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Even amid battle, Uraraka felt distracted. An unusual turn of events, but then again, it wasn’t every day she was paired up for battle with him , Bakugo. But distractions were not something that could be afforded in their line of work. It meant the difference between life and death.
One wrong move, one missed punch, and she would be rendered incapacitated or worse.
He was a sword quirk user. Someone who could both turn his appendages into swords and also flick daggers in their direction if he was afforded enough time to do so. It was a simple quirk in theory but when the opponent was as skilled at martial arts as he was, it quickly became problematic.
One step, two steps, uppercut. Three steps, four steps, five steps, high jump kick.
Endless.
Bakugo slide tackles him. Quickly spinning around to parry his sword hands with his wrist guards and promptly kicking the solid man square in the chest, pushing him back a significant distance.
“Dynamite, stop keeping him as far from me as possible!” Uraraka calls out as she rushes forward, fighting side by side with her former classmate. The blows alternated as if they were perfectly used to the situation at hand despite that not being the case.
“Fuck this!” The villain calls out, springing backwards his bare arms outstretched for a moment before flapping them inwards flinging an onslaught of daggers in their direction.
Eyes widening, Bakugo turns to look at Uraraka, her worried eyes fixed on him, completely oblivious to the incoming attack. What is she thinking?
“Shit!” Bakugo curses loudly, looking nervously back at the villain before flicking his attention back to her.
Uraraka looks across to the villain, following Bakugo’s horrified expression. Hundreds of sharp daggers fly towards them both as she stands there, incapacitated. She needed to move, to save him from the assault before it struck, but what could she do? Floating him would only put him in more danger than they were already in.
Bakugo’s feet instinctively push forward at full speed as he runs towards her before she has a second to react. His palms roughly smack against her shoulders, pushing her backwards, out of the line of fire.
Uraraka gasps as she feels the heat of his palms against her for a moment before she is knocked back. His fearful gaze sears into her, filled with desperation and panic. Her throat tightens as realisation sets in, her eyes flicking back towards the incoming attack as it drew dangerously close.
“Quick, Bakugo move!” she screeches, a hand outstretched towards him as her ear-piercing cry rips through the air, her petite body flinging out of the line of fire.
He smiles a true smile in response. A rare sight. His eyes full of awareness and acceptance. The situation wasn’t ideal, nor was it his intention, but she was safe and that was enough.
“No…” she whispers in disbelief, chest tightening as she watches the ranged attack rain down upon her comrade. Suddenly, her back smacks hard against a concrete wall, rendering her unconscious as she collapses to the ground.
Groaning in agony, Bakugo winces and yanks one of the many daggers out of his thighs. He slowly turns to face his adversary once more. The villain smugly watching on from a safe distance.
“You’re a real fucking asshole, scissor fucker!” he growls through grit teeth as he marches forward, hands painfully yanking out the daggers that had sunk into gaps in his armour as he closes the gap between them little by little. “Don’t be a fucking coward. Grow some balls and fight me man to man!”
In the blink of an eye, Bakugo springs forward, punching the villain square in the jaw, a hot searing sensation sinking into his chest causing time to slow down in an instant. He knew what it was, there was no need to look.
“Bastard!” he howls, an unprecedented second wave of energy hitting him as he yanks the villain’s arm-turned blade out of his chest, eyes bulging snaps his wrist.
A screech bellows through the vicinity as his opponent retracts his arm as it reverts back to a regular hand hanging limply. “You little fucker!”
This is it huh? Bakugo muses silently, ignoring the villain’s commentary as he swallows his pain the best he can. It was all background noise. None of it baring any importance.
This was it.
The end and they both knew it.
He quickly presses a hand against the villains’ neck, fingers wrapping around it, squeezing tightly as he detonated without hesitation. His feet flick up between them, allowing him to push off his enemy’s body before he flew backward, their fatigued forms flinging in opposite directions.
Bakugo stumbles forward, crashing hard on one knee. His right-hand clutches at the center of his chest as his gaze drifts downwards, a smear of blood cascading down the front of his uniform.
Oddly enough, for a stab to the heart, it didn’t hurt as much as he expected. Instead, he felt numb, shock consuming him as he felt his blood drain from him at an exponential rate. His bloodied hand presses down on his bent knee, his gaze drifting across to Uraraka as she slowly came to, rubbing the back of her head.
Worth it, he notes silently, a pang of satisfaction washing over him as he watches her carefully. His vision growing blurry.
The villain splutters loudly, blood flooding his hemorrhaging neck as he tries his best to sit up, his weak arms pushing his fragile paling form off the concrete. He spots Bakugo quickly, lips turning upwards in clear amusement before collapsing back once more, surrendering to his bleak fate.
“It might be the end. But I’m the one that killed, Dynamite,” he manages to laugh before arching his back, body contorting for a few seconds as he bled out.
His pitiful excuse for a life snuffed out in an instant.
Uraraka’s heart sinks looks from the lifeless villain and across to Bakugo, an unfamiliar tired expression wrapped across his face and blood. Too much blood.
“No! No, no, no, no!” she calls out, her voice strained as she scurries forward, tripping over her own feet. Throat tightening, she feels tears flow freely down the curves of her cheeks.
Uraraka’s hands cup his cheeks as her eyes travel frantically down his chest, eying the deep wound as the metallic stench of blood fills her nostrils. “No!” she screeches, her voice heavy and full of pain. “You can’t! You are not allowed to go. You can’t!” she orders, hands clumsily pressing against his gaping wound.
