Chapter Text
In another life, Katsuki may have been an armament engineer.
Pro-heroism was always his calling—that was non-negotiable—but to say nothing else drew his interest would be a bald-faced lie, especially if that interest involved weaponry.
Christmas came early whenever Katsuki’s designer announced new upgrades for his grenade gauntlet—sleeker models that packed more of a punch than any of his previous gear. When he swung his arms, he felt the twin razor-sharp pins slice through the air, as cutting as shards of glass. The first time he made contact with an opponent’s face, the resulting scarlet backsplash was so powerful it was enough to splatter across his upper lip. If he were more animalistic, he would have swiped his tongue across his skin to taste enemy blood, but even Katsuki wasn’t quite that feral.
Besides, the blood of his enemies was weak shit.
But he digressed. The new gauntlets were one of his highlights in his third year at U.A. Between those and his stellar record at nearly killing top villains, he was well on his way to Number One Hero.
Katsuki began taking an active interest in weapon design and tech upgrades in general. He wasn’t generally the type to keep up with popular trends, and a concept like the progress of technology had such a wide scope that he secretly feared he’d be lumped in with the basic riff-raff that stood in line outside the nearest outlet mall for hours, frothing at the mouth to get their mitts on the latest smartphone.
Katsuki wasn’t interested in scrolling. He was interested in rolling—specifically, rolling the bodies of his enemies into an early grave, in case that wasn’t clear. The way he saw it, the more he kept up with the latest hero tech, the more prepared he would be to crush bones into dust when he graduated.
So when Principal Nezu held an impromptu assembly to introduce the latest training module for U.A.’s seniors, Katsuki took note. He took note as closely as Deku would.
“U.A. has partnered with SojuTech’s Department of Virtual and Augmented Reality to bring you a new method of battle simulation,” Nezu explained to the entirety of the senior class, gesturing to a VR headset and its subsequent motion controllers. “Its sister pair is on the other side of the USJ. By selecting avatars, you won’t be able to tell which of your classmates you are going toe-to-toe with. This is so you experience the same level of anonymity you would expect in a real battle.” Nezu tilted his head, his whiskers twitching sunnily. “After all, it’s highly unlikely you’ll know the identity of most of the villains you come across post-graduation.”
“But Principal Nezu, why are simulated battles necessary for Quirk-related training, especially as third-years?” Deku interjected, always one to cut through the bullshit but in the most long-winded way possible. “Our class in particular has seen more real battles than we can count. I’m sure U.A.’s staff have a legitimate reason for this but-”
“It seems like a massive step backward,” Todoroki supplied.
Aizawa took the reins from there. “It’s true; this class of third years has been pushed well beyond the limits of what’s typically expected of U.A. students. But when you’ve all joined your respective agencies, your time in the field won’t be as consistent as what you’re used to as a student. Sometimes, you will be required to take a more clerical or traditional investigative approach in your cases. Without constant training, your reaction skills could dull at a faster rate than you’d expect.”
Katsuki almost scoffed out loud. The idea of not honing his battle skills around the clock just because he had some extra desk work to do was unimaginable, but in this regard, his future fellow pros had clearly fallen flat.
His classmates seemed to feel similarly, some even mumbling their doubts aloud. Aizawa scanned their class and shot a quick look at Nezu. Their rodent principal nodded. Aizawa adjusted the scarf around his collar, and classes 3-A through 3-C fell silent. The maneuvering of their superior's scarf was generally an indicator their teacher was about to get real with them.
“Look, part of being a hero, part of any job is having to occasionally go along with industry trends whether they’re practical or not,” Aizawa explained, the bags under his eyes appearing to sink more with every sentence. “Right now, VR tech is all the rage in pro-heroism. Just do your best to stomach it, and if we’re all lucky this fad will blow over by the next fiscal year. If not, you’ll be expected to use this tech as reaction refreshers once you’re pros, so you may as well get acclimated with it now.”
“So, what? It’s like a video game or something?” Kaminari asked, scratching his temple.
