a/n: tw suicide mention and references, tw bullying, tw basically the shitshow that could possibly come up between bakugou katsuki and midoriya izuku.

this is bleach au, but i took creative liberties n tweaked a lot of things so several stuff are inaccurate to the og material. its ok if u never read bleach. bleach isn't the point anyway. this is most definitely not romantic, but as we all know, platonic is too nice a word with these two.

something possessed me and i wrote this in a week. with love. so much love to the point of obsession, in fact. now that its done, i am free.

I.

Katsuki walks towards the board and the crowd parts around him to give way as they fucking should. Ripples of white and dark grey of school uniforms divide apart like a shuffled pack of cards and Katsuki is the sole thumb cutting it through. It's inept, really, the way they huddle and bitch and whine in front of the announcement board as if the test results are going to change. As if the outcome is not going to be the same.

It won't. Because Bakugou Katsuki will always be the number one.

The crowd bristles and the whispers both quieten and hike up a notch in volume. Typical. None of them are really looking at him while blatantly ogling at him at the same time: surreptitious glances of curiosity and fear and whatnot. Katsuki couldn't give less fucks—of course everybody knows who he is.

Katsuki walks until he's eye to eye with the board—everyone else cowering away to give him berth and space, really, who even dares to breathe the same air as him?—and then Katsuki reads the list of names at the board. And freezes.

And clenches his teeth. And his fists.

There, at the top, is his name: Bakugou Katsuki. First place in Japanese, English, Math, Science, Social Studies, etc, everything. First place, as always, Bakugou Katsuki will always be the number one. That's fine. That's perfectly natural. But Katsuki finds that just below his name, on the number two spot, the student's name written there belongs to—

Bullshit.

He reads the name again. And then he re-reads it again. And then Katsuki spins on his heels—abrupt and brisk and entirely uncaring of the way some students flinch in his wake—and storms off.

Bullshit.

Steps sure, mouth a hard line, eyes mean. No one stands in his way as Katsuki stomps down the hall to find the fucking freak.

You couldn't find him in a crowded place. Fucker won't be in the classroom—that much he already knows. That nerd never stays in the classroom at recess if he can help it, not for years now. He won't be at the library either—not since that incident in middle school—and certainly not at the cafeteria if the world is ending. And thus, by the process of elimination, there is a single spot left of his possible whereabouts.

Katsuki climbs the stairs. Fourth floor is for third graders, some of them Katsuki had picked a fight with, which is why he can roam the hallways freely because he had won the fights. The older students shrink and get out of his way without so much a word and with much wary glances. No one wants to eat their lunch with broken teeth, after all. Katsuki enters the boy's restroom.

Going up the roof is forbidden.

They closed off the stairs to the rooftop ever since a freshman student jumped two years ago. But Katsuki knows that, oh yes, the nerd is far from the rule-abiding ass-kissing little shit everyone thinks he is, and Katsuki sure as hell won't let something like a locked door stop him from telling the freak what's what. So he pulls himself up from the fourth floor's bathroom window, climbs a pipeline into a narrow path along the outside wall, and swings to the rooftop.

Up here, the sky is a cloudless blue and the sun a sick son of a bitch. It's the end of May and summer is coming soon. Katsuki shields his eyes against the sun—the sweat forming underneath his shirt is sticky and uncomfortable. The rooftop is an open scorch of a plane, and their eyes meet instantly.

There is barely any sense of satisfaction when Katsuki finds himself to be right, because Katsuki is always right and such is the way the world works.

"Kacchan," Deku says, when Katsuki comes close enough to hear it.

Katsuki hasn't heard that in a while. Deku doesn't speak much—he used to, oh, he used to all the time —and even now that they are in the same class, Deku certainly doesn't talk to him. Hell, neither of them even so much as look at each other if they had a gun trained to their heads.

Yet, Katsuki finds that the familiarity of it all is distressing: that aggravating watery voice, the perpetually wide eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses. As if he is always scared, and surprised, and so innocent.

And then, after a beat of silence, there it is—that terrible, feeble, insipid fucking smile Katsuki knows so well.

"..Kacchan," Deku tries again, when Katsuki doesn't reply. He looks up from where he sits, cross-legged, blazer taken off and tie a hideous mess. There is an edge of wariness in his voice now, barely shaded by the pathetic attempt of a smile, crooking his face oddly. "What are you doing here?"

"Mineta Minoru."

