While browsing Pinterest a few days ago I happened to come across several pieces of artwork depicting Villain!Deku which I immediately found fascinating. Call me weird, but I have a thing for good-guy-turned-villain scenarios. With such an image seared into my mind, I immediately headed over to fanfiction net to see what stories there were that touched on just such a concept only to find myself disappointed with what I found (or more accurately didn't find). As in most cases which have spawned plot-bunnies in the past, I decided to take it upon myself to explore this idea and write the story that I wish I could have found. I couldn't get it out of my head: what could possibly happen to that sweet little cinnamon roll, Deku, to make him go to the dark side?
This is what I came up with.
Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia and am in no way making a profit from the telling of this story. Please don't sue. It won't be worth the lawyers' fees.
Second disclaimer: This story will have a fair amount of swearing in it as well as darker themes including, but not limited to, kidnapping, torture, psychological manipulation, and general unpleasantness.
Rhythm of the War Drums
Chapter One: Lay Your Head Down Child
Flames crackled. Scraps of smoldering ash danced in the blast wind like playful insects. They drifted higher into the night sky before blinking completely out of existence. The fire was spreading. Already it was beginning to reach the next block away from the demolished train station. Screams drifted on the night breeze. Where they came from it was impossible to tell. The world around him had dissolved into hellish chaos.
Bakugo stared up at the one above him. He lay on his back, half buried in a foot deep crater. His hands were held in a steel-like grip on either side of his head. No matter how hard he struggled he couldn't shake the vice-like hands holding him captive. His gauntlets were long gone, shattered by incalculably hard blows. The bones in his wrists creaked under the pressure of his captor's grip. In this position he couldn't ignite the nitro-sweat on his palms close enough to inflict any damage on his opponent.
How had the bastard become so strong?!
As Bakugo angrily kicked against the ground the one straddling his chest leaned down lower, digging his knees deeper into the hollows of Bakugo's shoulders and immobilizing his futile struggles. Pain shot down the length of Bakugo's arms.
"You fucker! Get off me!" Bakugo screamed. He writhed in helpless rage. Sparks crackled across his palms but did nothing to help him. "I'll kill you!"
"Oh, Kacchan," the one above him grinned. "Stop being so charming."
Firelight danced in the dominant boy's eyes, giving him a demonic look. Wind the same temperature of a blast furnace ruffled the shaggy locks of dark green hair. "We're only starting to have fun…"
Bakugo glared murder at the other boy, his mind desperately trying to connect the image of the one above him to the one he remembered from his childhood.
That boy Bakugo remembered – the one who called him Kacchan and used to always follow him around like an annoying shadow – was completely different from the one currently pinning him to the ground.
The boy from his memories had never looked at him with that sadistic grin, or had that crazed look of madness in his eyes. Small bubbles of saliva foamed at the corners of his captor's mouth. The mouth guard of his costume dangled from his neck as he leaned over Bakugo, like the broken muzzle of a rabid animal.
"Deku, get the hell off me!" Bakugo raged, thrashing uselessly.
Izuku Midoriya grinned his unsettling new grin.
With deliberate slowness, Midoriya shifted one finger from Bakugo's right wrist to underneath the captured boy's index finger. A line of crackling gold-laced energy shot across Midoriya's hand. With an almost careless flick Midoriya sent Bakugo's finger flying backwards. The sound of his breaking bones reminded Bakugo of dry kindling snapping.
The pain was immediate and intense. Bakugo couldn't stop the startled scream that ripped from his mouth. Bakugo stared at his shattered digit. It hung backwards from his knuckle like a drooping hot dog.
A low chuckle sounded above him.
Midoriya craned his upper body away from Bakugo. His unkempt hair swayed in the hot backdraft. Flames danced in the gutted remains of the train station behind him. The image reminded Bakugo of a painting he'd once seen as a child at the local temple – one of a demon standing before the gates of Hell.
Midoriya's lips curled away from his teeth in a deranged Cheshire grin. His eyes stared down in open bloodlust.
"That was fun, Kacchan. Let's do that again."
His finger moved underneath Bakugo's middle finger.
