Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

Bakugo Expelled

Chapter thirty-four: A good end, all things considered

"Hey look! It's the number two pro hero!"

The citizenry in the immediate area all dropped what they were doing and turned to look as they all heard blasts sound off overhead. Indeed, they saw what looked to be a man in a certain iconic pro hero's outfit, seemingly flying straight over everyone using a trail of blasts to propel himself through the air. As the gathered citizenry all looked up in awe, the man himself couldn't help but allow himself a bit of an amused smirk.

…But then again, it was Katsuki Bakugo, the pro hero Ground Zero, and currently ranked as the number two hero on the Hero Billboard Charts JP.

The current number two hero was looking as if he were making his way with a clear goal in mind, given how he seemed rather keen to be doing what it was that he was up to. Even though he enjoyed the stroking his ego got whenever the citizenry of Japan recognized him and admired him on the spot (this was Bakugo that was being talked about, so it's par for the course), he did not stop to bask in the admiration, as he would most likely otherwise have done.

No, he had his current goal, his current destination, in mind. The adult pro hero, having graduated from U.A. High School's hero course some time ago, had been alerted by his wife Pony, now a pro hero known as Rodeo, to arrive at a specific destination, at which she herself was already waiting. The explosive pro hero had no idea what his wife, a woman he was lucky as all get out to have at his side, was wanting him to come over to see.

But the tone of her voice over the phone told him that it could only be good news.

Eventually, Bakugo made his way to a private residence that, given the size, had to belong to a pro hero with respectable income, probably one of the higher ranking ones. Bakugo had actually been to this residence before, as it was where his old friend Kirishima lives. Similar to how the ashy-haired man had married his high school sweetheart, Kirishima had married his sweetheart, who just so happened to be Pony's friend Kinoko. Given what all Kirishima had to deal with in life, Bakugo felt that what the hardening quirk man all had now was the least that he deserved.

Bakugo allowed himself a smirk of amusement for Kirishima.

Eventually, Bakugo landed ten or so feet from the front door, stopping his explosions that he was using to propel himself through the air. He walked the short distance to the front door of the Kirishima residence, then raised his hand to give the door a gentle knock. After a few moments, the door was answered by Pony, who had a happy, excited squealing expression on her face. She grabbed her husband by the right arm, dragged him inside.

"You aren't going to believe it, Katsuki!" Pony said as he dragged Ground Zero into the house, "This is, like, so exciting I can't stand it! I can't wait until Reiko is told as well!"

Bakugo gave a nod of acknowledgement to his wife, understanding that of course she would tell her other friends about exciting news. As Pony led Bakugo into the house, they eventually met Kirishima who, aside from a very mild amount of facial scruff, looked more or less the same that he did back during his high school days. But the scruff only served to make him come off as more manly to the populace of Japan; a true-natured, manly hero was what Kirishima had wanted to be, and he fit the role quite well.

"So what's the good news that's got Pony acting like she has an entire canister of espresso lodged firmly up her fine butt?" Bakugo asked his friend, giving off a bit of an amused smirk as he regarded the pro hero Red Riot.

The crimson-haired pro hero replied by flashing an amused smirk of his own. "…Yeah, Kinoko and I have some good news." Kirishima leaned to his side, looked down one of the hallways. "Hey Kinoko! Bakugo's here!"

After a few moments, Kinoko Kirishima (nee Komori), also known as the pro hero Shemage, came walking down out of the hallway. Bakugo remembered, during everyone's first year at U.A., that at one point Kinoko, who was going through a terrible depression, had comfort ate a lot and as a result became notably obese before the depression ended and the mushroom girl was able to clean herself up.

It had been Kirishima himself who, upon seeing how much Kinoko really wanted to slim back down, became her personal weight loss coach and fitness instructor. From what Bakugo had been able to gather on the subject, Kinoko's weight at its peak was, surprisingly, actually a little bit higher than the four-hundred and twenty pounds that Sakaki Shinso (nee Yamamaya) tended to keep herself at. Regardless, thanks to Kirishima's firm instruction, Kinoko was able to get back down to her original healthy weight, essentially regaining the appearance that she had prior to falling into her aforementioned depression.

Now, the mushroom-themed pro hero had as slender and healthy of a body as what's commonly seen among female pro heroes. However, the one exception was that Kinoko clearly had a bit of a belly. This set off a few alarms in Bakugo's head, who worried that his best friend's wife was going to get fat again. However, the hints began to click in Bakugo's mind when Kinoko gently rubbed her belly, blushing in a certain way as she smiled. What she said next confirmed to the explosive man what had clicked in his head.

"The doctor told me and Eijiro that it's going to be a boy."

