the promised angst, delivered.
this constitutes YET ANOTHER splinter fic in the 'feat equal' universe, and is tied both to chapter six of 'afe' and to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in 'appendix a.' (but, like all the other spin-offs, it can be read as a stand-alone.)
likely due to the OVERWHELMINGLY WONDERFUL response i received for the most recent chapter of 'feat equal,' i churned. this. shit. out. in like, three days? because (once more, for those in the back) REVIEWS ARE FUEL.
haha, for real, though, thank you all *so much* for the crazy adulations and enthusiasm. :D
this splinter is specifically for my eternal nonon, who's commented on everything i've ever written for this fandom. thanks for the support, love. you're an author's dream. haaaaarts~
ENJOYYYYYY!
chapter 1: the harrowing cry
[the risks and rewards of Feeling: one year prior to the Quirk Registry Incident]
It happens as Izuku's passing off his unconscious charges to Gale's team on the outskirts of the estate.
"Two more already!" Yoarashi bellows a laugh and claps one of his huge hands against Izuku's back, and though he both expects and braces himself for the impact, the acclamatory whack still briefly knocks the wind out of him. "Excellent work!" He lauds, slinging the not-small pair of villains over his massive shoulders like they weigh nothing at all, and lifting off on an updraft to spirit them away from the battleground –and into police custody.
"Thanks, Gale! We'll keep 'em coming!" Izuku promises, raising his hand in farewell and turning to run back into the compound and rejoin the fray.
But he's hardly taken his first step when the afternoon is rent asunder with a primal, anguished scream, emanating from somewhere within the depths of the main facility.
Izuku freezes, foreboding rooting him to the spot.
…Kacchan?
The harrowing cry carries over the pandemonium of a dozen independent skirmishes scattered across the sprawling property, ripped with guttural violence out of Kacchan like he's being flayed alive.
He's never heard anything like it –not from Kacchan, not from anyone. It's raw, and inhuman, and haunting.
It's the sound of his oldest rival and most complicated friend, breaking.
"Izuku," comes the gentle, sober hail through his transceiver, and even though he's too overwrought with anxiety to recognize that otherwise intimately familiar tone of voice, he knows it's Shouto all the same, because there's only one person who refuses to call him by his hero name on the job.
"Shouto, what…"
"We're in the basement of the main house. Hurry." Izuku doesn't need to be told twice.
"On my way."
/-/
Izuku makes record time, vaulting swiftly over the battle Kendo, Utsushimi, and Tenya are locked into with a quintet of mutation-types in the foyer, and zipping past a huge parlor in which Shinsou's having a laidback, one-sided conversation with a wide-eyed, statue-still woman, surrounded by a halo of dissipating rainbow mist. Scant seconds later, at the end of a long, empty hallway, he draws up to the entryway fronting the basement stairs, and rushes in without a second thought.
There's no way to prepare himself for the tableau he finds below.
Shouto's off to his right, tying off a tri-horned giant of a woman –apparently unconscious—with quirk-suppressing rope before encasing her in a block of ice. Five others are similarly trussed up nearby.
To his left is –carnage.
A villain Izuku identifies at once as 'Lionfish' (with that ornate, full-body spray of vividly-striped spines, it'd be hard to mistake him for anyone else) is whimpering softly in a mangled heap: his teeth have been smashed in, several of his spines have been severed completely or hang loose like broken hinges from their roots, and both of his legs are a shattered ruin.
And a few meters away, Kacchan's kneeling, shirtless, over Ochako, who's laid out on her side before him, speared through the gut and shoulder by quarter-meter-long, fist-thick spines, convulsing in a deepening pool of her own blood.
Izuku's breath catches, and he's light-headed and already crying and can't seem to swallow past the sudden obstruction in his throat. There's so much blood, too much, and she's so pale, and why won't she stop seizing?!
This can't be real. It can't be—!
Muddled by trauma, he isn't aware of Shouto's approach until Shouto's directly beside him, reaching for his hand. The hold is solid and steady and instantly reassuring, enough at least to snap him out of his spiraling despair and force him to take true stock of the situation.
There's not a lot any of them can do for her here, Izuku grasps, sorting through every last iota of first-aid knowledge he can access for anything helpful to contribute, but what little can be done is already being capably attended by Kacchan, which would be both impressive and astonishing if he weren't currently too overwhelmed by the sight of Ochako actively bleeding out before his eyes to appreciate how utterly remarkable this scene really is.
No attempt has been made to pull out the spines, because until they can get her to a medical facility, they can't risk removing the only things, ironically, helping in any substantial way to stem the blood loss. Instead, Kacchan's got either hand, densely wrapped in dark fabric –pieces of his own shirt, Izuku belatedly realizes—applying firm pressure around the spines in her abdomen and shoulder. And he's counting off, almost imperceptibly. It takes Izuku a long, horrified moment to understand that Kacchan's timing the duration of Ochako's seizure.