Deku blinks, putting down his bento onto the tiled ground of the rooftop, next to his blazer. His movement is slow, careful, as if he's trying not to startle an animal in front of him. "Um. What are you—"

"Mineta Minoru, Deku?" Katsuki says, voice low and smooth as gravel. "Fucking Mineta Minoru beat you in math? Are you fucking kidding me?"

And then there is silence. Not silence—Katsuki can hear shoutings from the soccer field below, someone playing piano awfully in the music room on the third floor, and the last of spring wind, rattling the chain link fences along the edge of the rooftop. There is no silence; just stillness. And then Deku laughs.

It's a soft, careful sound. He laughs the same way he smiles: small, brittle, painfully hacked out and entirely pitiful. Katsuki hates it. Hates the way it sounds. Hates the way he always laughs like he doesn't mean it.

Katsuki thought he couldn't get any more pissed, but then Deku begins, placating and simpering and lying: "He is smarter than me, Kacchan—"

Katsuki walks forward.

There is a small distance between the two of them, one that Katsuki closes quickly, and the effect is instantaneous: Deku stands up with a start and shuts the fuck up immediately, shoulders flinched up as if he's getting ready for Katsuki to beat the shit out of him.

Katsuki won't. They aren't in elementary anymore, and really, it got old real quick in middle school—but fuck if the tempation isn't there.

"You've always been such a fucking liar," Katsuki nearly spits, eyes narrowing into cruel slits. He shakes his head. "You aren't even in the top ten." for two midterms in a row, at that. "Deku, what the fuck?"

That laughter again. But there is something different, this time, an edge. He looks Katsuki in the eye for a fraction of a second. "Why do you care?"

Katsuki pauses, his surprise quickly turning into temper. The look of defiance in Deku's face disappears as quickly as it comes, replaced by a sort of faint shock, as if he didn't expect himself to say something like that. Katsuki says, slowly, "you mind repeating that, Deku?"

Deku swallows again, eyes averting, a hand pushing his glasses up his face in a nervous habit, half of it shaded in Katsuki's shadow. Katsuki is taller than him, always has been. "I. You.. Kacchan. What do you want? Really."

"You really think I wouldn't notice?"

This one gets a reaction. Deku goes stiff, hand frozen in the middle of fumbling with his glasses. And then he looks up, slowly, and says, "what are you talking about?"

Katsuki opens his mouth to snap a reply when the ray of the afternoon sun hits just the right angle and something, a stray light, catches his eyes.

His eyes slide to the side. There, just a few metres beside Deku's forgotten bento: a glass vase with a single flower in it. A freesia. Deku's eyes catch his, and there is some understanding there, between the two of them. Old and suffocating.

Katsuki leans back and sneers.

"Oh, I see," Katsuki says, voice pitched low and acidic. "I see, now. You've lost it, haven't you?"

Deku's face freezes in some kind of shock, a flash of muted fear—the sight tugging something familiar; an unearthed childhood memory akin to a fading photograph. "Kacchan," he says. "Please don't."

So is this what it's all about? Fucking hell. "Shit, Deku, grow up. We aren't in grade school anymore, for fuck's sake."

The line of Deku's shoulders turn rigid. "It's not like that—"

"Really? So you aren't spending your lunch breaks hanging out with your imaginary fucking friends?" Katsuki says, merciless. "What are you, five? Shit."

"Stop. Just stop."

Deku's voice is a pathetic sound; a series of syllables hoarse with decade-old weariness. Too bad, Katsuki doesn't have a heart.

He looks back at anger isn't gone, inside Katsuki. It's there, it's always there, an ever-persistent existence inside his throat, sticky-hot in his lungs.

"That's why you've been skipping class?" Katsuki says. "You've been talking to ghosts?"

You couldn't find Deku in a crowded place. You will find Midoriya Izuku alone, with his books and his mother's homemade bento, sitting on the roof with a ghost.

For a second, Katsuki thinks Deku wouldn't answer. He would just stand still and shut up and wait it out. Wait Katsuki out. But then Deku finds his voice, throat bobbing before he speaks.

"What do you want me to say?" he says.

There is an emptiness there, an impression of something being given up. And that. That makes Katsuki sick.

Katsuki steps forward, and Deku takes a step back, each other a copy in reverse. "You—"

"You kids aren't supposed to be here."

Katsuki recognizes that voice. He turns.

