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Katsuki has no fucking idea where he is. Or why he’s standing in a hilly field at dawn as a terrible CGI sun rises all too quickly. He squints into it, eyes watering. It’s gotta be a dream, right? Can your eyes water in a dream?
The thought leaves his mind as quickly as it came, because the sun is just… wrong. As it crests, rising all too quickly to be the actual sun, he realizes it’s got a head made of purple balls.
It’s… Mineta.
The grape-headed pervert grins, eyes glazed over.
What. The fuck.
Dissonant children’s music echoes through the green valley. It’s filled with daisies and some other shitty flowers he doesn’t know the names of, but definitely piss him off anyway.
Mineta’s face grows suddenly serious, and he stares directly into Katsuki’s eyes like whatever semblance of a soul he once had has left his body.
Over the hills and far away, Teletubbies come to play.
The man's saccharine voice raises every hair on his body. Or… wait. Every piece of fuzz?
Why is he purple?
He pokes a hand—which is now shaped like a fucking mitten—at his stomach. It gives way too much, almost like a pillow.
“Where the fuck are my abs?” he screams.
“K–Kacchan?”
Katsuki whips his head to the side. Standing right next to him is Izuku. Or rather, it’s a terrifying, round, green thing with a stupid antenna on its head that just happens to have Izuku’s face.
“Is this… hell?” Katsuki whispers.
The amorphous green blob tries to tackle him into a hug, but their bodies just bounce off each other. Izuku loses his balance and tumbles down the hill.
“Deku!” A smaller, red monstrosity chases after Izuku. A yellow one follows close behind, shrieking, “Ochako! What happened to all your blood?”
Fucking Toga?
He hurries down the hill, but his run is more of a bounce, and he falls to his knees twice before reaching the others. The red thing—Uraraka, apparently—helps Izuku to his feet.
Izuku brushes the grass off his bubble butt and whips around, tears leaking from his eyes as he tackles Katsuki to the ground.
“Kacchan! You’re alive!”
“I… am?”
The last thing Katsuki remembered, his entire body was breaking down from his overstored sweat. And now he’s an acid trip-induced version of a sleep paralysis demon, so yeah. This is hell. Which—he totally gets why he and Toga are here, but Izuku and Uraraka?
It makes no sense.
“I thought I’d never see you again!” Izuku sobs, smooshing Katsuki’s cheeks.
“Get. Off!” Katsuki shoves him away and stands on his stupid, stumpy legs. Because if he’s going to have Izuku on top of him, it’s absolutely not going to be like this.
Uraraka waddles over to them, Toga holding tight to her arm. “Guys… I think we’re Teletubbies.”
“What. The fuck. Is a Teletubby.” Katsuki’s voice shakes with anger, and definitely not a single molecule of fear, thank you very much.
“It’s an old TV show,” Uraraka says. God, her face looks ridiculous on that oversized stuffed animal. “Like, really old. I watched it a lot as a kid because it was one of the only things on this free streaming app we had.”
“Can you explain what’s going on, or are you gonna keep giving us a sob story about how boring your life used to be?” Katsuki snaps.
Toga jumps protectively in front of Uraraka, hissing.
“Himiko-chan, it’s fine!” Uraraka places a fuzzy mitten hand on Toga’s felt shoulder. “I promise; it’s fine. Everybody’s just stressed right now, okay? He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Katsuki exchanges a look with Izuku, because… Himiko-chan? When’d they get so close? Katsuki’s about sixty-five percent convinced his hell theory’s correct.
Tiny, Santa Claus red Uraraka steps in the middle of the group. “Let’s get our bearings. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was trying to give you my blood,” says Toga.
“I was fighting Shigaraki on the ground below UA,” says Izuku.
“I was dead,” says Katsuki.
Uraraka gasps.
“Well that sucks,” says Toga.
“But you’re not dead anymore!” Izuku says.
“I’d rather be dead than a goddamn Telechubby.”
“Tele tubby,” Uraraka corrects.
