multiple people.”

Silence.

“Most of the class?!”

Silence.

“You have had extended conversations about whether or not I’m gay with our entire class.”

Silence.

“You have had extended conversations about me being gay as if it’s a—a fact. With every single fucking person in 1A.”

Hagakure speeds up, heading into the home goods store, like that’s going to save her.

“Hagakure, if you don’t open your goddamn mouth I’m taking you back to U.A. in a body bag.”

“Sorry!” Hagakure bursts out. “I’m sorry, okay? I just—you know, you were gone for a bit, and when we weren’t training we were talking—and. You know. People kind of thought—I mean, you recognized Kirishima pretty fast. And you said you just had to go after him. And now that you’re back you two are always together and you’re rooming together—”

“Aizawa put us together.”

“Oh. We thought you asked.”

“I did not.”

“The other stuff, though, Aizawa didn’t make you do any of that.”

“I didn’t go after him because I’m fucking in love with him!”

“Hey, no one said anything about love, just—oh my god, are you in lo—”

“No.” He stops. The candle in front of him smells nice, like cinnamon and apple cider. “Smell this.”

“It’s nice! He might like it.”

“Maybe.”

They’re still here on a mission, even if Hagakure is determined to be the weirdest fucking person alive during it. Katsuki should have come by himself. At least then he wouldn’t be having this insane conversation.

“This one’s nice,” Hagakure says, uncapping a candle. It smells like the ocean. “You know Kirishima knows how to surf?”

Katsuki didn’t know that. “Makes sense.” The Hawaiian shirts. Hair the colour of a strawberry daiquiri. A smile that could give Katsuki a sunburn. Kirishima’s the definition of a beach bum. 

“...So.”

“No.”

“I was just wondering why you went after him, then, if it wasn’t because you—you know.”

Because he was the only one that got Toga to break. Because he did what a room full of pros couldn’t and they were ready to leave his name out entirely.

“I got them the information,” Katsuki says. “I got them the fucking map with his location circled in red. I deserved to go, after all that.”

“You weren’t worried about him at all?”

“No.” 

“Seriously?”

“Don’t act like I’m a jackass for that,” Katsuki says. He’d gotten enough of that from Ashido, on the night of. “He’s the strongest. I thought he’d—I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I thought they’d just try to fight him. He would have shut that down in a second.”

“You believe in him that much?”

“You don’t?”

“Sure I do, but I don’t make a whole personality out of hating him.”

“I don’t—” Hagakure, despite being invisible, manages to send the aura of a judgemental look across the aisle of candles. Katsuki busies himself with the candles.

“Smell this.”

It smells like shit. “It smells like shit.”

“What, you don’t like lavender?”

“No. Smell this.”

“Wait, stop, that one’s so nice! It’s like fresh baked bread!”

“That’s the name. I’m gonna get it.”

“Cool! Just that?” 

Well, there’s a buy three get one free sale. Kirishima can choose which one he likes best. Actually, it’s probably good to get a variety. Get him as much sensory potential as possible.

“The apple one and the ocean one. And one more.”

Hagakure laughs at him, but she also draws his attention to a stupid, BBQ-ribs-scented candle that looks stupid as hell and is exactly the kind of thing Kirishima would like. So Katsuki allows it.

“Alright,” Katsuki says, once everything’s been paid for and bagged. “Let’s get your stupid fucking coffee.”

“Aw, you remembered!”

The cafe’s on their way back, so at least Hagakure isn’t completely inconveniencing him.

“Are you going to get anything?”

He is kind of tired. “Maybe. Caffeine doesn’t do much for me, though.”

“Oh, that sucks! You’re kind of like my dad, he can have a whole, like, pot of coffee and go right to sleep after. But me and my stepdad are the same, we get super woken up after one cup.”

“Both my parents are like me. Probably genetic.”

“Probably! They have tea lattes, too, though, so you could get one of those! You like spiced stuff, right? They make really good chai lattes.”

Katsuki’s about to ask what a chai latte is when he almost gets knocked over by a kid.

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Bakugou!” Hagakure scolds. “Don’t yell at children!”

They both stop yelling at each other when they realize the kid hasn’t run past Katsuki on its way to an ice cream truck or candy shop, as kids tend to do—and is instead clinging to Katsuki’s legs, shaking.

