Disclaimer: I do not own Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.
My Hero Academia: Entreri Gaiden
Chapter twenty-four: The surgery
The medical team operating at the local hospital, the one for pro heroes and family members of pro heroes, were hard at work in the operating room. Their patent was under anesthesia, so he would be out of it for a while. Even so, the medical team had to work quickly yet precisely, as if they were working on diffusing a bomb before it had a chance to go off. Getting the patient that they were operating on back to working shape was of great importance.
But then again, given that the patient in question is Katsuki Bakugo, who is otherwise known as the pro hero Dynamight, getting him back into active duty shape would be a great boon to the pro hero community in Japan. This is especially so given the fact that Fine Wine, the greatest criminal gang lord in Japan's history (both pre-quirk age and since the age of quirks began) has been acting up even more as of late. The sheer firepower that Dynamight brought with him to the table would be needed.
As the doctors worked tirelessly, Bakugo was completely out of it, the anesthesia doing its job. While he was out cold, Bakugo had a dream, although he wasn't quite sure if it was a straight up dream for sure, given what happened.
...
Bakugo, in his hero outfit as Dynamight, found himself in a grassy field, with nothing around for every direction into the horizon. It was day, the skies above were blue, and there were barely any white wisps of clouds floated on by. "...Those fuckers went and botched the operation and killed me, didn't they?" Bakugo asked aloud.
"No, Katsuki. You're just knocked out with anesthetic for the surgery."
The pro hero Dynamight heard a woman's voice speak up, one that he thought he'd never hear again. Turning around, Katsuki came face to face with his step-mother, Inko. The very plump older lady, dressed in a simple long-sleeved top and skirt that reached her ankles, radiated this warm, welcoming aura that helped to sell her image as a perfect grandma. Seeing the shocked look on her step-son's face, Inko gently shook her head, but still smiled.
"...Mom..." Bakugo said in a sad, somber tone. He walked up towards Inko, tears welling up on the corners of his eyes. "I'm...I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that you died. I'm so sorry that-"
Inko cut her step-son off by holding up a hand. Lowering the hand, Granny Inko offered a warm smile. "...I have a feeling what you're about to say. Yes, it was rather shocking when it was found out that Fuyuki had been framed. To think I had shunned my own grandson, and over something that it turns out he had been set up for. To make matters worse, I died before I was even able to get a chance to apologize for my atrocious behavior. Some grandmother I turned out to be."
Bakugo shook his head. "Mom, no," Bakugo said, "It's not your fault. If anything, it's mine for not noticing it when my own daughter was suffering because of what happened to-"
Once more, Inko cut her step-son off by holding her hand up. "...Fault lies with more parties in this than what should be necessary," Inko said gently, "But one person who has no fault in this whole mess is Fuyuki. Katsuki, when you wake up and get back to your hero work, I need you to do something for me."
"What is it?" Bakugo asked, willing to go to most any length for the late Granny Inko.
"...I'm begging you, Katsuki," Inko said, a sad look on her face as tears gently ran down the sides of her plump face, "Please help with finding Fuyuki. He's suffering because of our failure. He's in a lot of pain because of said failure. You have to help find Fuyuki and bring him back home, so at the very least we can begin trying to apologize to him for how we failed him."
The pro hero Dynamight had a somber look on his face as he looked down to the grassy field he and his step-mother were standing on. He inhaled and exhaled a bit before looking back up to the woman he named his daughter after. "...I was planning to help with bringing Deku's kid back home either way. All that you asking me to help with finding him does is add one more person to the list of people who want Fuyuki to come back home."
Although the plump older woman's face still showed a sad expression, the small frown that had formed morphed into a small but sincere smile. "...Thank you, Katsuki." With a gentle shake of her head, Inko said, "Anyway, I'll probably get going once you start waking up after the surgery is finished and you're recovering. I'll probably go back to accompanying Mitsuki, even though she teases me about having gotten up to two hundred and five kilograms before I died."
"Threaten to sit on her if she keeps it up," Bakugo offered casually, "The old hag has it coming."
Inko chuckled in mild sincere amusement a bit at her step-son's suggestion. "...You know what, I might just do that." With her small but sincere smile, Inko said, "Well anyway Katsuki, take care. And when Fuyuki is found, please tell him for me on my behalf how sorry I am for how I shunned him while he had been framed."
Bakugo nodded in agreement. "...I'll be part of the effort that helps find that nephew of mine and brings him back home. No need to worry about that, mom." Inko smiled one last time before all that was around Bakugo began to fade from his vision as everything began to disappear in a blinding white light.