Like sentinels, joined in silent witness of this dreadful spectacle, Izuku clings desperately to Shouto's offered hand, waiting to be called to purpose. Shouto wouldn't bring him here just to watch one of his best friends fade away in such upsetting fashion – there's a reason he, specifically, was summoned. And he thinks he might be ready to guess why.
"When she stops…when she's ready, am I taking her to the hospital?" He asks softly, afraid to speak above a whisper, for fear of interrupting Kacchan. Electric blue and ash gray convey a solemn affirmation.
"He insisted it had to be you." Shouto responds, every bit as unobtrusively. Izuku nods, gripping Shouto all the tighter.
Dropping momentarily, inexorably into deep-mutter analysis mode, Izuku considers the calculus Kacchan must've run to arrive so immediately after that horrible scream at the conclusion that he should be the one to bear Ochako into the care of medical professionals. Kacchan's incredibly fast himself, and could probably take her on his own and get to the nearest major hospital –Jakku* General, in the hub city adjacent to this backwoods country hideout— in well under seven minutes. But his quirk would make for a ceaselessly rough, jarring ride, and when the paramount objective is to keep her as still as they can so as not to risk agitating her wounds, there's no way he would've deemed himself a viable option for transport.
Kacchan might also've contemplated getting a hold of Tenya, by far the fastest in the whole of their fledgling agency, but the drawbacks there must've been equally manifest: Tenya would've been a smoother ride, for sure, but his max speeds are only achievable in short bursts, and he's largely terrestrially-bound, besides, which would mean he'd have to take a more meandering, obstruction-laden route. He'd get there with all possible haste, no doubt, but he probably wouldn't make much better time than Kacchan –and ultimately, with the condition Ochako's in, they might not have the minutes to spare.
Izuku, meanwhile, in the prime of his abilities with One for All, could probably make the journey in a handful of blockbuster leaps, in just over a minute. And, with well-timed, precision flicks of a finger to create pockets of gently pressurized air, he could cushion his landings and keep the jostling to an absolute minimum. By Kacchan's reckoning –and now his own- he's the obvious choice, and likely Ochako's best shot at pulling through this ordeal.
Knowing Kacchan as well as he does, he can imagine what a bitter pill it has to have been to call him here, to do what Kacchan's determined he can't.
And yet it's…heartening, that Kacchan's come so far beyond the boy who once furiously proclaimed he'd rather lose than win if winning meant accepting Izuku's help –or, that at least he has someone in his life he's willing to lay his pride aside for, and ask for Izuku's help even if he does still find the idea repugnant.
And that is what this all amounts to, isn't it? That Ochako's important to Kacchan –important enough that he's prepared to reign in his ego and delegate her safety to his biggest rival; important enough that in the aftermath of sustaining these life-threatening wounds, Kacchan's anguish rang out like he'd been gravely injured; important enough that she, together with Kirishima, convinced him to cooperate with Izuku and Shouto to build a massive, collaborative hero agency with multiple offices around Tokyo, staffed by their friends and peers from U.A., Isamu, Shiketsu, and Ketsubusu; all joined toward the common, high-minded purpose of presenting a united, generational front against the ever-rising tide of villainy, and embodying a new ethos that prizes teamwork over individual ability, to establish a new bedrock 'symbol' of hope and peace that needn't rest exclusively on any one person's shoulders.
Izuku noticed it for the first time, for real, in a flash of insight at the Daily Krumbs'** Exhibition Match last year: the reflex rhythm of their joint style, the comfortable intimacy and easy, unthinking physicality of Kacchan's every interaction with Ochako –all of it pointing to their exceptional compatibility and extensive history; all of it revelatory, changing the way Izuku sees Kacchan forever.
All of it, leading to this moment, with Izuku left to mourn and marvel on the sidelines as selfish, hot-headed Kacchan calmly and solicitously does everything in his meager power to ensure Ochako survives the day.
Because Kacchan loves her.
/-/
Finally, after what seems like a small eternity, Ochako slowly stops spasming, and Kacchan breathes out heavily, shakily.
"Two minutes, thirteen seconds." Kacchan says, ostensibly to himself, but loud enough for Izuku and Shouto to hear without straining. Afterward, "Deku," he utters the cruel nickname he gave Izuku as a child –that Ochako later benevolently reinterpreted—with grievous consequence, "get over here, fuckface." Shouto squeezes his hand once more, a gesture of loving support, and lets him go.
Izuku approaches Kacchan, trembling not from residual fear of an old bully but from the gravity of the charge Kacchan's about to bestow upon him.
"Is she—" He begins, but chokes off when Kacchan meets his eyes for the first time since he entered the room. His default lividity is nowhere to be found; in its place, there is only bleak, ruinous anger and terrible, terrible grief. Izuku averts his gaze, unable to bear the crushing weight of it.
"Get her the fuck outta here. We'll handle the rest." It's so important that Kacchan's says 'we,' and not 'I,' especially under such fraught circumstances. It soothes Izuku's unacknowledged unease that Kacchan might be harboring the secret intent to go on a murderous, vengeance-fueled rampage.