Katsuki has no idea how to talk to children.

If Kirishima was here, he’d probably crouch down, putting himself on the same level as the kid and reassure them instantly. He’d make them laugh after one minute and be their best friend in the whole wide world after five.

Katsuki passes his bags to Hagakure and kneels down. “Are you hurt?”

It’s a little girl, with tangled white hair and big red eyes. She stares up at him. She has dark eyebags, for a kid. 

“I saw you at home,” she whispers, panicked. 

Katsuki’s never seen this kid in his life. 

“Where’s home, sweetheart?” Hagakure asks quietly. “We can come with you…”

“Eri, why are you bothering these people?”

The girl goes deathly still.

A man stands in front of them, in a long, yellow coat. He’s got unruly black hair and a smile that jabs a red-hot iron poker right into Katsuki’s fight-or-flight response. 

“She’s not bothering us,” Hagakure says, straightening up. 

The man laughs. “You’re both very polite. Alright Eri, you’ve had your fun, come with me, now.”

Eri shoves her little face into Katsuki’s neck. “I saw you,” she insists.

Hagakure is, very loudly, asking the man a bunch of questions about how he knows Eri, what they’re doing out, and why she’s running. It camouflages Eri’s quiet voice well.

“Where’d you see me?” Katsuki mumbles. “On TV?”

“No! At home! With Overhaul!”

Katsuki’s mouth goes numb. There is no way to misconstrue this. Overhaul isn’t a household name. 

At home. At home with Overhaul.

This kid lives in the yakuza base. She’s Overhaul’s prisoner.

She can’t be older than six.

“Eri,” the man says sharply. “Uncle Tomura’s in the car, and he wants to get home.”

Eri lets go of Katsuki like she’s been burned and runs to the man, slotting her hand in his. 

Hagakure moves to run after them. “Hey, wait—” 

“Quiet,” Katsuki says, grabbing her hand. 

Hagakure, to her credit, shuts up quickly. 

“We’re going back to U.A.,” Katsuki murmurs. “And we’re telling the teachers about this. Act normal until we’re back home.”

They walk back towards the bus stop. Hagakure tells him what a chai latte is. Her stepdad is, apparently, committed to making caffeinated drinks for her father that don’t make him run around like a hyperactive squirrel.

“It has wayyy less caffeine than a cup of coffee—so it would do even less for you, but it’s really yummy! Aw, man, we could have bought the stuff to make it. Next time, okay?”

“Yeah, next time.”

Katsuki doesn’t relax until they’re behind the gates of the grounds.

“Okay,” Hagakure says, dropping the act. “What the hell was that?”

“Was anyone following us?”

“Yeah, up until the bus stop, but he didn’t get on with us.”

“That’s what I was thinking. They’re—I don’t know who the hell they’re with, but that girl knows Overhaul.”

“What?”

“You remember when she said she saw me at home? While you were yelling at that guy, she told me she ‘saw me at home with Overhaul.’”

“Holy shit,” Hagakure murmurs. “That’s—she lives there. She lives there with him. But you didn’t recognize the guy with her?”

“They arrested Overhaul after the fight, took him to Tartarus. The guy’s probably another yakuza member, or villain. Whoever he is, I don’t know him.”

Hagakure rakes her hand through her hair, bangles catching the light. “Fuck. Do you think Kirishima knows her?”

Katsuki hadn’t even thought of that. “If he had, he would have mentioned her.” Except his memory is inconsistent at best. “I guess we’ll see when we ask him.”

And he’d thought Warheads would be bad.

Fuck.

Katsuki laughs. Chokes on it. Ends up making a very gross noise that makes him sound like he’s about to vomit.

“Hey, hey, Bakugou, it’s alright,” Hagakure says, patting his shoulder. “We’ll talk to Aizawa and figure it out.”

“It’s not that,” Katsuki manages. “I just—I went out to get him fucking candles. And I’m coming back asking him if he remembers a tiny little fucking kid that was imprisoned with him.”

Hagakure keeps patting him on the shoulder. 

“You can stop that.”

“This is for me, shut up.”

He snorts.

“Take a minute,” Hagakure says quietly. “If we go in freaked out everyone’s going to know something’s up.”

They’ll know eventually. Katsuki’s starting to get a feeling for this—the moment right before everything goes to shit.