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Katsuki enters headquarters with all the patience of a quack doctor that’s been run out of town.
That is to say with none.
It’s not enough that he gets handpicked for a mission like this, but considering the hunter’s association overlooks little things like his property damage and his attitude and the way he keeps lecturing civilians to just stop fucking going out at night, he can’t afford not to show when they call for him. If only not to embarrass his dad anyway.
His heavy hunting boots clomp harshly down the hallway just the way he likes it. He can be downright sneaky when he wants to be but it’s always good to let the bastards assigning his missions know when he’s coming. The sooner they hand over the deets the sooner he can get the fuck out and get this fucking assignment over with.
His gloved fists creak as he clenches them, the spelled leather protesting his punishment but the fuck does his gear know about pompous assholes calling him to heel like a dog on a leash. He fucking hates the lot of them.
(A part of him whispers that it’s because he still hasn’t forgiven them for calling his dad away from the town that night… that night…)
Katsuki shakes the very thought of it away hard. Even if he was still carrying a grudge he’d be fucking justified! You don’t just call away the only hunter protecting the town without some kind of spell barrier in place to keep the monsters out before he gets back, goddamn.
(Even if Deku should have known better than to be outside—)
Katsuki raps his knuckles against the hardwood door so hard he leaves a dent in it. If he clenches his jaw any tighter his teeth’ll slice clean through his lip but sue him. It’s been a goddamn day, week, month, year, and every motherfucking second these bureaucratic assholes keep him off the streets it’s another moronic bastard getting eaten by the leeches.
He slams his way into the office and bangs the door closed behind him, leaning stiffly against the wall in a way he hopes shows a lack of care and none of his frustration.
“We have a new job for you,” the man drones on, oblivious to anything but the paperwork in front of him. Katsuki could probably drop the bleeding head of a vampire in front of him and he’d just carry on like nothing had happened. Idiots, the lot of them.
“There are reports of a migration of vampires all migrating to a single estate. When they go in, they don’t come back out again. The association needs you to discover how big the gathering force is and do what needs done to disrupt it. You are uniquely qualified for this task and we have full faith in your abilities to pull it off.” The asshole pompously folds up the papers and slides them into an envelope he hands to Katsuki before continuing to speak. “You may take what you need, but you will be riding out alone. We expect news swiftly, so we may muster further resources to meet this army and squash it in its infancy. Ride swiftly, Hunter Bakugou.”
Inane speech finished, he turns away from Katsuki in a clear dismissal. With a single grunt of acknowledgement Katsuki storms back out of the office to start collecting what he needs and ordering his horse prepared.
They’ve once more sent him on a suicide mission, like they do so often. Katsuki is the best at what he does, sure, but he’s also positive that someone higher up has been trying to get rid of him since that night.
Well, no skin off his nose.
When Bakugou Katsuki sets out to do something, he motherfucking does it. Failure simply isn’t in his vocabulary. (He’d deleted it himself to make room for more swears.)
And if whoever keeps signing off on his solo quests actually is trying to get rid of him, well. That just means there’s an added bonus of pissing the sycophant off every time he makes it back alive.
Spite is quite the powerful motivator after all.
Katsuki sets out for the manor estate as soon as his provisions and gear have been arranged. No use prolonging the inevitable and all that shit.
In either case if there really is some kind of vampire lord gathering forces in their no doubt creepy and dusty as fuck castle then this truly is an emergency.
All the more reason Katsuki being sent on his own is suspicious.
Part of him wants to relax at the thought. No doubt it can’t be a true crisis or there’d be an entire team being dispatched and therefore this whole thing is probably a misunderstanding. A pretentious gala or something and Katsuki showing up would just be an invitation for them to serve him up as the main course.
Katsuki scowls and urges his horse to go faster.
Because the larger part of him knows that if someone in upper management really does want him dead, they won’t let a little thing like an amassing vampire army and the casualties that would result from it stop them.
They’d more than proved that the night Deku had—
Katsuki shakes his head furiously and glares out at the trees passing him by as the mare he’s riding continues the ground eating trot he’s asked her for.