"Dudes!" Bakugo exclaimed, unable to help himself as he just heard the news. Bakugo turned right away to face Kirishima, ran up to place his hands on the hardening quirk user's shoulders. The open mouthed, teeth flashing grin made it clear that Ground Zero was very much happy, very much excited, for the new boon that would be in Red Riot's life. "You're going to be a fucking dad, dude! Hot fucking damn, Kirishima!"

Kirishima replied to Bakugo's flashy grin with one of his own. "I know, right? Everyone else from the hero course of our graduating year are parents, so I'm glad to see than Kinoko and I are finally following along! Hey bro, you think my son and your daughter will get along?"

The idea of his kid and Kirishima's playing together did amuse Bakugo, he had to admit. Surprisingly, all of the girls from the hero course of Bakugo's year, after graduation, ended up finding love and getting married, with many of the girls ending up with boys from the hero course of their year. The first girl of this example to become a mom was actually Pony, as she gave birth to her and Bakugo's daughter. The little girl was named Inko, after Inko Midoriya who, sometime during Bakugo's second year at U.A., got married to his father Masaru.

Granted, this meant that Deku was his step-brother, but that was another issue for another time.

Eventually, more and more girls from the 'legendary year' became moms; with Kinoko becoming pregnant with Kirishima's child, confirmed by the doctor to be a boy, this meant that all of them had achieved that point in life. Bakugo told Kirishima that having a kid will change a lot of things for him, make him see things from a different perspective. He may even get a new idea on what it truly means to be manly.

The Bakugos and the Kirishimas exchanged a few more pleasantries before the former took their leave from the residence of the latter. After they had left, Bakugo and Pony made a detour to where Bakugo's dad and step-mom lived; they left little Inko there as they both needed time to do things on their own, and the grandparents were always happy to have the little ones running about the place, giving some light and a bit of amusement to their now older lives.

"Hey Katsuki," Pony began, "You think that Kirishima will try to convince Kinoko to name you as the godfather?"

The current number two pro hero gave a bit of an amused chuckle to his wife. "…It wouldn't surprise me if at the very least I was one of the options that Kirishima was considering. You recalled how I said that I wanted to name Kirishima as our daughter's godfather, right?"

The half-American pro hero gave off a bit of an amused chuckle, one that sounded with fondness of a good memory being recollected. She cast her eyes at her husband as the two of them made their way to see his parents. "Yeah, I recalled how you had made an impassioned speech that went over all the points that you saw as reason for why we should give the job to Kirishima. It was rather sweet, really."

Bakugo pounded his right fist into his left hand. "We can do a hell of a lot to help keep their kid on the right path. Help him avoid the trouble his dad had with the academic aspects, help him take to heroics like his folks." Pony nodded in silent agreement with her husband, happy to see that Bakugo was more than ready to have a role in the life of Kirishima's and Kinoko's son; the boy wasn't even born yet, and yet he already had something of a cool uncle looking out for all of his various interests.

The explosive pro hero was also a cool uncle to his actual nephew, by the way.

To the explosive man's mildly piqued interest, when he and Pony had at last arrived at his parents' place, Masaru and Inko were already being visited by their daughter-in-law Ochaco Midoriya (nee Uraraka), who had with her Fuyuki, the son that the gravity hero had with her husband Izuku. Little Fuyuki looked very much like a miniature version of his father, who was known as the pro hero Deku.

The current number one pro hero on the Hero Billboard Charts JP.

"Oh, hey you guys," replied Uraraka when she and the others saw Bakugo and Pony walk into the house. Even though she had taken Izuku's last name upon marriage, Uraraka was still commonly referred to by her maiden name; it was something of a force of habit for the girls from the 'legendary year' if they had commonly gone by their last names while they were still learning all the tricks of the trade back during their U.A. days.

Bakugo still regarded Uraraka with not the most friendly disposition in the world, but he was able to remain civil enough. "I take it you're here to see the folks as well, Round Face?" Bakugo asked as he regarded the woman his step-brother had married. Looking around, the ashy-haired pro hero noticed something that had gotten his attention. He turned to face his dad and step-mom. "Hey, where's little Inko?"

"Oh, she got tired so we settled her down for a nap," Masaru explained to his adult son. Bakugo let out a bit of a relieved sigh; even though he knew that little Inko was perfectly safe, and that what he was told confirmed to him that nothing bad had occurred, Bakugo still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad might have happened to the rambunctious little girl. But to hear confirmation that little Inko was alright brought a notable measure of relief to Bakugo's heart.

It was probably one of the things that came with being a dad.