Bakugo stared up at Midoriya. For possibly the first time in his life fear – true, unadulterated fear – washed over him like an icy wave. With sudden, blood-curdling certainty Bakugo realized he was completely at his former childhood friend's mercy.
It was a picturesque summer day. Class 1A couldn't have asked for a better day for a group outing. The outdoor mall was a hive of activity. People moved from store to store in search of bargains. Most moved in pairs, sometimes small groups of three, except for one girl standing by herself by one of the upper level's glass railings that overlooked the center courtyard below.
Stupid, Uraraka admonished herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Why did she run away from Midoriya like that? After their group had broken up into smaller pairs to pursue their individual economic conquests Uraraka had had the perfect opportunity to be alone with the boy she admired more than everyone else in their class. It was stupid. She'd run away because she'd been caught off guard by the unexpected opportunity. Why did she have to be this shy around Midoriya?
She already knew the answer to that: she had a crush on him. Aoyama had realized before even she had. It wasn't that surprising really. The sweet, almost deceptively quiet boy had won a place in the hearts of almost everyone in their class. Just the thought of his shy smile made Uraraka's cheeks burn hot and once again curse her cowardice.
With a surge of resolve Uraraka decided she had to go back and at least apologize for her abrupt departure.
Making her way back towards the escalator, Uraraka scanned the courtyard below. Surely Midoriya wouldn't have moved too far away from where she'd left him. At first she couldn't see any sign of him, but just as she came to the top of the escalator she spotted his familiar mop of green hair. He was sitting off to the side of the courtyard on a bench.
Good. He hadn't gone far. There was still a chance for them to walk around together.
As Uraraka stepped on to the moving steps she noticed another sitting beside Midoriya. From a distance, it looked like a man in a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. They seemed to be sitting very close to each other. The man's arm was thrown over Midoriya's shoulder in a friendly embrace.
Uraraka wondered who the man was. Maybe Midoriya had come across an old friend while walking the mall.
The two were lost from sight as she neared the bottom of the escalator. As she stepped off the last step and turned towards where she'd seen Midoriya and his friend, a high-pitched scream pierced the air.
Everyone in the vicinity instantly froze, heads instinctively swiveling around towards the source of the scream. Uraraka couldn't see where it had come from. Another scream sounded, followed by a swell of panicked shouts.
People began to run. One man bumped into Uraraka and almost sent her crashing to the ground. She somehow managed to keep her footing and stared in the direction everyone was running from. Between the moving bodies she saw what had caused the panic.
There, about a hundred feet away, a man in a black sweatshirt held a woman by her neck. He held her high. Her feet uselessly churned the air below her for purchase, her toes barely scraping the ground. As Uraraka watched, the woman's gurgled scream abruptly stopped and she dissolved into a cloud of ash. The man's sadistic cackle echoed across the courtyard, chilling Uraraka's blood.
That man… wasn't he the same man Uraraka had seen sitting with Midoriya?
People everywhere were running. Another person – this time a mother with a young child clutched to her chest – clipped Uraraka and sent her sprawling backwards. She hit the ground hard.
Another scream followed by a cloud of ash.
Uraraka stared in horror at the scene. She tried to look away but couldn't seem to make her body respond to her brain's commands.
The man tilted his head back and let out another laugh. His hood fell back from his face. Uraraka gasped. It was Shigaraki – the man who had led the attack on their class at the emergency response facility. He was the leader of the League of Villains. He was also the one that nearly killed Aizawa with his pet monster and their teacher in bandages for the better part of that semester.
Shigaraki's eyes found Uraraka across the courtyard. His gaze bore into her. Uraraka inwardly cringed back from the psychotic joy she saw gleaming in those depths. For a split second, she feared he was going to rush her and turn her into a pile of ash.
Instead he cackled another laugh.
"My work here is done," he grinned. His dry, cracking lips curled up the sides of his face. "Be a good little girl and tell everyone what you saw here today. Tell them the League of Villains is just getting started and that no one is safe anymore. The age of heroes – especially All Might – is over. You can tell him I'll be seeing him again soon."