He can’t think of that night. Can’t let himself remember Deku’s end that night. If he starts, if he lets his mind wander down that path the blood rage that will overtake him will be the opposite of useful for the hunt ahead of him. Not to mention it forces out his more…unusual features that he goes out of his way to hide.
Better not to think of it.
Best not to remember that night at all.
It can be left in the depths of history where it belongs, so Katsuki can ignore what was done and carry on killing every vampire that looks at him sideways.
Katsuki reaches forward to run his hands along his mare’s neck, using the silky feel of her fur and the tangle of her mane to ground himself back into the present. He cannot get distracted now, he has a vampire army to single handedly devastate.
Fuck the association and their ways.
Katsuki isn’t going to stand by and let another person suffer the way Auntie had suffered that night with the loss of her son.
Never again.
He urges Gem into a slow lope, ready to get this show on the road. Those vampires will never see him coming. Him or them, in the end.
No room for anything else.
He arrives on the very edge of the estate by nightfall and it’s a simple matter of carving a protective circle in the ground to hide him and Gem from detection.
An army this big?
Gearing up for who the fuck knows what?
Yeah Katsuki’s not stupid enough to attack when the fuckers have the high ground. Let em yuck it up all night while he keeps an eye on things out here. He’s gonna strike the second the sun comes up fuckers.
From his current position he can clearly make out numerous full size windows along the entire outer wall of the sprawling estate.
Once the sun starts rising he can clock the direction it’s shining from and keep track of it while in the house. You never know when a well placed kick can send a fucker flying straight through the boards keeping the sun out. If Katsuki’s lucky the boards will even do the staking for him, two leeches one stone.
Of course if there really is an army being amassed in there, complete with underground tunnels and shit, then there probably won’t be any windows around to let the sun in.
Still Katsuki ain’t no quitter. He can always cut himself to agitate the fuckers and then lure them back upstairs or whatever.
His blood tends to cause a feeding frenzy of the likes most never see. A fact Katsuki keeps close to his chest and to himself thank you very much. No one needs to know that fact, outside of his family. Not that he has much to do with them anymore anyways.
Not after–
Anyways. Katsuki will approach at near sunrise, hopefully catching them off guard, yet still early enough he could pretend to be one of the bloodsuckers coming for the army. If he had to, not that he likes playing make believe. But if needs must, Katsuki will do what it takes to end the fuckers.
When the time is right, he gathers his gear and lets himself out of the circle of protection making sure to carefully close it around Gem. She’s too precious to him to allow any harm to come to her. The only one who’s stayed with him through thick and thin.
He owes her the world at this point.
After ensuring her safety, he hoofs it up to the manor’s entrance and walks up to where the door is, keeping his footfalls silent. The door is slightly cracked, sending Katsuki into high alert, but he doesn’t hear anything when he pauses to listen at the entrance. No sign of any vampires, army or no.
He pushes open the door, and an ominous creak echoes through the entrance hall. Katsuki freezes, but nothing responds to the noise. The light of a few flickering candles stretches out in a futile attempt to light up the far reaches of the hall.
It smells stale, with a hint of the smoke from the candles.
Just what he’d expect from a pile of leeches, honestly. Stale and worthless.
He slips inside, pausing to look around him. There are some old faded paintings on the walls, not lit up enough to be able to decipher them.
No sign of any vampires though. They must be further in.
He stalks through darkened halls on silent feet and has to keep stepping around odd little piles of dust everywhere.
Goddamn slobs living here can’t even broom up… whatever the fuck this is.
He pauses and scrutinizes the carpet. Huh. That’s weird. The way these piles are shaped almost reminds him of what it looks like when he–
A sudden crash sounds from down the hall and Katsuki’s heart sings with the promise of violence in the air.
Fuck yeah, this is what he lives for!
He takes off towards the sound, still taking care to mask his footsteps, a freshly carved stake ready on one hand and a flame ready to burst free in the other.
No one is fucking escaping him today.
He’ll get em all and then he’ll return to the association fuckers and when they show surprise that he’s returned alive he can finally call them out on their bullshit!
Plans made, Katsuki finds himself at the top of a winding staircase.
Quickly he turns for the nearest window, stashing his stake in its holster on his belt before yanking at the boards nailed in to keep the sun out.
Lesson one in always returning home alive, always make sure there’s an exit strat.