“Precisely,” Nezu replied. “No Quirk usage required! This training focuses on your skills in battle unrelated to your special abilities. Regardless of your Quirk, every hero should ensure their reaction time, deduction, and any other basic motor skills are up to snuff. And-” Nezu’s eyes twinkled, “any student who isn’t satisfied with their performance today can sign up to receive a complimentary headset to challenge their fellow students after hours.”
More of his classmates were piping in with their questions and continued skepticism, but Katsuki had heard enough. Even his mild interest in the latest hero tech couldn’t assuage his mounting annoyance.
Practicing battle skills without the use of his Quirk? This was clearly a half-baked pitch from some software engineer to justify their existence. Anything to keep the executives happy, he supposed.
Katsuki personally couldn’t wait for this to be over with, so when Aizawa-sensei asked for volunteers, he was among the many who stepped forward to participate. Half of his peers were taken to the other side of the USJ, ensuring they and their opponents would be anonymous. Katsuki was third up to bat.
He had never had any exposure to virtual reality, and when the headset first slid over his eyes he was momentarily disoriented. Stamping down an initial rush of vexation—something he was getting better at as he aged—he took in his new augmented reality.
He was in an evergreen forest. When he glanced up, he noted the sky was dotted with cumulus clouds, almost as real as the ones he’d seen on the walk from his dorm that morning. The faint sounds of birds echoed, courtesy of the audio fed through the piece in his right ear. Even the trees had unique twisting patterns etched in their bark.
Katsuki wasn’t easily impressed, and that might still be too severe of a term, but the graphics were better than he’d expected. The only thing that separated this world from reality was the absence of the distinct smell of pine and the soft feel of mulch under his feet.
And the fact that he was being hunted by one of his peers.
Since they were working with the classroom headsets, neither his avatar nor his opponent’s were customized. Katsuki wasn’t sure what he looked like in this world, but he knew to be on the lookout for some half-rendered 3D sculpture resembling a generic human male.
He tested walking in place and occasionally lashing out with his fists, getting a sense of the controls and feeling like a moron as he did it. He’d gone against the League of Villains for fuck’s sake. This should be a walk in the park—or in this case, forest.
Where are you, you bastard, he thought, traversing the area, his fingers flexing uneasily.
Suddenly, the quiet of the forest broke and collided with the pitter-patter of quickly approaching footsteps, directly behind him. Katsuki whipped around only for his avatar to be clocked directly in the face.
“Ugh!” he yelled, righting himself instantly and lashing out. “Eat shit!”
Katsuki swung at his opponent, and with the element of surprise lost he was able to land two quick blows before he was assailed by a barrage of attacks. His rival used combinations the likes of which he’d never seen in reality. Then again, this wasn’t reality.
His avatar’s health drained, and his character withered and died before he could fully process he was even losing. His screen went to shades of gray as the mission was lost. He watched in silent outrage as his nameless opponent did a victory skip and then a cartwheel over his corpse.
Katsuki yanked the headset off his head, his eyes alight with raw fury. This was the biggest hunk of bullshit he’d ever been subjected to. Who the fuck was he fighting against? He wasn’t much of a gamer, but he recognized those moves couldn’t have come from just anyone. The flawless execution of the virtual attacks could have rivaled the biggest competitive gaming nerds in Japan!
“So,” Kaminari sidled up to him, ready for his turn, “how’d it go? Is it just me, or did that seem like it was over pretty quick–”
With another grunt of rage, Katsuki slammed the headset into the other blond’s chest before getting directly back in line for a rematch.
Throughout the period, Katsuki used the headset three more times. He’d won every other round, excluding the first, but it wasn’t enough to leave him satisfied. He could tell based on his other assailants' reaction times and combination attacks that he hadn’t faced off against his first opponent again.
At the end of class, he lunged toward the complimentary headsets, his pen vibrating as he signed his privacy rights away.
~0~0~0~
“The headsets were pretty fun, but I’m still not really getting the whole purpose of them,” Kirishima mentioned later over lunch. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for some extra gaming. Just seems a bit random.”
“To be fair, Aizawa-sensei didn’t seem to be for it either,” Sero pointed out, tucking a piece of stray tape back into his elbow.