A cloud of transdimensional black smoke swirled into being behind him. With one final, almost mocking, wave to Uraraka Shigaraki stepped through and disappeared. The warp gate shrunk behind him from existence. His departure was so abrupt Uraraka momentarily wondered if she'd really just seen what she did.
The screams of the panicked crowd seemed strangely far away now. She could hear the faint warble of police sirens in the distance.
Uraraka looked around. The mall was almost completely deserted now. It was weird that barely ten minutes ago this had been a humming spot of human activity. Now it reminded her of a ghost town.
A soft breeze drifted through the courtyard, stirring the piles of ash that littered the ground. In a stunned daze, Uraraka scanned the area. All those people… just gone. She counted at least a dozen piles of charred carbon that had once been human beings.
As she took in the quiet devastation left in Shigaraki's wake, Uraraka spotted something laying off to the side of the courtyard. It lay halfway underneath a bench where it had probably been kicked by a scared civilian in their rush to escape.
It was a bright yellow backpack.
While not necessarily an uncommon item, especially considering the amount of students that had been there celebrating the end of the semester, it was the color that made it stand out to her. Uraraka recognized it. How could she not from all the afternoons walking with its owner to the train station after class?
That was Midoriya's backpack.
A trill of horror gripped Uraraka's heart. Where was Midoriya? She'd just seen him. Was he somewhere nearby?
The warble of police sirens was getting louder.
No matter how desperately she scanned the empty shopping area Uraraka saw no sign of Midoriya. All she saw were the shapeless piles of ash that marked the spot of Shigaraki's victims.
In the wake of the mall attack, police and heroes alike were scrambled to the scene. Police statements were taken from all those present. Besides Uraraka, though, no one had been close enough to give a description of the man who'd attacked the mall goers. When the police had found her, the young heroine was standing in the middle of the empty mall surrounded by piles of ash and clutching a yellow backpack to her chest.
Due to Shigaraki's destructive quirk, it was impossible for forensic teams to properly ID those who'd fallen victim to his touch. His quirk seemed to disintegrate items on a molecular level, eliminating any chance of DNA analysis. Search parties were formed to scour the surrounding areas, but besides eye witness reports and next of kin looking for friends and family they'd been separated from during the attack, there was nothing to definitively say who was missing.
Finally, after two days, with no word from the boy and no definitive proof to say otherwise, Izuku Midoriya was officially listed as killed in the League of Villain's attack. It was the general consensus of those that had known him that when Shigaraki began his assault, Midoriya had probably rushed in to help and been caught in the villain's rampage.
A small memorial service was held for Midoriya at UA high school. The majority of his classmates and teachers were in attendance. The most notable, of course, was All Might who spent the majority of the service standing by himself on the side of the room in a somber black suit. Although his trademark smile was in place – "As a tribute to young Midoriya who once told me he wanted to make the world a better place with a heroic smile!" – it was noticeably forced. Uraraka could never say for sure, but at one point during the service she thought she saw a single tear appear in the corner of All Might's eye.
In the days following the attack, news stations couldn't seem to agree on an official death toll of the shopping center attack. Estimates were put anywhere between seventeen to twenty-two people. The one thing they all did agree on was who was ultimately behind the attack – the League of Villains.
Everyday the newscasters ran reports on the organization and the slow but steady increase in criminal behavior around the city and across the country as a whole. Tokyo and all the surrounding cities were placed on high alert. Heroes from every agency in every municipality were called into action. A number of public events were cancelled. Even those that weren't – sports games, concerts, and festivals – were poorly attended. Once thriving, active areas became eerily silent. People began to avoid amusement parks, shopping centers, and recreation areas. If one small shopping mall wasn't safe from a villain attack what other public space was? A series of small attacks from low level villains around the city only served to increase the public's anxiety.
UA's first-year summer training camp was cancelled, though none of the students of 1A really protested. The loss of one of their own had hit too close for many of them.
So it was with heavy hearts 1A began their second semester at UA.
"So what did you do over summer vacation?" Tsuyu asked conversationally.
It was several minutes before the start of homeroom on their first day back for fall semester. The girls of class 1A were huddled together in a circle around Yaoyorozu's desk. The boys were clustered in their own individual cliques of twos and threes.