Satisfied that he’s cut off the rest of the hallway now that there’s streams of sunlight playing on the carpet he readies himself once more with a bloodthirsty grin.
Oh yeah. No more reinforcements from the rest of the house fuckers. Whoever is currently down there, no matter how many there are, they’re all as good as dead.
He nearly runs into the first vampire, shocked for a moment by the speed they seem to be…fleeing? What the fuck. He dodges it before swiping out at it with a streamer of flame, causing it to screech.
Fuck. Too loud.
The stake goes through its back easily, before Katsuki whirls back to the door it had fled from. The second vampire’s lunge towards him is cut off by his stake, but not before it manages to slice his forearm open.
Double fuck.
Oh well, a frenzy isn’t something he isn’t used to.
The silence that greets him doesn’t fall within the expected script though.
He hears a quiet shuffling sound, then the silence falls again. Suddenly furious, Katsuki stalks through the door the vampires had fled out of and into the firelight within the next room.
There is a figure slumped by a table, multiple piles of ash around them in a way that seems reminiscent of Katsuki after a hard hunt. Could the association have sent another hunter? That doesn’t seem right, but…
The red eyes that meet his as the figure looks up ends that line of thought entirely.
Vampire.
Wait…
“Deku?”
No way. There’s no way. He’s dead, he’s gone, he’s been gone for years.
His ghost cannot be sitting here looking at him through vampire-red eyes.
No, no, fucking no.
“Kacchan?” Dek-no, the leech, says with a raspy voice. Katsuki shakes his head.
“What the fuck?” His grip on the stake tightens as he shifts to defend himself from the monstrosity in front of him. This caricature of his dead best friend. It’ll end tonight, both the army and the stolen visage.
The leech doesn’t move to attack however. It merely wavers slightly, rocking a bit on its heels as its fingers dig into the table it’s leaning on.
The motion draws Katsuki’s eyes to the fucker’s hand the fingers there burnt and bent, twisted and scarred in a way that looks downright painful.
‘It’s his right hand…’ a traitorous part of him whispers. ‘Deku was always right handed in his scribing.’
Katsuki hisses at the voice to shut up. That thing is not Deku.
The leech’s eyes move down to Katsuki’s arm and its nails scrape harshly into the table, gouging deep jagged nails in the previously smooth metal.
When next it speaks, its voice is tight. “You should… deal with that. Before the next wave comes.”
Katsuki’s eyes flash fire. “Are you fucking threatening me?”
That same traitorous voice whispers about the leech defying expectations by not immediately jumping for the fresh hot blood that is even now still running down Katsuki’s arm, dripping onto the floor, soaking through his sleeve.
Katsuki ignores it though because the leech has started to laugh.
It’s not a very happy laugh, far from it. It almost sounds like a forced little thing, like the vampire had pushed the noise into a laugh so it wouldn’t come out as a sob.
“Sure Kacchan,” it laughs, those damn red eyes seeming to see right through him. “I guess I am.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
“Whatever you want it to mean, Kacchan. If you need to think that I’m threatening you, so be it. As if I would ever hurt you…” the being that cannot be Deku trails off with another bleak laugh.
Katsuki is surprised that the leech is resisting his blood at all, he hasn’t met a vampire yet that doesn’t treat its smell like a siren call, a buffet too good to ignore. It is visibly struggling, but the fact that it is holding itself still and not lunging at Katsuki is baffling.
Is there any way that some of Izuku’s spirit remains within the husk? Everyone has always said that being turned and consuming blood destroys the soul entirely. That is taught to every child, and enforced with hunter training.
Killing vampires isn’t murder because they are no longer human.
Everyone knows this.
This can’t still be Izuku, cause if it is the society and everyone else is fucking wrong.
“...Where’d you stash the army?” Katsuki’s voice comes out tighter than he’d like, his throat working soundlessly after he says it because as much as it is his whole-ass mission, it still fucking feels like he’s trying to change the subject.
The creature in Deku’s skin tilts its head at him. “Army?” it echoes, sounding like it has no idea what the fuck Katsuki is even talking about. “What army?”
“Don’t play dumb, stupid! The hunter’s association has been keeping an eye on this place for ages! Long enough to mark a pattern of vampire hordes going in without coming out again! The fuck are you gathering forces for and where the fuck are you hiding them!?”
