Author's Note: FFN lacks the ability to add tags like AO3 does, but I want readers to be aware that on AO3 the story contains these tags:
Aged-Up Character(s), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, Angst
Depending on who you asked, it was either a villain or a ghost that brought Bakugou out to that remote patch of forest. He'd volunteered to go by himself, pretending not to notice his supervisor's concerned look. It didn't matter how much they all worried about stupid things like safety and standard procedure: he only worked alone now.
Back at headquarters, he'd half-listened to some explanation about how the locals thought it was some kind of ghost or spirit or whatever, but how it was probably just an odd, solitary villain. He hadn't really paid attention; he'd just seen the location – the middle of nowhere – and taken the job. Far enough away that it going there would be a day's trip, and he'd need to spend the night. A chance to get out of the city.
He could have taken a train, but he decided to rent a car and drive out there himself. Focusing on driving would distract him a lot more than sitting in a train would, and it wasn't an urgent case, anyway. From what he'd heard before he zoned out, it sounded like there wasn't really anything near the patch of forest the villain/ghost haunted. More of just an inconvenience for the property owners than a real lifesaving mission, but it was fine, it was all fine. He was the one who'd volunteered for this unnecessary gig anyway.
Bakugou checked into the motel in the evening and decided to take a walk along the edge of the forest to scope out the area he'd be investigating. By the time he got out there, it was completely dark. The road was lit, but as he parked his car he saw there was a stretch of open field between the lights and the forest. In the trees, it would be pitch black.
He was leaning against the side of his car, trying to decide whether he should get a closer look now or just return the next morning, when he heard a scream. A woman's scream. It was an awful sound – a cry of fear and of pain, raw, wordless, and loud. The noise made his palms clammy, made every hair on his body stand on end.
The scream had come from the forest, but Bakugou hadn't been told about the villain taking any captives. Maybe it was a tourist or another idiot who'd wandered in, unknowing. Well, it made his choice for him: suddenly this little no-pressure job was a lot more urgent.
Bakugou ran towards the trees, deciding that the light and view that his Quirk would provide were worth the enemy being aware of his presence. Once he was close to the treeline, he propelled himself upwards, getting a look at the top of the forest as he did so. He didn't see anyone, villain or bystander, or even anything out of the ordinary: no broken branches, no deep scrapes on the ground or felled trees. There was a little clearing in the center of the woods, not large, but a good size to land and look and listen. The ground looked to be soft, level grass. He aimed himself there.
The moment the soles of Bakugou's shoes touched the ground, he knew something wasn't right. The grass didn't behave like grass, it behaved like mud, or quicksand – or slime. The villain's back was covered in grass, or it was using grass as camouflage, and Bakugou used his quirk as soon as he could to reverse his direction, but the thing came up and grabbed onto his left leg up to the knee. His blast pulled him away and he popped out of its grasp with a wet squelch, but it wasn't enough force to actually propel himself upwards, and he began to tumble back to the ground. No, back to the thing; he had to use his Quirk again so as not to touch it a second time.
He landed in a tree right on the edge of the clearing, his feet too large and clumsy to balance quite right on the branch, and looked down. His night vision had suffered a little from using his Quirk, but the moon and stars were bright; their light was enough to see by as the surface of the clearing shifted and opened like a mouth.
It was a mouth, he realized, right in the middle of the clearing. He could make out a ring of pale teeth as long as his arm, sharp and curved like sabers. If the thing's mouth had been open when he'd landed, he would have fallen in and that would have been that.
Not that it mattered now, Bakugou thought.
He was calming down after the initial shock of the villain's form. He reminded himself there was a hostage to consider, and wondered grimly if the woman he'd heard had already been consumed. Just as he thought that, the creature spread its mouth wide and made a noise.
It was a scream, just as terrible as the one before, just as full of pain and fear, but this time Bakugou thought he sensed something else – a more animalistic tone. He wasn't sure if it was a human voice, if it could form human words or whether it was like an animal that could only scream and scream.
Bakugou didn't care enough to stay there in that tree analyzing the sound. He was mad. This stupid puddle-mouth thing had tricked him. He could be in bed right now, he could be asleep, he could have saved this fight for the light of day except this idiot villain had to go and trick him –
It screamed again, and Bakugou screamed too, knowing he sounded just as crazed as the villain at his feet did. Then he fired at it. He expected some kind of response – another scream of pain, a visible wound – but the thing just absorbed his shot and didn't even have the decency to make a noise as it did so. The only sound was a soft bloop, like a little stone falling into water.
More shots – no effect. He would have to get closer. The problem was that he didn't know how far its body extended. Was it just in the clearing, or was it under the trees as well? Could it move?
He jetted a short distance away and landed there, in the thick of the forest. It was disorienting: he had to be careful not to head in the wrong direction. But on foot he could make his way slowly to the villain and attack its edge, away from that gaping mouth. It was good to be on solid ground.