“Yeah, ‘cause that’s what’s important right now.” Katsuki waves her off dismissively, toddling away from the group. He needs to clear his head.
A mechanical screeching sound pierces Katsuki’s plate-sized ears. He covers them as best he can, but his arms are so damn short. How the fuck do these stupid goddamn creatures survive? They're more useless than dodos.
The voice booms through the valley once more, but it's far more menacing this time. Did you fruit loops hear me ? I said, ‘Over the hills and far away, Teletubbies come to play!’
Uraraka clears her throat. “Uh… Mr. Narrator, I think we have more important things to worry about right now.”
There is nothing more important than bringing joy to the lives of innocent children. Find your marks so we can take it from the top. Or else.
“Or else what?” Izuku asks.
Or else I will direct the sun to burn you to ash.
Mineta grins down at them with murderous excitement sparkling in his eyes.
“How are we supposed to find our marks?” asks Toga.
Uraraka heaves a sigh. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”
She leads them into a dome-shaped house carved out of one of the hills. The interior is a dark, chrome monstrosity that reminds Katsuki of what someone a hundred years ago thought the future would look like. Uraraka gathers them near a hole in the middle of the room.
She claps her hands together. “Okay. Here’s how this is gonna go. He’ll repeat that line, and then he’s going to count from one through four. Bakugo, when he says ‘one,’ that’s your cue to jump.”
“Why the hell do I gotta go first?” Katsuki asks.
“Because Tinky Winky always goes first!”
Katsuki feels like he’s going to be sick. “This fucking thing’s name is Twinky Winky?”
“ Tinky Winky,” Uraraka says.
“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard,” Katsuki scoffs. “And why does he always go first?”
“‘Cause you’re the tallest? I don’t know! Why are you trying to apply logic to a preschool show?”
“Or any of this, for that matter,” Izuku mutters.
“Izuku, I swear to god—”
“Stop fighting so we can get through this!” Uraraka growls. “Himiko-chan, you're Laa-Laa. You jump out when she says ‘two.’ I go third. And Deku, your Teletubby, Dipsy, is fourth. Once we’re all up there, the narrator will sing each of our names. We need to sing them back and do a little dance.”
Katsuki would rather cut a hole in his stomach and pull out all his entrails. Or… stuffing, in this case.
“What’s your character’s name?” Toga asks.
“Uh… It’s Po,” Uraraka says shyly.
Toga giggles. “Pochako! That’s so cute!”
Uraraka blushes, clasping her hands against her chest. “Not as cute as you.”
Toga squeals. “You think I’m the cutest in the whole world!”
“I do!”
“And I think Pochako-chan is the cutest in the whole world, too!”
“Yay! We’re the cutest in the world!”
Katsuki exchanges another look with Izuku and mouths, What the fuck happened?
Izuku shrugs, shaking his head.
Over the hills and far away, Teletubbies come to play.
Uraraka shoves Katsuki under the hole in the ceiling.
One.
“Go, go, go!” Uraraka says.
“I don’t think I have my quirk—”
“Just fucking jump!”
Katsuki’d almost forgotten Uraraka could be really scary when she wanted to, and he obeys instantly, shooting up out of the hole and landing on top of the grassy knoll.
Two.
Toga jumps out and lands to his left.
Three.
Out comes Uraraka.
Four.
Izuku lands next to Katsuki, almost bumping into him again.
Teletubbies!
“Follow me, and you’ll be fine,” Uraraka says, leading them down the hill.
Periscopes rise out of the ground.
Time for Teletubbies. Time for Teletubbies. Time for Teletubbies.
Uraraka is doing a stupid dance while the rest of them stare at her, dumbstruck.
“Frolic like your life depends on it!” she says through her teeth.
“You’d do well to listen to Po,” says Mineta’s disembodied head. His eyes shoot out laser beams as he scorches the ground in front of them, incinerating a patch of flowers.
So Katsuki frolics, because his life does, in fact, depend on it.
Tinky-Winky!
Fuck.
“Tinky… Winky,” Katsuki says.