"I visited my grandparents in Shimane prefecture," Mina offered. "After they cancelled the camping trip and the city went on alert my parents wanted to get away for awhile."
"Can't get much farther away from everything than Shimane," Jiro said.
"You said it," Mina agreed with a sigh. "I spent three weeks doing nothing but staring at rice paddies. It was enough to almost make me wish they hadn't cancelled summer classes for the ones that failed last semester's finals."
"At least you got to go somewhere," Yaoyorozu said. "My parents barely let me leave the house all summer after what happened at the mall." As though realizing what she'd just said, Yaoyorozu trailed off uncomfortably.
"How about you?" Tsuyu asked, glancing at Uraraka desperately to shift the focus of conversation. The shopping mall attack had unspokenly become a taboo topic. "What'd you do?"
Uraraka couldn't bring herself to meet the frog girl's gaze and stared at the top of the desk.
Uraraka's heart tightened painfully in her chest. Even now almost two months after the attack just the mention of it made her have to fight back tears. How could the rest of them talk so casually about what happened? After all that death they had seen up close?
"Nothing special," she murmured. "I was kind of in the same boat as Yaoyorozu. Just stayed home…" If she sounded unconvincing she didn't care. How could she admit to her fellow classmates that while she had spent the majority of summer break at home, it had been spent fighting back tears every time a news report reminded her of the attack that killed her friend and created this culture of fear currently gripping their society?
The other girls seemed to sense the ill-veiled grief in Uraraka's voice. Before any could say anything about it the homeroom bell chimed.
"Everyone to their seats!" Iida unnecessarily ordered. All of them were already sitting attentively.
"Alright, alright, settle down," Aizawa groused as he slouched through the door and took his place behind the teaching podium.
The students sat straighter in their seats as the Erasing hero tapped a stack of papers together on the podium. Aizawa had never been a particularly warm and welcoming teacher, but he seemed even more unapproachable than usual.
"Class rep," he said, holding out the stack of papers to Iida. "Pass these out."
Barely a minute later everyone had a syllabus for the new semester. The class was quiet as they digested the information written there.
"As you've probably noticed, there's not a lot of typical classes listed this semester as compared to last," Aizawa mumbled, glancing around the room with blood-shot eyes. "Classes like mathematics, English, and Japanese Literature have been removed from this semester's schedule to make room for more practical application classes for hero track students. I'm sure all of you are aware of the threat the League of Villains is posing. All hero agencies and police forces have been placed on high alert by the national government. Due to the heightened security in almost all public areas, the national government has requested UA to lend its hero track teachers and students to the roster to help patrol the city. In a way you can consider this an extension of your original internships from last semester."
Uraraka quietly digested this information. The classroom rippled with excitement but it was noticeably subdued compared to previous announcements like this. Just two months ago nearly everyone in the room would have been writhing in excitement. Now, all of them knew the true threat criminal organizations like the League of Villains posed.
Uraraka couldn't stop her eyes from sliding to the side of the room where an empty desk sat immediately behind Bakugo. Despite it being a new semester, no one had felt it right to take the seat of their missing classmate. Midoriya's place remained unfilled despite an untold number of students in other tracks vying for the coveted spot in the hero track.
"This is a great honor," Aizawa continued. "The national government is putting its trust in you as future heroes to help protect this city. I know this is a huge responsibility to place on first year students, but you have all already proven yourselves capable in the past of meeting such a challenge. That's why the government is issuing all of you provisional licenses to use your quirks in emergency situations. This is the dawn of a new era of villainy. We must all be ready to do what we can to help combat it, whether we think we're actually ready for it or not. That is what the true spirit of being a hero is."
Aizawa changed the topic and began lecturing on how that semester's curriculum was to be structured. Uraraka didn't miss the way his eyes drifted towards the empty desk behind Bakugo and lingered there a few moments longer than a passing glance would have warranted.
Less than a week later found Uraraka on a school-sanctioned patrol in the heart of the city. After a day of classes the students were randomly paired together in groups of two with a UA teacher or sidekick from a local hero agency acting as their supervisor. Everyday their patrol areas changed. Typically their teams were spread out every two or three miles to cover a different ward. While technically working as heroes, their mission was to observe and report any suspicious behavior to the pros that were also on patrol.