…

A short while later, Bakugo and Pony had collected their young daughter, who was laying on her grandparents' bed in their bedroom as she snoozed away. Little Inko, despite being the oldest out of any of the kids birthed by the 'legendary year', was still barely a little over one year old, her first birthday being about a week ago. Strangely enough, little Inko also ended up being the only girl among the lot, with the rest of all of the children all birthed by the 'legendary year' being boys, with the child Kirishima and Kinoko were now expecting helping to seal that deal. This was a bit of an interesting topic to go over, but it was another one for another time.

Inko Bakugo looked like a mix of her parents; like Pony, Inko had hooves rather than feet, and a pair of lyre-shaped horns growing out of her head. She was also blonde like both of her parents, but Inko's blonde was an ashy blonde like Bakugo's. It also had the notable spikiness that was present in her father's hair, but it looked like it was going to be allowed to grow as long as how Pony had her hair styled in.

Inko was wearing a white one-piece onesie that her grandmother and namesake had bought for her; it was decorated with pink-colored little silhouettes of symbols commonly seen in wild west settings, such as tumbleweeds, saloon doors and cacti. In the center of the chest area of the onesie was a single big pink silhouette of a horse wearing a cowboy hat. The onesie that was being worn by Fuyuki was different; solid green, with a single yellow capital 'M' in the center, with two iconic shots of hair sticking out from the M, one from each upper point.

Even after all of this time, even after he himself became the number one hero and was regarded as the new Symbol of Peace, Izuku still idolized All Might. Bakugo still couldn't help but let out a chuckle at what all that meant.

The following Monday, Bakugo had been summoned by the Commission to attend a conference meeting between pro heroes. As he as one of the pro heroes ranked in the current top ten, he was required to be there. As such, the hero Ground Zero walked into the big meeting room, although given who all was there in terms of pro heroes, it was more or less something of a class reunion with those who, like Bakugo himself, had graduated from U.A. as part of the 'legendary year'.

Bakugo immediately spotted his step-brother Izuku, who was the current number one. Going down from Izuku was Bakugo himself as the number two, Shoto Todoroki as the number three pro hero known simply as Shoto, Akuma Giratina as the number four pro hero known as the Black Blaze Hero: Pentagram (he wanted Evil Hero rather than Black Blaze Hero but had been convinced back in his U.A. days otherwise), Bakugo's own close friend Kirishima as the number five, Tenya Iida as the number six pro hero Ingenium, Artemis Norio as the number seven pro hero known as the Perfect Hero: Cell, and finally Tokoyami rounded things out as the number eight hero Tsukuyomi.

Although that was it for the 'class reunion' part, the numbers nine and ten were actually pro heroes from the generation before the boys had all graduated; they were the Dragoon Hero Ryukyu and the Rabbit Hero Mirko, with Ryukyu as the number nine and Mirko as the number ten. Getting a little bit older, as well as fresh new talent quickly rising up through the ranks, is why the two pro heroes from the previous generation among the top ten are as low as they are, but the fact that they are still among the top ten is nothing to scoff at.

The top ten pro heroes mingled a bit before a representative for the president of the Commission came out, flanked by four men. One of said men was actually from the police, as denoted by the badge that he wore on his suit jacket. The representative, a moderately young man named Hoshi, took his seat at a lead spot at the table while the pro heroes all sat along the sides. Once everyone had been seated, the meeting was able to be gotten under way.

"Sorry to have called you all here on such short notice," Hoshi began, keeping things in as business-like of a tone as possible, "But time is of the essence. We have just received critical information about the movements of the two current big threats to society here in Japan, the groups respectively known as Ryoga's Reach and Cornucopia."

It was Mirko, one of the two pro heroes from the previous generation, who spoke up first as she gave off a huff and crossed her arms over her chest. "I still can't believe that smarmy bastard, even though he died in prison a long time ago, still has influence on the world today." The number ten turned to face the number three. "Oi Shoto, don't you employ both Creati and her husband at your agency? Maybe the two of them can help us with getting a tap on the Ryoga's Reach group."

"I employ Yosetsu as a sidekick at my agency, yes," Todoroki began as he explained the situation, "But as for Momo, I was advised by my PR managers not to hire her to my agency, as she still carries a lot of the stigma that her father had wrought back when he was still alive. She's been unable to find any work as a pro hero due to said stigma, so the best that I could do was hire her as one of the helpers working at my family's estate." A hint of seriousness crossed the face of the number three pro hero. "…I had a sneaking suspicion that Ryoga Yaoyorozu was not quite done screwing with the world, even while dead. So I figured keeping tabs on Momo and her family would be for the best, in case they were ever targeted for some odd reason."

Hoshi nodded a few times in both understanding and agreement. "The fact that you have who is undoubtedly going to be a VIP to a group of fanaticals loyal to the late Ryoga under your eye is bound to pay dividends for our ongoing investigation into the Ryoga's Reach group. We may need to get into contact with Creati at some point in order to formulate a game plan. We may also have to clue her family in on this as well. You said that Creati and Welder are married?"