Dipsy.
“Uh… D-Dipsy?”
Laa-Laa!
“Laaaa-Laaaa!”
Po!
“Pohhh!”
Teletubbies, Teletubbies! Say, ‘hello!’
“Hello!” say Uraraka and Toga.
Uraraka glares at Katsuki and Izuku. “Fucking say ‘hello,’ you little bitches.”
“Hello…”
Katsuki feels like he's spending an eternity frolicking and doing weird chest bumps before they finally embrace while Ochako says, “Big huuuuug!”, Toga echoing her words. Uraraka grabs Katsuki and Izuku by the back of the neck. "Say, 'big hug!'"
"Big... hug."
When the stupid song finally ends, Katsuki lets himself breathe a sigh of relief.
Of course, because Katsuki can’t have nice things, the peace doesn’t last for long. The giant pinwheel on a nearby hill starts spinning rapidly despite there being absolutely no wind.
“C’mon, guys; we need to get to the top of the hill to receive the signal!” says Ochako, leading them forward.
“Is it just me, or is she getting way too into this?” Izuku asks Katsuki under his breath.
“Oh, she’s definitely lost it,” Katsuki agrees.
They stand in a line atop the hill, and pink CGI confetti flickers out towards them. Katsuki’s stomach feels… weird. Tingly. He looks down and almost falls over when he sees the square on his stomach light up with green and white static.
Oh. Teletubbies. Television stomachs. How fucking stupid.
He notices the things on top of his fellow victims’ heads light up like receivers, and Katsuki’s sure this is the dumbest, most cracked out shit he’s ever experienced in both his life and afterlife.
He stares at the screen on Izuku’s stomach as a video of a boy appears. “Hello, my name is Nigel, and today I’m baking biscuits with my mum.”
The screen flickers. Goes staticky again. Suddenly, Hatsume Mei’s face appears, the image winking in and out. “Midoriya! Finally!”
Izuku leans down and almost sticks his nose into Katsuki’s stomach. Katsuki grabs his shoulder and shoves him back. “Ever heard of personal space, nerd?”
Izuku ignores him. “What’s going on?” he asks Mei.
“From what we’ve deduced,” Mei says, “some guy had a really powerful quirk awakening while watching the live broadcast of Uraraka and Toga’s fight. He really didn’t like the way it went down, and he tweeted,” she picks up her phone, clearing her throat, “‘Wow, these girls definitely live in a world of rainbows and Teletubbies, but very soon they will see that they are wrong for demonizing heterosexuality. I think those Dynamight and Deku guys should join them. Those dudes are a little fruity, too.’
"Unfortunately, it seems like his quirk awakening is making everything he tweets become reality. La Brava is working on pinning down his location so we can make him delete them. Hold tight! We’ll get you back to fighting Shigaraki ASAP. Toodles!”
“Wait!” Uraraka says, but Mei’s already gone, replaced by the kid and his mom baking cookies. Uraraka groans, falling to her knees as she resigns herself to watching the boring-ass video. When it's over, she exclaims, “Again! Again!” but there’s neither light nor joy in her expression.
“The fuck would you say that for?” Katsuki says.
Uraraka holds his stupid purple arm in a death grip, still staring at the screen, eyes glazed over. “We have to watch it again, Bakugo. We have to watch it again.”
The video's even more boring the second time, but Katsuki has a feeling Uraraka is right, so he shuts up and pretends to pay attention. When it finally ends after five more excruciating minutes, Uraraka instructs them to say “Buh-bye!” and wave at the camera. Katsuki heaves a sigh of relief, because somehow, that was the worst torture he’s experienced in the entirety of this fever dream.
The disembodied voice booms menacingly.
The Teletubbies are hungry. What shall they eat for breakfast today?
Uraraka puts her hands on her cheeks and jumps up and down. “Teletubby food? Oh my god—I’ve always wanted to try it! It looks so good!” She takes Toga’s hand and leads them back into the house. She rushes over to a pink and blue machine, pushing buttons and flicking levers until a clear bowl slides across a conveyor belt and a hose spurts out nauseating, bubblegum pink goo.