On this particular day, Uraraka had been paired with Bakugo. Their team leader was Midnight. It was getting close to dusk. Their shift was to end in the next hour. Their mission that evening was to watch the Shibuya-area Hoth train station.
As most of the villain attacks thus far had been centered on public areas, places like train stations, subways stops, and major commercial plazas were the focus of the heroes' patrols. The three were stationed on the rooftop of an office building located directly across from the train station's main entrance. The night air was warm with the final lingering traces of summer. Several stars had already begun to peek out against the darkening backdrop of the twilight sky. Every so often Uraraka smelt the whiff of grilled food from one of the many eateries that lined the streets around the station.
"God, this is so boring," Bakugo groused from his perch on the far side of the rooftop. "It's been a week of patrols and no one's seen any trace of a villain. It's like they're hiding from us."
"Now, now, young man," Midnight admonished with a sultry purr. "Heroes must be patient. While boring at times, surveillance can be quite thrilling when one's prey finally emerges. In any case, we're on a strictly observe and report mission for these patrols. Student engagement is highly discouraged."
Bakugo said nothing, but the way he whipped away from their teacher to glare down at the train station – as if daring a villain to make an appearance – Uraraka knew he was gritting his teeth together in silent rage. Uraraka could almost feel the waves of frustrated energy rolling off him. It only made Uraraka more uncomfortable to be in his presence. She'd never been a fan of the hot headed fire-starter, but being teamed with him with none other than Midnight of all teachers made Uraraka feel like a fish completely out of water. Could she have been teamed with any other people that were less like her? She didn't necessarily dislike Midnight, but her almost vulgar display of sexuality made Uraraka extremely uncomfortable and self-conscious.
The teams were chosen at random and only lasted a day, so Uraraka at least had the comfort of knowing she only had about an hour more of this.
"You two stay here," Midnight abruptly announced. "I'm going to check on the station's other entrances. Report anything suspicious to me immediately."
With a flip of her hair and a snap of her whip, she leapt away into the darkness.
Uraraka stared after her for a long moment of silence before turning her attention back onto the ebb and flow of human movement below. Bakugo stood on the other side of the roof, almost out of her side-vision. It was almost hypnotic watching people going about their everyday lives – coming home from work, heading out to meet friends for a drink – completely unaware of those watching them from afar. Did those people ever stop and think about the ones that watched over them? Did they ever wonder how much effort went into keeping them safe?
"Look at them all," Uraraka softly murmured. "Do you ever wonder if they think about all the heroes working to keep them safe?"
"Hell if I care," Bakugo snorted. Not that Uraraka was really expecting any other response from the blond firebomb but a part of her had secretly hoped she could have had a civil conversation with him to pass the last hour of their patrol together.
She knew she should stop while she was ahead but there was something she'd been wanting to ask Bakugo since the end of last semester.
"Hey, Bakugo. I know you probably don't want to talk about it but I wanted to ask you… Why did you come to Midoriya's memorial service last semester? I mean… I always thought you hated him."
The boy's reaction was expectedly violent. "Why do you care if I was at that pathetic nerd's service?!" He turned hellfire eyes on her. With the lights of the train station under-lighting his features Uraraka regretted voicing her thoughts. "I wasn't going to go but the teachers made it sound like it was mandatory. I wasn't about to lose my number-one spot in class by being docked points by not going. It was that nerd's own damn fault he died! He always wanted to be a hero. Always running into fights he couldn't win. If he had had any sense he would have run away and let someone else like me who could've actually done something about that guy fight! But no! His stupidity had to get him killed!"
Bakugo whipped away from the roof edge and stormed away into the darker shadows of the roof. He reminded of Uraraka of a caged animal. His back to her, Bakugo growled, "It's not fair… I never got to properly kick his ass one last time." Shooting a glare over his shoulder towards Uraraka as though blaming for the unwanted memories, he snarled, "Why did you have to bring up that pathetic dweeb, huh?! I don't want to talk about him anymore. So shut you mouth for the rest of our patrol or you're gonna be sorry!"