...
When Bakugo woke up, he was in a hospital room, laying in a bed. He sat up, with some difficulty but not the kind he was used to. It wasn't as bad, and that lessened difficulty was the first thing that caught Bakugo's attention. He was alone in his hospital room, obviously because the doctors weren't expecting him to wake up so soon. He had no idea who would be around, so he proceeded to move to get out of bed.
He stopped short when he realized two things upon moving to get out of bed. The first thing was that there was no wheelchair nearby for him to use to get around, which alarmed him to a degree as he had gotten used to needing a wheelchair to get around. The second thing, which is what really shocked him, was that he was able to feel his legs. He was actually able to move his legs, for the first time in ages.
"I can be a pro hero again," was the first thing that Bakugo thought upon realizing that the surgery had been a success. His back still felt a little sore in some places, but he attributed that to the fact he literally just woke up after getting out of surgery. Bakugo suspected that he'll get back to top form in short order. And when he does accomplish that, when he gets back into a top form fit for hero duty and is able to return to the job, there's one thing that he ultimatly wants to do above everything else.
Help find and bring back home his nephew.
The news of Bakugo's surgery being a success had brought joy to his extended family that they hadn't felt since prior to what his daughter did to frame her cousin and get him expelled from UA. There would be physical therapy to help Bakugo get used to walking again, but he tackled it with the same attitude with which he tackled a lot of his problems, especially those back in his younger days as a UA student.
"I'm going to make the physical therapy my bitch!"
The success of the surgery that restored Dynamight to being able to return to active duty as a pro hero brought relief and excitement to the pro hero community as a whole, given that he'll be quite the boon to efforts in tracking down and capturing Fine Wine once and for all. Some even suspected that since Akio Takemoto, otherwise known as the villain Big Beef, was loose once more, that Dynamight would be interested in avenging the incident that crippled him in the first place. Indeed he was interested in that, but Dynamight had other priorities.
Among those most excited for Bakugo's recovery and inevitable return to being a pro hero were his family. His wife Pony and daughter Inko, his dad Masaru, his step-brother Izuku and Izuku's wife Ochaco. They were already planning to celebrate his recovery with a party, which some of Bakugo's friends would undoubtedly get in on. Not, of course, would Bakugo's family blame any of them for, mind you.
Inko was congratulated by her friends and classmates on her father's successful surgery and eventual return to pro hero duty. The daughter of Dynamight and Rocketti was already telling her friends how her dad was not only going to rise to the top again, but proceed to go further and rise to the number one spot. Marley and Ragna expressed cautious skepticism, given that it was Inko's uncle Deku who her dad would be competing with in that situation, but Komaru said that he bet Mr. Bakugo could do it.
A week after his physical therapy began, Bakugo had already gotten far enough to be considered cleared and ready to come out of retirement to return to his pro hero career. The native doctors were quite frankly surprised by how quickly he had come along and in so short of a time, but the team that performed the surgery, who had been flown in from the States, said that Bakugo's recovery was to be expected, given how refined the surgery and treatment is.
One of the American doctors also noted how Bakugo 'was too full of piss and vinegar to stay down for long', at least in his opinion.
Either way, with the pro hero Dynamight back to activate duty, the hope of standing up to and eventually taking down the criminal gang lord Fine Wine had been renewed. Granted, that man was still out there, and he still had access to some elite thugs including the one who had ended Bakugo's first run as a pro hero. Even so, with renewed hope and a healthy sense of caution, the pro heroes were now more ready than ever to deal with Fine Wine.
The first thing that Bakugo did after officially returning to being an active pro hero was walk into his hero agency, which while he was down had been ran by his old crew from his UA days, minus Kirishima who had his own agency. In addition to Kaminari, Sero and Mina, there was also Kyoka and Pony. There was also a good selection of sidekicks as well, and in short order there would also be interns from hero academies running around too.
"So yeah, now that I'm back in command," Bakugo said, "I'll be taking charge in the agency's efforts to find that son of a bitch Fine Wine and kick his ass. Who all here is with me?" The others all cheered in agreement, and Pony even threw her arms around her husband and gave him a hug, happy to see him able and moving once again. With everyone giving him their full support, Bakugo felt that he was going to be the one to actually nab Fine Wine and finally bring him down once and for all.
Although there was one thing that Bakugo wanted credit for more than taking down the criminal gang lord that had been plaguing Japan for years, and that was finding and recovering his lost nephew Fuyuki.