“What the fuck is that ?” Katsuki sneers. “Mechanically separated chicken?”
Uraraka rolls her eyes, “Bitch, this is the Tubby Custard machine.”
“The what,” Katuski recoils as she hands him the bowl and starts making more.
“Eat. The fucking. Tubby. Custard. BeforeIshoveitdownyourhtroat!” Uraraka turns to Toga, expression changing from pointed frustration to sweet infatuation. “I’m sorry I don’t have any blood to give you, Himiko-chan, but I hope this will do for now?”
Toga takes the bowl from Uraraka and spoons some into her mouth, licking her lips with the same creepy grin she always wears. “Everything you give me is delicious, Ochako-chan!”
Izuku clears his throat. “So… not to intrude on something that isn’t my business, but can I ask what you guys did that made that man freak out and get us sent here?”
Uraraka’s face turns bright red. “We, uh… had a little talk. And it got… uh…”
“So romantic!” Toga takes Uraraka by the hand and swings her around, spilling Tubby Custard all over the floor. “I love Ochako soooo much! I can’t believe I ever cared about you, Midoriya.”
“I… congrats? I think?” Izuku rubs the back of his giant head.
“We’ll talk about it later.” Uraraka shoves a bowl in Izuku’s face. “Now appease the narrator and eat your damn Tubby Custard.”
Katsuki relents, taking a tentative sip off his spoon. “This tastes like shit!” He gags. “It’s like cold, runny rice paste!”
What’re you talking about?” Uraraka shovels mouthfuls of custard into her mouth. “This is everything I ever dreamed it would be!”
Teletubbies love Tubby Custard. They eat it alllllll up before going out to play.
Goddammit. Katsuki forces more of the flavorless pink goop into his mouth as quickly as he can, wishing he had water to wash it down with. Do these things even drink water? Nothing about this world makes any sense.
Tubbies, look at the mess you've made! Noo Noo has to clean up after you again! It’s a good thing he loves Tubby Custard!
A blue vacuum cleaner with googly eyes and a mop of red and white hair appears out of literally fucking nowhere, making disgusting slurping noises as it sucks the spilled custard off the ground with its… nose?
“Todoroki?” Izuku’s voice shakes.
The vacuum ignores them, completely transfixed by the custard.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Katsuki says.
“No,” says Uraraka, expression mixed with pity and horror. “Noo Noo doesn’t have hair.”
Izuku kneels down next to the vacuum. “Todoroki? Can you hear me?”
More slurping noises.
“He’s such a cutesy little vacuum!” Toga fluffs the tuft of hair. “But maybe he’s not sentient in his Noo Noo form?”
Teletubbies can’t wait to go outside and play! It’s a beautiful day to dance and sing!
Katsuki slumps his shoulders and trudges towards the door. “C’mon, assholes. Let’s get this over with.”
Izuku stands up reluctantly, looking back at Noo Noo Todoroki. “You wanna come with us?”
Noo Noo Todoroki keeps sucking up custard.
“I think he’s good where he is,” says Uraraka.
What Katsuki wouldn’t give to be a brainless, custard-obsessed vacuum cleaner right now. But since he’s stuck as a purple nightmare, he follows the others outside and prays he’ll be floating in the Vestige Realm again soon, enveloped in death’s sweet embrace.
It’s a lovely day for a jig. Teletubbies so love to dance!
“Not again…” Izuku groans.
A rainbow appears above a large, round shrub.
“That must be our mark.” Uraraka drags Katsuki and Izuku towards it while Toga follows behind them. She starts skipping in place, bashing Izuku and Katsuki in the backs of the heads when they don’t immediately follow suit.
Mineta’s eyes light up again. “Dance, Tubbies! Daaaaaance!”
“Fucking fine.” Katsuki starts skipping behind Uraraka, who seems a little too happy to be led around the bush, hand in hand with Toga. “That shitty custard really went to your head; didn’t it?”