Katsuki is snarling by the end of his little rant but all the leech across from him does is laugh.
“Seriously? They think I’m–” It can’t even finish its sentence, suddenly bent over the desk from the force of its laughter and Katsuki’s eyes are drawn to a very familiar leather satchel hanging from the thing’s hip.
Wait a second–
“Wow,” the creature finally manages, its lips split into a bright smile that sends a pang of something straight through Katsuki’s heart. “I mean I knew they were incompetent, but that’s straight up imbecilic. I mean, if they really thought I was building an army, why’d they only send one hunter?”
“Because they know I’m hot shit!” Katsuki snaps, bristling at the implied insult.
The leech shoots him a look that’s borderline pitying. “Kacchan… are they trying to kill you?”
Katsuki splutters, immediately affronted by the very insinuation.
Even though that same traitorous part of him whispers that Katsuki himself had gone down that very same thought process on the journey here.
“I’m their top solo hunter, dipshit! Why the fuck would they want to kill me?”
Deku’s doppelganger tilts its head at him again. “I dunno, did they somehow find out about your mom?”
The words stop Katsuki dead in his tracks. No one knows about that. No one.
No one…except…
Deku.
Deku had known, had been part of the family from the beginning. Him and Auntie Inko. He had always known what Mitsuki is.
“Izuku…?” For the first time since he’d set foot in the room, the stake he holds lowers.
A bitter smile steals across Deku’s face. “That’s all it took, eh? One hint of that knowledge and you finally fold, finally fucking realize that their teachings might just be wrong. You already knew that Kacchan.”
Katsuki flinches slightly at the insinuation. “That’s different.”
“Different how. She’s still a vampire, still another soulless leech according to the teachings and the covenant. How is that different from me?”
“The turned versus the born are fundamentally different,” Katsuki snaps out.
“They don’t have to be,” Deku says softly, deadly quiet. “They can live in ways that bring less harm. Preying on those who do harm rather than the innocents.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Me Kacchan, I’m talking about me!”
Katsuki’s breath catches in his throat as Deku’s shout echoes through the room. The idea that turned vampires can…that they can resist murdering humans–
That changes everything. Turns the entire covenant on its head.
“How?” He croaks, walking closer to where Deku still stands. He sees the other man flinch as the smell of Katsuki’s blood grows stronger.
“I… I feed off them. I’ve never touched a human, not once, I would have preferred to starve.”
Katsuki’s eyes widen and he stops short despite himself. “That’s impossible!” he snaps. “Vampires don’t have blood to drink, that’s the whole reason they thirst for the living!”
Deku shakes his head slowly. “My teacher… He discovered that those of us that would prefer not to harm, we could drink from the murderers, take back the blood they’d stolen, weaken them enough to finish them off by using their own strength against them. He found me on the brink of starving to death and he taught me how.”
And Katsuki is about to continue arguing, to continue yelling about how it simply cannot be.
But Deku’s dominant hand has been burnt and twisted beyond recognition, much as a vampire’s would be if they forced themselves to wield a stake.
And suddenly the suspicious piles of dust littering the hallways upstairs start to take on a whole new meaning.
“Holy shit.”
The words slip out unbidden as Katsuki stares at Deku through new eyes.
“You…” He can’t quite form words, everything is suddenly so fucking much, fundamental truths he’d learnt at his father’s knee shaken to their very foundations. “...I need to sit down.”
“Sure thing Kacchan.” Deku beams at him. “We’ve got about, oh I dunno, a couple hours till the sun sets and the next wave hits.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes even as he slowly takes a seat on the dusty ground. “What, you been inviting them here or some shit?”
Deku, the bastard, has the audacity to grin. “Of course. It’s called laying a trap.”
And Katsuki can’t hold back a laugh that’s half mirth and half slowly building excitement. “Oh well in that case, lemme go bandage my arm up real quick.”
When at last the sun sets, Deku reaches into his satchel for his one and only stake and Katsuki readies himself for battle.
It’s the first time he won’t be going into this shit alone, but for once, Katsuki doesn’t find the hunter at his side to be nothing but dead weight.