Chapter Text
They were on their way to some sort of training ground outside of Musutafu. Several hours outside of Musutafu. Several hours crammed into a narrow bus along with 19 sweaty, fidgeting teenagers buzzing with excitement over the camp this week.
Katsuki scowls out the window, ignoring the shoving and maneuvering going on around him.
God why does everyone have to be so goddamn loud?
He watches out of the corner of his eye as Mina stands on her tip-toes, pink face pressed as close as possible to the rattling AC unit above their heads. Aizawa snaps at her to sit down as the bus lurches into drive.
Throughout the course of the ride they only have to stop once for the bathroom, which is a miracle considering the copious amounts of ice Todoroki keeps handing out for people to suck on in attempts to stay cool. Kirishima takes his own jagged ice cube and runs it along the back of his neck, groaning in relief.
"Wanna try Bakubro?" The redhead holds his hand out and Katsuki watches a droplet of water roll off one of his knuckles onto his own thigh and scowls.
"Fuck off."
"You're so hot though!" Kirishima whines, "the only reason I'm sweating this much is because I might as well be sitting next to a furnace."
Katsuki glares at him, "well it's your own fucking fault for sitting next to me!"
"But I want to sit next to you, you're just super hot today. Actually…" The boy squints at Katsuki, leaning closer. Considering they're already pressed shoulder to ankle on the cramped leather seat, the movement brings Kirishima's flushed face so close to Katsuki's that he startles and shifts back with a growl, ready to let the sweat collecting in itchy pools on his palms do its job.
"Is this normal for you? This doesn't seem normal. Should I be worried that you're about to blow us all up?"
“Yes,” he snarls.
Kirishima pauses, his eyebrows doing that little scrunchy thing they do when he’s thinking too hard about something, or worrying over something super dumb-
“Are you okay? You actually look kinda sick, dude.”
Sparks pop and Kirishima just barely manages to harden around the exploding palm pushing him away, “HAH?! I don't get fucking sick , bastard-”
The explosions sizzle into nothing as he yells and he feels that familiar tug at the base of his skull as Aizawa glares from his position at the front of the bus, eyes glowing.
“Settle down now or we’re turning this bus around and never leaving school grounds again so long as you’re all enrolled at UA. Do you understand me?”
Kirishima blanches and apologizes profusely as several of their schoolmates stare with wide-eyed amusement at the pair.
Katsuki curses them all and tears his hearing aids out of his ears, turning to press his sweaty forehead against the cool glass of the window, effectively shutting out the rest of the world. He can still hear them relatively well, for the most part, since they’re in such close quarters, but he manages to ignore Shitty Hair and Aizawa and everyone else sitting too fucking close being too fucking loud.
Kirishima's warm thigh is pressed firmly to his own, and he ignores that too.
...
The musty bus has started to take on an acrid B.O. smell by the time they make it to the camp, even the unrolled windows having done nothing to alleviate the stench of twenty puberty-ridden teens shoved into a tiny metal box on wheels.
Sero and Kaminari have taken advantage of the open windows at the back of the bus by leaning up and blowing smoke into the wind whenever Aizawa looks properly distracted. A feat that might have been impressive, if Aizawa hadn’t caught them at it ten minutes before they parked. He has the offending party unload all of the baggage from beneath the bus while everyone else tumbles out and stretches in the muggy heat, taking in their surroundings.
The metallic shrill of cicadas fills the open space in a cacophonous song of summer, echoing off the sides of the three long barrack-like buildings sitting at the edge of the forest before them. The buildings are modern enough to be considered new, despite the thick layers of dust and vines clinging to their concrete walls.
The open space itself is mostly a dirt lot. Off to the right it expands into a grass acreage about the size of a baseball field, with a wire cage to match. It might once have been used as a baseball field, but considering the blackened craters and long gouges mutilating the thick green grass, the game must have taken a more violent turn once converted into a training arena.
There’s no sign, no flag pole, no welcoming committee made of Wild, Wild Pussycats jumping out at them from the treeline. (Which Katsuki is beyond relieved about.) There is only the buildings and the bugs and the suspicious craters in the grass.
Uraraka is the one to pipe up over the buzz of conversation, “what is this place?”
Aizawa already looks two seconds from packing up and going home as he answers with a tired, “Camp Kihoku, built as a basic training camp for the Armed Forces but quickly abandoned once they realized it was haunted.”