The new teacher, holding the rooftop door open behind him. Gripped in his right hand—all skin and bones, just like the rest of him—is a jingling set of keys. The sun reflects the aluminium material of it, flashing to Katsuki's eyes like a stop sign.

"The rooftop is prohibited," Yagi-sensei says. His voice is as solemn as the way he carries himself. His English classes are a pain because of it—Katsuki finds Yagi to be a shit teacher, even if his English is excellent. Then again, Katsuki never finds any teacher to not be shit. "I'm afraid I must ask you both to leave."

"I'm sorry, Yagi-sensei," Katsuki hears Deku murmuring behind him, scampering to tidy up his lone picnic for a lunch. "This won't happen again."

Yagi's eyes shift from Deku to Katsuki, as if expecting some meaningless apology or a semblance of manner from the latter. Katsuki doesn't manage any. He looks back right to Yagi's eyes. Daring. Lecture me, I fucking dare you.

A second pass, and then Yagi inclines his head to the side, as if in resignation. "It's all right," Yagi says, eyes returning to Deku. "Though I have an obligation to report this incident, you understand."

Katsuki snorts. He has gone through many incidents in his history as a student, many of which are reported, and none of which have dealt him any real consequences. If they have, Katsuki would get expelled, and no sane principal would expel the student who had brought in dozens of awards every year in all possible fields, educational or otherwise. Certainly not Aldera High's principal.

He spares a last glance to the vase—glass glinting under the sun, washing up the pale yellow of the freesia. "Ain't it nice to finally be a teacher's pet, Deku?" Katsuki says, and watches as Deku's face pales in a second.

Yeah. Does he really think Katsuki wouldn't notice him and that Yagi teacher have been meeting up in secret every chance they got?

Katsuki turns away and stalks for the stairs, brushing past the emaciated teacher without so much a glance, mood sour and stilted. He feels the teacher's eyes, sunken blues, following him as he stomps down the stairs. He doesn't care.

But as he walks back to class, a memory—old and fading, wrinkled at the edges—tugs, an unwanted guest. It could be the closing summer, the blinding blue sky, or the look in Deku's eyes—because Katsuki suddenly remembers. He remembers Deku's voice, the way it sounded, once, airy and excited and full of conviction. The kind of careless, god-given conviction that only children have.

Summers ago. Sandboxes and scraped knees, glittering glass pieces under the soles of red shoes. A flower's broken neck. A ghost of a child from the years gone by.

Kacchan, Deku had said, eyes wide and glittering and bright. There are ghosts here, Kacchan!

i.

"kacchan," izuku said, eyes wide and glittering and bright. "there are ghosts here, kacchan!"

"what'd you say, lieutenant?"

izuku stood up straighter, chest puffed, holding his notes upright against it. "there are ghosts here, captain," he corrected himself, and added a salute as it seemed fit. "sir, captain, sir!"

katsuki nodded, satisfied, hand stroking his non-existent mustache. "good work, comrade izuku," katsuki said, patting his comrade's back paternally. which was only natural, because katsuki was the oldest (and strongest, duh) in their battalion. izuku beamed at him, a front molar missing.

katsuki continued to stroke his invisible mustache, inspecting the horizon ahead. the shiga children park of their neighborhood was, after all, a tricky and savage terrain to be in. death looms everywhere, and the like. "strap on, boys. looks like we got a dangerous voyeur ahead of us."

"i think it's pronounced voyage, kacchan," izuku said helpfully.

"what'd you say, lieutenant?"

izuku saluted. "captain, sir!"

"that's what i thought. second lieutenant tsubasa, how is our engine doing?"

"we are lacking fuel, captain!"

"goddangit all!" said katsuki. it's a phrase that he had only discovered last night while watching an old rerun of detective conan. he had decided that it's a good phrase and would likely be repeating it until his mom put him in time out for it.

"what do we do, captain? oh, we are losing altitube!"

"it's pronounced altitude, second lieutenant tsubasa," said izuku helpfully.

"goddangit all!" said katsuki again. he really liked that phrase. "we got no choice, fellas. we must burn our possessions to substitute for the gas!"

"captain, you are a genius!"

"our food too, captain?"

"that's right!" katsuki proceeded to take tsubasa's half-empty bag of chips and threw them to the playground sandbox—which functioned as their fuel engine, duh. "man up! sacrifices have to be made to achieve success. are we not men? are we not survivors?!"

"aye, captain!"