Todoroki nodded in the affirmative. "They also have a young son named Sebas."

"The presence of the child will make things a tad more difficult, but I fail to see how we won't be able to manage things as per usual," the police representative at the meeting said, "For now, we ought to focus on what little we have on Cornucopia, the other organization that has popped up on our radars in recent times."

The police representative pulled up a display on a smart screen that showed what little information that they had Cornucopia. The info also included a blurry image that, according to the police representative, was that of Cornucopia's mysterious leader, who was known only as Jam. The image was too blurry to clearly make out, but the way that what had to be Jam's hair was shaped looked vaguely like something the boys who had graduated from U.A. a couple of years prior seemed to be able to recognize.

Closing out the information, the police representative said, "As you all know, Cornucopia has been responsible for a number of crimes over the years. They're mostly robberies, shake-downs in protection rackets that they run in lower-income districts, and a few assaults on pro heroes. There is one confirmed case of Cornucopia being responsible for killing a pro hero, but we later got evidence confirming that it was actually accidental and not intended by any means."

"Yeah, I know of the accidental hero killing that you speak of," Izuku said, "It was Rockslide. She was the eighty-seventh ranked hero at the time of her death. She was killed in a city far to the north in Japan. I learned about it personally since my friend Mudman is Rockslide's younger cousin."

"Oh yeah, Juzo told me that his older cousin was killed," Akuma remarked, drawing a nod of agreement out of Artemis.

Gesturing to the top ten pro heroes, Hoshi said, "You all will be supplied with copies of what info we have been able to gather thus far on both Ryoga's Reach and Cornucopia. Getting to the bottom of the two current biggest name threats to society is a top priority. I hope that you all can live up to what it means to be a pro hero." The top ten all gave affirmative responses to the representative of the Commission's president, then after other formalities were exchanged, they all got up and took their leave from the meeting room, all of them intending to get cracking on the latest information on the two current biggest threats in Japan at the moment.

…

Bakugo looked at the blurry image of Cornucopia leader Jam that was in the info packet copy that he had been supplied with. The explosive man knew he had at least a few sidekicks at his agency that would be ace at helping with the investigation, but he had been told to be careful with how many people he let in on the investigation. Bakugo knew that he had to pick and choose who all to bring in very carefully; he may even be forced to pool resources with some of the other top ten pro heroes if it meant bringing both Ryoga's Reach and Cornucopia down to their knees once and for all.

…As it turned out, Ground Zero wasn't the only one who had that idea.

"Hey, Kacchan!" Bakugo flinched in annoyance as he heard Izuku call out to him by that nickname from their childhood; even to this day Izuku seems rather insistent on using the childish moniker. Turning around, Bakugo saw Izuku, as well as Todoroki, all walk up to him, both of them clearly wanting to talk to him about something. "Boy, am I glad that we caught up to you," Izuku said, "Listen, Kacchan. There's something that we need to discuss with you."

"We were both hoping if you would be interested in having y our agency work together with the respective agencies of me and Izuku to help take down at least one of the two big name threats to society right now," Todoroki said, coming out with it rather bluntly. The number three gestured to the number two. "There's only so much that any one agency on its own, regardless of what all it has, can accomplish. Given what we're dealing with here, it's best to be safe rather than sorry."

To the surprise of both Izuku and Todoroki, Bakugo actually agreed with them. "…Yeah, I myself was actually considering the idea of a team-up with at least one of the other pro heroes who was at the meeting just now." Bakugo gave Izuku and Todoroki a wry, mildly amused smirk. "Glad to see that I'm not the only one so far to have some common goddamn sense." Both Izuku and Todoroki smiled at what they knew to be Bakugo's own way of saying that he was a go on the idea of a team up between their respective agencies. Things were going to be getting rather difficult in the days, weeks, months or perhaps even years to come, and there was no way to guarantee for sure who all was going to be coming out of things in the end.

…But the top three pro heroes in Japan had just agreed to an alliance to resolve the issue of the two big name threats in society right now. That alone gave a lot of confidence that things would, in the end, turn out to be alright.

THE END

Author's notes;

Yeah, a lot of the chapter ideas that I came up with for the tail end of this story weren't really going to work out, hence why I'm ending things here. I actually wanted to do a bit of a push to finish this story and get all of its chapters out, as there was one issue of business that I wanted to take care of before I actually got out the last chapter for 'A couple that will go down in legend', and I didn't want too many things to sit around. Now that I got this taken care of, I can get to work on that issue of business, then finish Couple, then get to work on some other works set in the Couple setting.

…Wow. That's a lot. Well anyway, take care, everybody.