Blood trickles over her fingers as she pushes against him. Her eyes widen, panic consuming her as her lips quiver uncontrollably.
“Please stay!” she begs, eyes quaking with relentless grief. “Help! Please! We need a medic!” she calls out.
“Cheeks,” he whispers at last, bloodied hand lifting her quivering chin. “They can’t hear you. Besides, it’s too late. I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head stubbornly, her hands still pressed against the wound. “No, I just need to put pressure on it! That’s what recovery girl taught us. They will come. I have faith. Someone can help,” she argues, her voice breaking as she speaks. A hand slips up to her cheeks to wipe the endless flow of tears tickling her away to no avail, smearing his blood across her skin in the process.
He reaches for her hands, pulling them away from his chest. “It’s okay to give up this one time Cheeks,” he states, thumbs tracing across the back of her hands comfortingly for a moment. “We are heroes, we knew this could happen. It’s okay.”
Uraraka chokes up, her throat growing tight as she looks down at their hands, her sobs growing louder. She tears her eyes back up to his, ripping her hands free and flinging them around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug.
In that moment she had never felt so selfish. She had never wished death upon anyone, even villains. Death was always the last option. But in the moment, all she could do was wish it was someone else.
Just not him . Anyone but him.
Her nose grows runny and her hug tightens as she presses her face into the curve of his neck, hiccuping as her cries grow more piercing, her body trembling uncontrollably. “No! I refuse to accept it!” she clamours in disbelief, slender fingers clawing desperately at his back as if to keep him from floating away. “No! No! No!”
Silence weighs heavily on the pair for a few moments, only the sound of her pain hangs in the air. Her sniffles and hiccuped tears grow louder as she tightens her embrace. Unwilling to accept the hand fate had given them.
Bakugo sighs gently, his body getting heavier by the second. But despite his limbs growing cold, there was a warmth flooding through his chest as she clung to him so desperately. Her unspoken love filled his fatally struck heart with a moment of contentment despite the bitterness he held for his premature fate.
His hands wrap limply around her back, rubbing it gently as her cries grow more desperate. The reality of the situation eating away at her more and more, every moment that they sat there.
Bakugo hesitantly peels their bodies apart, her blotchy teary expression greeting him immediately. His hand lifts to cup one of her full tear-stained cheeks, a thumb caressing it gently.
“The day I met you, it felt like my life became a reward,” Bakugo whispers, his voice straining as a jolt of pain shoots through his chest. A trembling hand presses up against his wound, determined to allow him to finish all he had to say. “You’re a pain in the ass. But you taught me a lot, Cheeks.”
Bakugo winces, body crashing forward as a hand presses down hard on her shoulder, his tired eyes hesitantly flicking up to meet her tear-filled gaze.
“No! Please! You told us all that you wouldn’t ever die like this! You said that the great Dynamite will die a glorious death if you ever fall,” She whimpers, hands shakily cupping his cheeks. “You said that, remember?”
He smiles tiredly, a hand gently stroking her face. “I protected you, that is glorious in my eyes.”
Uraraka whimpers, her eyes trembling as her hands slip from his cheeks and cup his hand affectionately. How was this reality? The one she loved dying like this? It was so unbearable.
Unable to breathe.
Unable to do anything.
Just numb.
Lips quivering she squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face into his palm, kissing it ever so gently over and over as she tries to calm herself enough to speak in any capacity.
“I’ll come back to you. I will pray to God to allow me to do that,” he whispers tenderly, the heat from her kisses radiating against his pale lifeless hand as his thumb traces across her lips. “I love you.”
The heavy words he had kept boxed away inside him rolled off the tip of his tongue so naturally. It felt cruel, allowing the truth to be shared at such a time. But wouldn’t it be equally unfair to have never stated it in the first place? For her to always wonder.
Uraraka turns, her eyes anxiously searching his as she basks in the beauty of his confession for a moment before crumpling to her grief once more. How had she never seen it until now? That look in his eyes, the look she saw on countless occasions for split seconds before he reverted back to his gremlin-like self.
A look of longing.
One with little to no expectations.
Just love. Pure, selfless love.
Her dry throat tightens as she stares up at him tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. She pauses, her heart thudding so loudly in her chest it made her want to pass out.
This was not how she wanted to hear how he felt. How she wanted to tell him how she felt. But if all they had was a mere minute, she would treasure it in all its imperfect and heartbreaking glory.
“I-I love you, Bakugo,” she whimpers at last, her body trembling as she looks up at him, a tortured expression marking her beautiful face as she rocks back and forward ever so gently. His hand gently strokes her hair out of her face, his thumb tracing across her bloodied cheek. “I love you.”
A tired smile clings to his lips as he stares back at her for a moment before pressing his forehead up against hers and closing his eyes. His breathing growing more shallow. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me,” Uraraka whispers, voice fragile.
But only silence greets her.
Frozen in fear her hands flick up his neck to check for a pulse, her haggard, fear-filled breathing the only sound she was able to register.
“No!” Uraraka screeches, arms flinging tightly around his shoulders as her fingers claw desperately at his back. “You can’t do that. You can’t go just like that!”
It was unfathomable. The grief that washed over her as she sat there, clinging to his lifeless body, her soul screaming out for the pain that swelled inside her to be alleviated. But nothing could quell the ache that stung at her heart.
Only time could attempt to heal the invisible wounds that were inflicted in mere minutes.