"louder, men!"

"aye, aye, captain!"

"that's what i thought," katsuki said, haughtily raising his chin, and swiping his cape (which is his mom's tablecloth that he stole and tied to his shirt) in a show of dramatic flair. "lead the way, first lieutenant izuku!"

II.

After the crumpled paper hits the back of Katsuki's head, he turns to look at the perpetrator with the intent to murder.

Instead of begging for his life, the perpetrator bares his teeth in a blinding smile instead. "Lend me a pencil, dude," Kirishima Eijirou whispers—and he is a godawful whisperer, the whole class and their mothers can hear this fucker if they had their ears plugged—from the seat behind him.

Katsuki turns back to his open book after flashing the idiot a middle finger. This, annoyingly, does not deter the aforementioned idiot. The next crumpled paper that arrives on Katsuki's lap, when opened, depicts a crudely drawn picture of a dick-shaped pencil. Classy.

Katsuki passes a pencil to the fucker along with a look that silently communicates if you lose this one again I will string you by the balls you shit-hair motherfucker. In return, Kirishima flashes Katsuki a pair of finger hearts. Katsuki doesn't know what he expected.

The rest of the class is boring, but class is always boring. It's no wonder that these idiots Katsuki calls his classmates (or his classmates that Katsuki calls idiots) are incapable of memorizing the simplest chemical equations when the education system is equal to a back-alley lobotomy.

Fifteen minutes into Japanese, the lesson comes to a halt.

The teacher cuts himself in the middle of an especially ineffective lesson plan. "Yes, Midoriya?"

Heads turn. Katsuki's doesn't, because he doesn't care. But he can still see Deku in his periphery anyway, tucked small in the farthest corner of the class. He can still see the way the nerd fidgets in his seat, squirming under the sudden attention. "Um," voice akin to a drowning mouse. "May I—may I go to the nurse's office, sensei?"

"Are you not feeling well again?"

The again is tacked with a sort of distaste. Katsuki scoffs. Deku's grades have been dropping like rocks, of course the teachers have started to notice—sliding from second place all the way to the fortieth isn't exactly a small slip.

Something was off about the nerd, plain and simple. And as stupid these teachers are, some of them must've caught on.

Not that Katsuki gives a fuck, anyway.

"Um, yes … is that—is that all right?"

"You may go. Do you need anyone to come with you, maybe the nurse's aid can—"

Uraraka stands up from her seat. "Ah, I'm the nurse's aid. Midoriya-kun—"

"Oh—no, no—" for the first time since lightbulb was invented, Deku actually raises his voice loud enough to be heard by the whole class. This results in immediate blush, contrasting ugly with his mess of dark green hair. "No, thanks, I'l—I'll manage alone, Uraraka-san."

That's the most words he has spoken in the entire semester. Deku stumbles from desk to desk to exit the room urgently like the world is ending, and then the class continues. Whatever. Not that Katsuki cares. Not that Katsuki gives a fuck.

Five minutes later, Katsuki excuses himself to the toilet.

Surprise, surprise, Deku isn't in the nurse's room, nor is he in any of the school's restrooms. Katsuki half-runs to the fourth floor, going for the boy's restroom pathway for the rooftop. He won't do it, will he, Katsuki thinks to himself. He won't do it. He's too much of a coward to do it. He won't—

Katsuki pulls himself up to the open space. The chainlink rattles with the plaintive whistling wind. It's the final period before school ends, and the sky is faintly bleeding orange at the edges. The rooftop is empty except for him, and him alone.

Something clenches and unclenches in his chest. Something uneasy and exhilarating all the same. Something he doesn't want to call relief. There is ringing in his ears, and Katsuki tries not to pay attention to how his heart hammers in his ribcage.

Nothing is fucking happening. There is nobody here. Nobody. Deku isn't—

Katsuki doesn't care.

Katsuki climbs back to the bathroom window. On the way back to class, though, he sees him right after getting down to the second floor.

Not just him—them. Katsuki manages to hide before either Deku or Yagi could see him.

The two of them are talking in a hushed voice, in the nook of an empty hallway near the janitor's closet. Katsuki crouches himself behind the stairs and strains his ears to listen.

"—urgent, I know, but I could feel it from all the way here, so I thought—"

"—I understand, but next time, do keep me updated in case—"

"—I know, I'm sorry."