Four happy Teletubbies dance around a bush. This is easy for Laa-Laa and Po, as they quite like bushes. Tinky-Winky and Dipsy, however, have no interest in the bush and are rather scared of it.
“Fucking homophobic bitch,” Uraraka mutters, stopping in her tracks.
Katsuki runs into her and falls on his ass. “If this thing is so goddamn bottom-heavy, why do I keep falling? How the fuck does this place break every law of physics?”
Izuku offers him a hand up, but Katsuki swats it away, awkwardly rolling from side to side until he gets the momentum to stand on his own.
Izuku places a hand under his chin. “If we’re scared of the bush, why would we dance around it? This feels like a giant plot hole that could easily be rectified by adding more nuance and introducing a scene where Laa-Laa and Po show Tinky-Winky and Dipsy there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
DANCE AROUND THE BLOODY BUSH, YOU FOPPISH LITTLE WANKERS!
And so, they obey… at least a little brown rabbit hops in front of Toga.
She squeals, getting down on her hands and knees lifting it into the air. “What a cute little bunny-wunny! I bet your blood is almost as sweet as Ochako-chan’s!”
“Oh no,” Izuku says under his breath.
“Heeeey, little guy.” Uraraka approaches with caution, giving the rabbit a pat on the head. “Himiko-chan? I know he’s super adorable, and I’m sure his blood tastes great, but, uh… since Teletubbies don’t drink blood, Mineta will probably kill us if you try.”
Toga hugs the bunny gently against her chest. “If he even tries anything with you, I’ll kill him!”
“You’d… destroy the sun for me?”
Toga’s eyes go wide. “Of course I would! I love you!”
Uraraka kneels behind Toga and wraps her stubby arms around her as best she can. It’s so cute Katsuki feels like he’s going to puke. Like, literally. It’s not an exaggeration.
Katsuki gags, overwhelmed with nausea, and he hurls sparkling rainbows that disperse through the air.
Toga sets the rabbit down and heaves a rainbow of her own. It’s a domino effect, apparently, because before either of them finish, Izuku and Uraraka start barfing too, washing the valley in gay technicolor.
The chrome periscope speakers rise from the ground once more.
Time for Tubby bye-bye. Time for Tubby bye-bye.
“Thank god,” Katsuki says.
“Act sad so we can get out of here!” Uraraka grits her teeth.
She frowns and sinks down in exaggerated disappointment. Katsuki puts everything he’s got into copying her.
Creepy, high-pitched children’s music starts playing again. They make their way behind four small hills as Uraraka explains how the show needs to end.
Bye-bye, Tinky-Winky.
“Bye… bye,” Katsuki says, ducking behind the hill.
Bye-bye, Dipsy.
“...bye?”
Bye-bye, Laa-Laa.
“Buh-byeeee!”
Bye-bye, Po.
“Byeee!”
Katsuki leads them to the top of the dome house, giving a wave and another reluctant, “bye.”
Before he can jump down, Izuku grabs his hand.
“Kacchan, wait!” Izuku’s eyes are huge. Scared. Sincere. “I have to tell you… Edgeshot’s saving you. Lemillion's watching over you to make sure nothing happens. And I’m keeping Shigaraki away from you. You’re gonna be okay.”
If Katsuki had a heart in this shitty body, his pulse would be thrumming. He can’t help the small, sad smile from flickering onto his face. “Izuku, I—”
“BYE-BYE TINKY WINKY!” Mineta roars, quaking the ground beneath them. Katsuki tumbles into the hole, and his world fades to black.
Katsuki rubs his eyes and opens them, letting himself readjust to the expansive, ethereal space he’s become so accustomed to. He looks down at his normal, human hands and fidgets with his tie. He pats his chest, stomach, and ass, breathing a sigh of relief when he discovers everything’s as it should be.
I’m dead again. Thank fuck.
The familiar blond man with a scar across his face looks at Katsuki with suspicion. “Where’d you disappear to?”
Katsuki shakes his head. “Man, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”