Over at the primary warehouse hideout, Fuyuki was in his room, reading a book, when he heard a knock on his door. Fuyuki placed a bookmark in his book, set it aside, and got up to answer it. To his surprise, the disguised teen saw that the blonde female thug had come to see him. "Hey Entreri, the boss wants to see you," the blonde female thug said, "He looks a bit worried about something, so you better go see him quick."
Fuyuki nodded in understanding, then moved to grab his dry erase board and marker before leaving to go meet with Mineta. Upon arriving in Mineta's office, Fuyuki saw that the boss indeed looked nervous, like someone or something he was afraid of was coming to beat him raw, if not worse. "Ah, Entreri, you're here," Mineta said, a hint of relief entering his tone upon seeing one of his elites, "I just got some very bad news."
He arched a wry eyebrow, which was his way of silently asking what had happened. The big (figuratively) boss gestured for the disguised teen to sit down. Letting out a troubled sigh, Mineta said, "I just heard that Dynamight has returned to active duty as a pro hero. He got some surgery to restore himself, he went through all of that physical therapy stuff, and now he's back to blow stuff up to screw me over."
Fuyuki looked surprised to hear all of that; so his Uncle Katsuki had been restored to fighting shape and was back to active hero duty? That sounded troublesome like what Mineta feared; Fuyuki's uncle was the number two hero at the time he had been crippled into retirement by Big Beef, so now to have him restored to hero duty condition, especially considering that Dynamight would undoubtedly want to avenge his injury from Big Beef, could potentially spell disaster for Fine Wine and his men.
Fuyuki wrote on his dry erase board before showing what he wrote to Mineta. What should we do about it, sir?
"For now, nothing," Mineta replied, "The heroes still have no firm lead that would let them add two and two together and get that I'm the guy they're looking for. That gives me some time to come up with a game plan to figure out how to deal with Dynamight returning to active duty as a pro hero." The criminal gang lord then let out a sigh and shuddered a little bit, which had caught Fuyuki's attention.
Looking up at his assassin-style elite thug, Mineta said, "...I'm going to be honest with you, Entreri. I'm actually rather scared of Dynamight. Back when I was in the same class at UA as him, Dynamight wouldn't hesitate to make his point known to me and the rest of the class, often by being loud and physically violent. I wasn't the only one he would attack, although in the times leading up to my unwarranted expulsion, he focused more on beating me."
Fuyuki wrote on his dry erase board before showing what he wrote to Mineta. I assume that is one of the reasons why Akio is valuable to you?
"Yes," Mineta admitted, "Akio had certainly earned his keep in my gang when he crippled that explosive pain in my ass into retirement. But now that Dynamight has returned, I'm not so sure if he'll be as easy for Akio to take down, because Dynamight is a hell of a lot smarter than he looks. He won't let things end the same way, so I need to mix things up." Mineta gave his elite thug a wry look. "...Thus the job of killing Dynamight shall fall to you, Entreri."
Kill his own uncle? This was the first time Fuyuki had the potential to kill someone from his own family, the family that had betrayed him. It was undoubtedly a very tempting offer, one that the disguised, runaway teen wanted to take Fine Wine up on. He gave his boss a single affirmative nod, drawing a bit of an amused smile out of him.
"Ah, I knew I could count on you, Entreri," Mineta said, "Anyway, I'll let you know when it's time to ship out to...send Dynamight to Principal Nezu's office, as it were. Until then, you're dismissed." Fuyuki nodded once before he turned around and took his leave. As he walked away from Mineta's office, Fuyuki had a lot on his mind concerning the fact that he will soon have a run in with a returned to active duty Dynamight.
This would be the first time since running away that Fuyuki would be confronting anyone in his family. All other occasions before now saw Fuyuki run away without actually getting up in the face of his family member who showed up, but then again it was usually his dad Izuku, who is the number one hero mind you, that showed up. There's no realistic way to get out of meeting up with Deku without getting roughed up if you're a villain or criminal.
...But being party to killing Uncle Katsuki would give Fuyuki the satisfaction of knowing that one, he got back against the family that had turned on him, and two, the act would make his Aunt Pony and cousin Inko both suffer personally. Although he felt betrayed by his family as a whole, it was the women in Fuyuki's family who he wanted to see suffer the most. He wanted to see his mother, aunt, cousin, hell even his grandmother, all despair.
He wanted them to suffer like how they had made him suffer by turning on him, so quickly and easily, over something he knew he didn't do.
Sometime a few days later, over at the Dynamight hero agency, Bakugo was meeting with his wife Pony, plus their old friends from their UA days who worked at the agency; that saw Sero, Mina, Kaminari, and Kyoka. "Alright folks," Bakugo said, "What all do we have on Fine Wine right now that we can tackle?"