Kacchan watches Izuku stoop to retrieve Ochako with wolfish fixation, silently appraising and ready to snap at the slightest perceived negligence. But Izuku takes great pains to be gentle, and has her carefully bundled in his arms in a matter of seconds.
Then, wasting no time with longing glances or tender gestures, Kacchan removes himself to a safe distance, lifts one gauntleted arm directly overhead, and blows an explosive column upward, obliterating a roughly circular aperture through both the first floor and the roof several meters above that, with more than enough clearance for Izuku to jump, unobstructed, straight up and into the outside world.
As he strides forward to plant himself beneath the house's brand new breezeways, he seeks out Shouto's gaze once more, nodding as if to say 'look out for Kacchan; he needs you,' and, on seeing Shouto's answering nod, bespeaking an unconditional oath to do just that, Izuku turns back and finds himself face to face with Kacchan's uncharacteristically closed expression.
"If she dies," Kacchan says coolly, "I'll fucking kill you." Then, at a less even keel, "I'll kill everyone." In the moment, Izuku believes he means it.
Knowing there's nothing he can say to get through to Kacchan right now, but determined to try anyway,
"You can count on me, Kacchan."
Somehow, impossibly, when Kacchan's response is to flip him off and growl,
"Fuck off already, Deku," Izuku suspects he might've reached him, after all.
/-/
[excerpt taken from 'The Daily Krumbs,' Tokyo's Go-To Source for News You Can Trust!]
The operation to take down 'Variations on a Theme,' leader of the most notorious syndicate to emerge since Tomura Shigaraki and his League of Villains, is a resounding triumph, and the very first major campaign undertaken by the Kamino Pizza Agency,** held by many in the pro-hero world to be an 'ill-advised experiment,' doomed to fail. It has put the manifold offices of the Agency on the map and cemented the enormous, joint venture as a successful and practicable model for inter-agency collaboration, and skyrocketed several already famous up-and-comers belonging to the Agency to the very top of the hero rankings.
Chief among these is one, Bakugou Katsuki, aka 'Ground Zero,' who single-handedly took down sixteen of the forty-some individuals –including Variations himself— apprehended at Variations' compound. Reputedly, the lion's share of his accomplishments on this day took place following the tragic injuries sustained by his long-time unofficial partner, Uraraka Ochako, aka 'Uravity,' who remains in critical condition at Jakku General Hospital.
Undoubtedly as a direct result of Ground Zero's incredible feats during this momentous operation, he has climbed to the coveted number one spot in the rankings! Whether he's up to the challenge of holding on to the spot with Midoriya Izuku, aka 'Deku,' Tokyo's by-consensus successor to the 'Symbol of Peace' title, hot on his heels, is anyone's guess! But needless to say, we're excited to see where he goes from here!
*Jakku - another star wars location, but ofc.
**Daily Krumbs: HER KACCHAKO ART IS EVERYTHING TO ME, OKAY. THIS LEGITSHIT (tm) LOOKS STRAIGHT UP LIKE SCREEN GRABS FROM THE SHOW, AND HOLY KARKATSUKI IS THAT EVER MY JAM. GO HURL PRAISE AT THIS TUMBLR, PLZ: [dailykrumbs (period) tumblr (period) com]
***Kamino Pizza Agency - guess who was adamant that the 'ill-advised, experimental' enterprise these 1-A darlings dreamed up be called 'kamino pizza?' THAT'S RIGHT IT WAS BAKUGOU. the sentimental poop.
and. 'just over a minute:' horikoshi, amazingly, provided perfect reference for how many kilometers per second a wielder of one for all can cover. in the kamino arc, when all might showed up to duke it out with all for one, he remarked that all might had 'gotten weaker' because it took him 30 secs to bridge the 5 km gap. making some generous assumptions and slicing that time in a third, we'll say in all might's prime it maybe took him 5-10 secs to cover that same distance. i decided the compound these kiddos are at in *this* story is about 40-45 km away, and if it takes 5-10 secs for deku to go 5 km, then we are indeed looking at a time-frame of 1-1.5 mins for him to get uraraka to the hospital. WELCOME TO MY HORRIFYING HEADSPACE, WHERE THIS TRIVIAL, WHACK-A-DOODLE NONSENSE IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH FOR ME TO WRITE UP A HUGE-ASS FOOTNOTE TO DEMONSTRATE ITS FEASIBILITY. *piccolo, screaming from afar: nnnnnnnneeeeEEEEERRRRRRRRD!*
also: i imagine deku n' crew probably did have emergency medical personnel on hand, somewhere on the outskirts of the operation, probably waiting wherever the police are hanging out. but needless to say, they were probably not equipped to handle the major surgery-type attention uraraka atonceandimmediately needs.
alsoalso: THAT'S RIGHT **TODODEKU,** CHUMS. THAT'S THE GOOD SHIT RIGHT THERE.
/-/
[next chapter: aaaaaaaaangst, bro fights, ura'rents, and! deus ex horn girl.]