Ashido waved them off. “Ah, what’s the big deal? I think it’s kind of fun. I’d rather play a video game for my office hours than be at some boring corporate meeting anyway.”
“Wait, we’re gonna have to go to corporate meetings?” Kaminari turned to look at Sero, his eyes bugging. “Do I look like executive material to you?”
“No one said you did, Denki.”
“We should all play with each other once we get the headsets hooked up in our rooms,” Ashido continued, clasping her magenta hands together. “Oh! I can’t wait to customize my avatar! The one I played with was so not representative of my aura.”
Kirishima swirled some rice in his bento, side-eyeing Katsuki. The fiery blond had remained silent for the duration of their conversation, and for good reason.
He was seething.
He couldn’t get the image of his first opponent out of his head. The bastard had done a fucking circus flip over his dead body. He was clearly dealing with a psychopath.
His ruby eyes darted around the lunchroom, taking in his classmates with a critical eye. Just what kind of sick twisted fuck was he dealing with? Which one of these posers would have the balls to gloat like that?
Everyone in Class 3-A and most of Class 3-B and 3-C had elected to take home the complimentary headsets, so it was more likely than not that Jerk Du Soleil—Katsuki came up with that one on his own—was among them. He was determined to find them and bury them for their transgressions.
After classes, most of U.A’s students rushed back to their dorms, eager to set up their SojuTech headsets. Katsuki was admittedly not a tech wiz. He’d once exploded his family’s printer in sheer unadulterated rage when he couldn’t connect it to the network. His mother still didn’t let him print anything without supervision. So, bearing this in mind, he handed off the registration of the device to Kirishima. The redhead was able to get it up and running within a half hour.
“Looks like you should be good to go,” his friend said, handing him the headset and accompanying grips. “All that’s left is to give your avatar a name and new look!”
Katsuki elected to choose a name of character and class—King ExplodoKills. The customization options for the avatar, however, were beyond aggravating. There were so many options that the whole process felt like he’d stepped into some sort of virtual torture chamber. Who the hell cared if his character’s eye color was garnet or crimson? Eventually, he settled for a look not too dissimilar from his own, just with a few extra inches and a higher weight class.
“Looking sharp, bro!” Kirishima praised after he’d asked to see his friend’s new style. “You don’t care if people know it’s you though?”
“Hah? How would they know it’s me?” Katsuki asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“Seriously? I mean, it’s not exactly subtle…”
“Hah?! Elaborate!”
Kirishima shrugged, removing the headset and handing it back to Katsuki. “Guess it doesn’t really matter if we’re anonymous when we’re out of class. This is mostly for fun.”
Oh, Katsuki would have fun alright. So much fun that he’d fucking tap dance on the bones of his cartwheeling rival, and that was saying something.
Because Katsuki didn’t tap dance.
“Keep a lookout for my avatar,” Kirishima called excitedly, heading for his dorm. “Maybe we can face off tonight!”
“Tch. You’re on!” Katsuki would keep an eye out for avatars with shitty, overblown hair.
He spent the better part of an hour acclimating himself to his new headset. During that time he discovered he could keep tabs on how many of his peers were online. They had all chosen nondescript aliases to mask their identities, although some made little effort to conceal who they were.
For example, it was obvious to Katsuki that Ashido was AlienQueen since he remembered that was her first pick for her pro-hero name back in their first year. Her avatar also bore a striking resemblance to her, as nearly every fiber of her being was drenched in pink, much like the real-life version.
Mineta’s avatar also had a similar resemblance to him, although his character was decked out in an obnoxious amount of muscle. He was online as ITouchBoobies.
Katsuki also identified Kirishima, Kaminari, Deku, and a few others from Class 3-B and C. Kirishima and Deku had chosen to use their pro-hero names as their aliases—uncreatively in Katsuki’s opinion—while Kaminari was going by LightingZaddy.
Scratch that, sticking to pro-hero names wasn’t terrible.
As Katsuki parsed through the list of active users, however, he realized he couldn’t pinpoint roughly two-thirds of his classmates' identities. It was around this time it dawned on him that he could communicate with other players via his earpiece and built-in microphone.