“What the fuck- ” Kaminari was suddenly paying rapt attention from where he’d been grumbling over the luggage next to Sero, “this place is haunted?!”
His outburst drew the attention of all the other kids and suddenly twenty pairs of eyes landed on Aizawa’s perfectly deadpan features.
“You...you’re not being serious are you…?” Uraraka asks hesitantly.
At Aizawa’s emotionless stare the entire class erupts, Iida shouting about professionalism and plausibility, Koda turning into a shaking anxious wreck, and Tokoyami grinning into the collar of his ragged ' Bloodthirsty Butchers' t-shirt.
Kirishima looks nervous too, “I can’t punch a ghost can I? Wait would that be rude? I think that would be rude.”
Katsuki seriously regrets putting his hearing aids back in.
He stomps over to his bag and hefts it over one shoulder as Aizawa begins doling out instructions on preparing the place for their 5 day stay.
“This place should be relatively clean since Ketsubutsu hosted a third year refining camp last month, but they’d better be spotless by the time we start for the day.”
“When will we start?” Mina pipes up.
“You really want to wait and see?” Aizawa raises an eyebrow as if daring them to waste their time.
They scramble to find their luggage, cursing Sero and Kaminari for dumping it all in haphazard piles in the dirt. Aizawa must suddenly remember the pair’s previous sins because he steers them towards the third building, narrow and squat at the edge of the forest to their left.
“These are the showers, this is a sponge. Get started.”
Sero nods solemnly, doing his very best to look sorry, while Kaminari pouts longingly at the others stamping towards the barracks as he takes the bucket Aizawa hands him.
Throughout the process of cleaning the sleeping quarters out, Aizawa’s mean hint at hauntings slips their collective minds as they give in to the excitement of impending quirk training.
Katsuki doesn’t know why they’re all so excited about this. Last time they’d been subjected to a week-long camp to this degree they’d all been pushed nearly to death. Katsuki is pretty certain the only thing that saved some of their lives was the presence of Ragdoll and Tiger and the others. Aizawa sometimes got a nasty glint in his eye when contracts wound up written a little too vague.
He remembers the blisters tearing bloody holes in his hands, raw skin cracking beneath the constant creation of nitroglycerin in boiling water. He will admit, that idea had been a bit stupid on his part, but no one else had any better ideas and he wasn’t about to let any of these loser extras surpass him. Not at quirk training of all things.
Of course, all those memories are vaguely. . . unreal? Fuzzy, compared to what happened after. Katsuki can’t help but notice how similar this area is to that goddamn camp. He can’t help but notice the thick foliage surrounding them, the shadows between the trees that shift and stretch alongside him, like clawed hands reaching towards his dusty sneakers. The distinct lack of telephone lines and heroes and quick escape routes is unsettling.
He hates that the only thing he can think about is that if he maybe doesn't push himself as hard this time, if he doesn't destroy his hands or exhaust his quirk or tear his muscles apart in training, that if something does end up happening he’ll be better prepared. He’ll have the energy and ability to fight and win.
He hates these thoughts because they feel like giving up, even if the paranoid part of his brain says it could mean winning if something happened.
He remembers those quirk nullifying shackles the League forced him into. How much they’d hurt his already damaged hands. He also remembers the dark looks Dabi sent his way after the man had seen them. Remembers the way he’d stood a bit straighter and watched a bit closer.
The burns hadn’t even been that bad. The guy was just a fucking creep.
He’s torn out of the uncomfortable memories when Kirishima shoulder-checks him with an excited smile, pointing somewhere up above the treeline.
“Aizawa-sensei says we can climb that mountain! It’s Mount Takai? Or something? I’m not sure, he was mumbling and that just means tall so that would be dumb if that was the actual name-”
With every word that tumbles out of the redhead’s mouth, Katsuki’s headache threatens to split his skull in two. The cicadas and their classmates bustling around don’t help the staggering overwhelm. He feels like he’s going to explode. Maybe literally.
He grits his teeth and hikes his bag further up his shoulder, glaring at the oblivious boy. “It’s Mount Taki. Now shut the fuck up.”
Kirishima raises an unimpressed eyebrow, grabbing both of their bedrolls before Katsuki can say anything to stop him, “Fine, but you gotta promise to go hiking with me later.”
Katsuki starts stomping towards the barracks, already alive with their classmates’ rowdy conversation, as he grumbles out a low “maybe.”
Kirishima grins and strides after him, spring in his step.
Katsuki can already tell this week is going to be hell.