Pulling out a folder and handing it to Bakugo, Kyoka explained, "This contains info on a possible target that Fine Wine will send his men after. It's a warehouse in the same general area where the hero agency Todoroki's dad Endeavor had used to be. The warehouse itself has supplies that undoubtedly would go a long way to help Fine Wine continue to be a thorn in our sides for quite some time yet."
Bakugo opened the folder and skimmed the info inside. "...It's known mostly for various kinds of modern body armor, but there's also some support items that are designed to be weapons. Looks like the kind of stuff that a sorry turd like Fine Wine would be interested in." Closing the folder, Bakugo looked to everyone who was with him. "We're going to have to work in unison with Kirishima's agency on this one. Do any of you know if he'll be ready soon?"
"Actually, I got a call from Kinoko earlier, Katsuki," Pony spoke up, getting her husband to turn to face her, "She's at her husband's agency right now, helping to make sure that the interns that are working there since internships have started up are organized."
"Oh yeah, internships are up now," Mina said, a look of mildly piqued wonder on her face, "Did Kinoko say who she and Kirishima grabbed as interns?"
"Kirishima told me he's got some of those third year boys in UA's hero course right now as interns for himself," Kaminari explained, "And Kinoko got her and Kirishima's son."
Kyoka folded her arms over her chest, a look of amusement on her face. "...Yeah, a lot of us who are parents grabbed our respective kids as interns. Hell, Todoroki's dad got Todoroki all the time back when we were still UA students."
Mina nodded in agreement. "It helps that Kinoko and Komaru both have the same quirk, so she can help him figure things out more quickly." Turning to face Bakugo, Mina said, "By the way Bakugo, I heard that you nabbed your and Pony's daughter as an intern, along with these two other girls."
Bakugo nodded in the affirmative. "Yeah, apparently me returning to active duty as a pro hero had made me popular enough that the teachers over at Faerun High, both actual Faerun staff and UA staff, offered to let me take up to three, even though I was only really interested in Inko." The pro hero Dynamight had a mildly troubled look on his face. "Inko...is still upset with what all happened to screw her cousin over."
Bakugo had to choose his words carefully, as the truth of Inko's involvement in getting Fuyuki expelled from UA had to be kept secret, as the last thing his extended family needed right now was Inko catching heat for something she didn't think about due to her emotions clouding her judgement. As such, the only person who was at that meeting aside from Bakugo who knew the truth was Pony, his wife.
The men looked troubled, and the women all looked guilty. "...I still can't believe that some little creep at UA managed to trick so many people into thinking that Ochaco's son was the second coming of that perverted little troll Mineta," Kyoka said in a guilty tone, looking down at the floor out of shame.
Patting his wife on the back, Kaminari said, "That is why when Fuyuki is found, we're going to help his family make things up to him." Kaminari turned to face Bakugo and Pony, flashed them a knowing, reassuring smile. "Kirishima and Kinoko are both also in on what I just said, as I had discussed it with them earlier." The others also offered affirmative nods to Bakugo and Pony, showing them that they had their full support in helping to recover Fuyuki and bring him right back home when he's found.
Pony was touched by all of the support, shedding a tear as she gave a small but sincere smile. As for Bakugo, he merely nodded once in acknowledgement to his crew that was with him. It made the recovered Dynamight feel all the more assured that his lost teen nephew would be found and brought back home, where he belonged. There was so much that the family had to do just to begin making things up to Fuyuki.
But Bakugo was determined to play an active part in healing Fuyuki's emotionally damaged heart. In a way, Bakugo had something to do with Fuyuki running away after his unwarranted expulsion from UA, as Inko did all of it to ultimately get back at Izuku because she pinned him with the responsibility of what happened to Bakugo himself. Although that wasn't really true, Bakugo did admit that what happened to him was ultimately his own doing because he wanted to show up Izuku out of jealousy, he was still connected to some degree.
Bakugo, back when he first became an uncle, declared that not only would he be of the cool uncle variety, but that he'd be the most kickass example of a cool uncle of all time. He figured that now was the perfect opportunity for him to validated the claim he made that day.
END, CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Author's notes;
Yes, Bakugo is now back to active duty. It'll take him a bit to climb his way back to the top of the rankings, but he's very stubborn. Also, Bakugo's now getting actively involved in the fight against Fine Wine, with something related to that occurring in the next chapter. Fine Wine isn't someone who would simply allow loose threads to hang, after all.
Take care.