With a snarl Bakugo stalked across the roof as far away from Uraraka as he could. He stood looking over the edge of the roof, refusing to look in her direction.
Uraraka stared after him. Despite his harsh words and ever harsher personality, Uraraka heard the regret in his voice. In his own warped way he was still mourning their missing classmate, same as her. Bakugo, whether because of his psychological hang ups or his inability to talk about Izuku Midoriya in any other way than violence – used anger as a cover for how he felt. He and Midoriya might have had a complicated past, but it was obvious the hot head missed the freckled boy.
Uraraka wasn't sure how she felt about the revelation. In some ways it made her feel closer to Bakugo. Even Bakugo had been effected by Midoriya's death. But at the same time, his emotional immaturity made it nearly impossible for Uraraka to hope she'd found a kindred spirit in Bakugo who she could share her pain with.
Uraraka wiped at the moisture that had gather unbidden in the corner of her eye. She hadn't even realized she'd begun to cry. It just proved how raw the loss of Midoriya still was to her.
Before she could worry about Bakugo seeing the evidence of her grief a sudden explosion sent a plume of fire and smoke billowing up from the train station's entrance. The rooftop shook with the force of the blast. Uraraka involuntarily cried out and shielded her face from the intense heat as a second explosion rocked Hoth train station. She was knocked backwards from the edge by the force.
"What the-?" she heard Bakugo scream from across the roof. His voice was barely audible over the deafening crackle of fire.
Shakily pushing herself to her feet, Uraraka looked over the edge of the roof. What she saw below barely resembled a train station anymore. The walls of the building looked like the charred skeletal remains of some ancient giant that had been eaten from the inside out by hellfire. She could see people amongst the flames. Some ran. Others stumbled away from the inferno as if in a daze. Others lay among the charred debris, eerily motionless. Screams were the soundtrack of this hellish scene.
Uraraka was so stunned by the carnage she was only startled out of her trance by Bakugo suddenly appearing beside her.
"Look! Villains!"
Uraraka followed his gaze and that he was right. Far below, a large warp gate had opened in front of the ruined train station. From its inky depths several figures emerged. Uraraka counted five – no six! - as the warp gate coalesced into the League of Villains's member – Kurogiri's – ethereal black form.
Two of the villains were ones she'd never seen before. Low level thugs by the looks of them. Another two looked like the mindless genetically modified quirk monsters known as Nomus. Both of them had exposed brains with bulging, vacant eyes. One of them – it had four extra arms sprouting from its hunched back – gave a terrifying shriek.
The last member of the group took his place beside Kurogiri. Disembodied hands the color of dead flesh gripped his arms and shoulders. One hand was wrapped across his face like the newly hatched space monster of a classic horror movie Uraraka remembered watching as a child. The extra hand and his unkempt grey-blue hair obscured his face, but Uraraka instantly recognized him.
She must have involuntarily gasped because Bakugo speared her with a glare. "What?"
"It's…" Uraraka struggled to form words. Her throat was constricted by a violent rush of fear. "It's him."
"Who?!"
"The villain that killed Midoriya!"
A strange look lit Bakugo's eyes as they swung downwards towards the cluster of villains.
"That's the bastard that killed the nerd?"
"Yes," Uraraka breathed. Her heart was hammering against the inside of her chest. "I'd recognize him from anywhere."
"Then I'm going to kill him!"
Before Uraraka could register Bakugo's words, the hot head was airborne – flying over the side of the rook with a fiery blast from his palms. His eyes were locked on the villains below.
"Bakugo, no!"
He was already gone.
Uraraka stood frozen for a long moment of indecision before her training finally kicked in and she remembered their mission.
"Mayday! Mayday!" she screamed over the radio-comm nestled in her ear. "Mayday! Villains spotted at Hoth train station, Shibuya! Multiple civilian casualties! All units, please converge, immediately!"
"Uraraka!" Midnight's voice crackled across her ear piece. "Remain where you are! Heroes are in route!"
Uraraka stared over the edge of the roof. Bakugo had reached the ground. The two thug-looking villains charged him. With a fiery blast from Bakugo's open palms they fell to the ground screaming. Their clothes were smoking. Even so far up Uraraka smelled the scent of grilled meat again.