Bakugou picked his way slowly between the trees, step by step. This kind of stealth really wasn't his style, but he knew he was good at it. He paid attention to the sounds of the forest and let his eyes grow more used to the dark, half-feeling his way through like a blind man. Another scream from the villain let him know he was moving in the right direction.
He crept along like this for a few minutes until suddenly his foot sank into something that was not the earth. He'd reached the thing again. It knew the same instant he did and surged towards him, unexpectedly fast, like a wave; the trees were lifted up as the ground moved beneath them. Its sheer size and strength took his breath away, but he had no time to gawp – the new round of the fight had begun in earnest.
It surged towards him, oozing; he took steps backwards, firing shots at it, heedless of the trees he blasted away. Nothing seemed to make a difference. It didn't care about bright light or loud noise, and it didn't seem to feel pain, even when he fired directly at it. How could something be so sensitive that it felt a single footstep, yet absorb blows like they were nothing?
Bakugou prepared to launch himself into the air again, needing a better look; but almost as if it had sensed him, the thing grabbed his legs, both of them this time. He struggled and tried to blast himself out of there, but the strain on his arms was immense – the thing was unrelenting.
It was like the slime monster, so long ago. It was like that, but now Bakugou was alone, in the dark in the woods. He'd been sucked up past his hips now. The lower part of his body felt a pressure like it was being squeezed, but gently, not enough to cause pain. He stopped firing shots downwards, the angle all wrong now, and began to kick his legs, like treading water.
That did manage to slow his descent somewhat, until the thing gave one great heave and pulled him under entirely.
He realized he was going to die.
He did not think of Kirishima.
The strange thing about that second statement was that Bakugou normally found himself thinking of Kirishima at all times: when he got up in the morning; when he showered and got ready for work; at his desk, pen-pushing; when he was the train and in large tight-pressing crowds; and especially, most painfully, at night, when he tried to fall asleep. He thought of Kirishima's face and hands and voice, of what he might have done in any situation. What quip he'd come up with, how he might tease, what he would say to make Bakugou feel better.
Bakugou thought of him when his hands were on the wheel of a car. Thought, I wonder if that cliff is high enough, or that wall strong enough, or that lake deep enough? Thought of him as he gazed out the window of his apartment (but that idea was distasteful; there were always so many people on the ground below him, even at night. Too many witnesses). Thought of him every time he apprehended a villain with a gun – Do you think the police would notice if it was missing? There were so many ways to get back to Kirishima, so many possible paths, that he was overwhelmed with decisions. He knew his journey, just didn't know what route he'd take.
And here he was, completely submerged, his lungs filled with death, his limbs thick and heavy with it, and he didn't think of Kirishima at all.
He thought, I can't breathe.
He thought, I'm going to die.
He thought, I don't want to die!
Bakugou didn't know what happened – whether it was his body finally going limp, or something else – but distantly he felt himself rise to the surface. After a handful of agonizing seconds, his face broke through, and he gasped. His lungs stung as they filled with air, his chest heaved, and he took breath after breath until he felt the rest of his body pushed to the surface, too.
The villain was letting him go, or maybe it couldn't feel him as acutely when he was still and had lost its grip. Either way, Bakugou let it happen, let himself be pushed to the edge of the slime-thing until he could crawl back onto the solid surface of the earth. He laid there, skin black with muck, and felt the rush of his pulse, faster than he'd ever felt it. He wasn't able to move for close to ten minutes.
Finally he dragged himself to his feet. He didn't think he had the energy to use his Quirk, but he thought he knew the direction of the edge of the forest and the road. After ten minutes he discovered he was right. When he got back to his car, he turned it on and drove back to the motel, breaking every speed limit on the way.
He showered immediately, unable to stand the feel of the half-dry muck on his skin, then sat naked on the bed, head in his hands, thinking.
Bakugou thought of the scream the monster had made, the way he had rushed in ready to save someone and had been caught completely unawares.
He thought of being swallowed alive, his lungs screaming. He thought of fighting with no solid ground to put his feet on, and the way the thing had absorbed his blasts
Bakugou picked up his phone and called his boss. As soon as he heard her voice, he interrupted: "I'm gonna need backup."
He hung up without another word and threw the phone down. It bounced, unharmed, against the carpet.
I guess this world isn't going to get rid of me so easily, he thought. The decision had never been his to make. He'd been foolish to think it was. His body was smarter than him: his body knew he was supposed to live, to keep on living regardless of what he actually wanted. If it was any other way, it would have failed him long ago.
Bakugou lay back on the bed, his head on the pillow, and thought of Kirishima – further away now and growing fainter by the day, like someone in a ship that was drifting out to sea – and felt the tears on his cheeks and the unceasing drum of the blood in his veins.
Author's Note: This story was inspired by/heavily based on the song "In the Woods Somewhere" by Hozier.