“Earth to King ExplodoKills, do you read me? Over,” Kaminari called. No way in hell was Katsuki going to stoop to calling him LightningZaddy.
“I’m here,” Katsuki grunted. He frowned. “You sound like shit.”
“You do too,” the other blond crackled, his voice coming in choppily. “I can barely tell it’s you. Guess they’re still working out the kinks.”
“Tch.”
“Anyways, wanna play a round?”
Their avatars were plunged into an arctic environment, and they had to use the elements around them to their advantage. Even though the audio was garbage, the visuals were sort of cool, and not just in the literal sense. Katsuki swore he could see some of the crystallizations on the ice caps, and the textures of the snow were so lifelike it was difficult to believe he was still walking on the carpet of his dorm room.
As he searched for Kaminari, he began to gradually adjust the disorientation of his vision scope. Katsuki wasn’t that into first-person shooter games, so he was a bit out of his element, not that he’d ever admit it.
In the end, though, it didn't matter. He’d snuck up behind Kaminari’s character and beaten the tar out of him, leaving him ass-up in a snowbank. He grinned. This shit wasn’t so hard after all. It was even kind of fun.
If it wasn’t all so goddamn stupid.
Kaminari logged off with his tail between his legs. Despite his bedtime of a quarter to nine rapidly approaching, Katsuki found he wasn’t tired in the slightest. It must have been the high of victory.
He challenged three more players and decimated two of them. The third was more difficult to beat, but Katsuki’s murderous intent did him a solid. He was on a fucking roll.
And then he encountered a player named MochiMurder.
The avatar had a female body-type, dressed in all black save for a big pink bow atop their head. The graphics for the female characters were a little too lewd to be unintentional. The stick-thin waists matched with the overly buxom breasts were any basement nerd’s wet dream. But Katsuki wasn’t distracted by a bunch of pixels.
“Get ready to die,” he declared through his headset.
The student had their audio switched off, but Katsuki didn’t pay any mind.
As their avatars dissolved into an environment reminiscent of a desert, Katsuki knew this would be a quick round. There was nowhere to hide, meaning sneaking around before the inevitable battle wasn’t an option.
Fine by him.
With an enthusiastic battle cry, Katsuki charged forward, using his grips to execute a lethal attack combo. To his growing dismay, he was only able to land a few hits before MochiMurder backflipped out of range. One moment they was several yards away from him, and in the next, they was fucking on top of him.
“What the fu-” Katsuki barely spat before the other avatar pummeled him into submission. To his utter disbelief, his screen grayed out as he stared at the desert sky. Red text appeared in obnoxiously large letters.
Mission Lost.
Katsuki’s jaw bobbed stupidly for about point-two seconds, and then he was adjusting his earpiece.
“It’s you, isn’t it? You fucker.”
MochiMurder just blinked at him.
“What's the matter? Too scared to talk?” When he received no response, Katsuki growled. “I want a rematch!”
They rematched him. Thrice more. All with the same results.
Katsuki was visibly shaking by the end of the fourth round. He didn’t know how this person was doing it. They must have some sort of unfair advantage. How could they be this good already? What did they know that he didn’t?
“Speak to me, you coward!” he yelled, hair standing on end.
MochiMurder didn’t speak. They did something far worse.
They tap danced on his decaying body.
Katsuki’s vision filled with white-hot rage. He was the one who was supposed to be tap dancing. And he didn’t do duets.
He leaned forward, his palms heating up. He had to make a concerted effort not to fry the grips.
“Listen here, you psychopath,” he murmured, deathly quietly, “you better hope I don’t find out who you are. And if I do, let’s see how cocky you’ll be once your brains are splattered across the pavement.”
And, because he was feeling particularly childish, he flipped his rival off before he rage quit.
~0~0~0~
Ochako didn’t realize her heart was beating as fast as it was until she logged off from her headset for the night. Death threats from emotionally unstable boys tended to have that effect, she supposed.
She crawled into bed, wondering if the jazz hands had been a step too far.