"Bakugo!" she yelled. Whether he actually heard her or not, Uraraka couldn't say.
"You bastards! I'm gonna kill you for what you did!"
Uraraka knew she should follow Midnight's orders - to stay back and not engage. But there was Bakugo charging into battle to face off a group of super-quirk villains. She might not have really liked Bakugo as a person but in this instance he was her teammate and she wasn't about to lose another classmate to the League. For Midoriya she would do what she could to keep Bakugo alive long enough for the pros to show up.
With a surge of anti-gravity, Uraraka vaulted over the rooftop in pursuit of her classmate. She land on the ground with a small jolt.
As Bakugo neared the last several dozen yards that separated him and the assembled villains he abruptly skidded to a stop and whipped one gauntlet-heavy arm around towards them. A pull pin dropped from the side of his gauntlet.
"This is for Deku!" he screamed as he pulled the pin and unleashed a hell storm of flames towards his foes.
Uraraka was several yards behind Bakugo and saw the warp gate appear in front of the villains. Before she could shout a warning, another warp gate appeared in the air only several feet to Bakugo's right. A wall of flames erupted from it. Bakugo was momentarily lost behind the flash of deadly fire.
Uraraka skidded to a halt. The heat from the redirected blast was suffocating. Even twenty feet away she could feel the flames lick at the edges of her costume. A billow of smoke followed, temporarily blinding her. She coughed and wiped at the ashy tears clogging her vision.
Bakugo had been knocked down by his own blast. For a moment, Uraraka feared the worst. His costume was charred black in places. His upper arms and neck where his top didn't cover were a painful looking welted pink. Gathering his strength, Bakugo slowly, painfully, pushed himself to his feet. Despite his self-inflicted injuries his eyes hadn't lost any of their murderous intent.
"You bastards think some cheap trick is going to protect you?" he spat. "By the time I'm done you're going to regret ever being born!"
"You hear the mouth on this one?" Shigaraki chuckled, glancing at Kurogiri. "Knocked over by his own attack and he still has the balls to threaten us."
Shigaraki took a step forward. One eye stared from between the thumb and index finger of the hand covering his face. "I recognize you. You're one of those brats from the UA facility. You know you caused us a lot of trouble back there."
"You just wait!" Bakugo snarled, smearing a streak of sooty blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his glove. "I'm going to cause you a lot more than trouble for what you've done!"
"And what's that?" Shigaraki quired as though genuinely confused. "The USJ attack was months ago. You can't still be this upset about that little skirmish."
"I'm going to kill you for what you did to Deku, you sick bastard!" Bakugo screamed. "You killed him! That nerd was mine to take down! Not yours! I'm going to make you pay for taking that away from me!"
A startled laugh erupted from behind Shigaraki's face hand.
"Kill him? Oh no, no. You're entirely mistaken. I never killed that boy. Quite the opposite you see. I took him to help him… improve his abilities. He might have pissed me off at the USJ attack but after some consideration even I realized what a powerful tool he could be against that phony hero All Might."
Uraraka and Bakugo stared at Shigaraki in startled silence.
"W-what?" Uraraka breathed in disbelief. Did she actually hear him right? Was Midoriya somehow, somewhere still alive?
Shigaraki motioned to Kurogiri. "Kurogiri, let's bring out our secret weapon. I was going to wait until the real heroes showed up but the brat's friends seem eager to see him. They'll be a good warm up for him."
"As you wish," Kurogiri intoned.
A warp gate opened beside Shigaraki. A figure slowly stepped through into the flickering firelight of the train station.
Uraraka gasped. Bakugo seemed frozen in place. He stared at the newest arrival.
"The fuck is this?" he weakly stammered. His rage had been completely replaced by shock.
Although skinnier and his hair longer than how she remembered, Uraraka recognized him. She'd recognize those endearing sprays of freckles anywhere! Her heart swelled with an almost heady rush of relief.
It was him. It was-
"Deku!"
To Be Continued…
Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Should I continue with this? Any and all feedback is appreciated.
Please review!