A strained sigh. "It's getting more frequent. Abnormally so. More dangerous. If anything happens to you, my boy—"

"I understand, I'm sorry. Toshinori-san."

Katsuki listens until they're gone. And then he returns to class, heart still pounding in his ears.

He ignores the way the teacher eyes him for his half-an-hour trip to the toilet. He sits in his chair, and attempts to ignore the way Deku's empty seat jumps in his periphery.

What the fuck was that all about?

ii.

"the lady said she likes purple flowers."

"hmm, ok. anythin' else?"

"umm," izuku squinted at his own handwriting in his notebook. "she said she likes tonkotsu ramen too."

"tonkotsu ramen?" katsuki frowned. he counted the coins in his hands—both his and izuku's entire life savings. "goddangit all. we don't got enough money for that."

"'s okay," izuku said, putting his notebook back into the backpack. "she isn't sure if she can still eat anyways."

"things like, pass through 'em, right?" katsuki said. to demonstrate the notion of 'passing-through', he punched the air for good measure.

"mm, not all the time," izuku said. "sometimes i hold their hands."

"cool," katsuki said. and then he stood up—backpack on his shoulders, cape tied securely around his neck. water bottle, check! long stick they found on the sideway a week ago, check! half-full can of pringles, check! they were ready as they will ever be. "c'mon, let's go! i know where we can find some purple flowers!"

tsubasa was sick and hiroki had his cousins coming over so there were just the two of them, but that was fine. it had always been just the two of them when they were visiting each other's houses anyways, and katsuki had had more sleepovers with izuku than anyone else. being with izuku felt as natural as being on his own. "see? there are lots of 'em here!"

"whoa!"

"c'mon," katsuki said, before hastily trotting down the sloped hill to the riverbank.

"wait for me, kacchan!"

"race you to the bottom, slowpoke!"

it was summer, so katsuki took off his shoes and socks and walked into the shallow edge of the river, splashing water around and scaring the fishes. in the meantime, izuku was chattering at high speed, sitting between the tall bushes with his notebook open.

"look, kacchan! these are akizakura flowers!" the flowers, only several shades from pink, were growing rife alongside the stray weeds. katsuki was right—there were a lot of them, covering the river bank like a tarp of soft purples. "they're supposed to only bloom in autumn, but there's so many of them here… that's amazing!"

there was no stopping izuku when he had started, so katsuki let him prattle on, izuku's voice becoming one with the crickets and the ripples of the river. Katsuki tried to catch a fish, and barely caught himself from slipping and falling to his face. naturally, he tried again. "they're called kosmosu in English," izuku attempted to pronounce the word carefully. " kosmosu means cosmos."

katsuki grew bored of his fish-catching endeavor, so he climbed back up to the side of the bank, lying down with his arms as pillows beneath his head. his feet were wet still, dirt and grass clinging on the bottom of it. the sun felt nice when he closed his eyes, warm and yellow-orange-red. "akizakura flowers," izuku said, putting together the flowers he had picked into a tidy bundle. "sym-bo-li-zes 'har-mo-ny.'"

they messed around the bank for another half an hour. after they finally finished the pringles, katsuki followed izuku's lead to the lady's place.

"there," izuku said. he pointed to a spot, right in the middle of the bridge.

katsuki saw nothing. he never did. "what does she look like?" katsuki asked, with some level of excitement. he liked hearing the gory details. "does she still got a head on?"

"yeah," izuku said. "but it looks weird. her skin is all blue and bloaty."

"gross," said katsuki, which meant that he thought it was really cool.

katsuki trailed behind him as izuku walked up to the spot he had pointed and put the flowers on the ground. "she said thank you," izuku told katsuki. "i think she likes them."

"no problem, lady," katsuki said.

"sorry we can't get you tonkotsu ramen," izuku said.

they brought a stick of ice cream on the way home. they only had enough money to buy one, so they broke it into two. katsuki got himself the bigger piece because i'm older than you, izuku, duh!

"we should get a vase next time," izuku said, licking lemon ice all over his fingers. "so the flowers will look nicer."

"yeah, next time," katsuki agreed, lemon all over his mouth. "where we goin' next?"

"umm," izuku peered at his notebook where he'd drawn a map of their neighborhood. the drawing was crude, but detailed. he took off a cap of his pen and drew a green circle over a spot marked bridge. and then his pen moved to another spot, one of the red x strewn all over the map. "this one, i think."

katsuki nodded seriously, stroking his non-existent mustache and successfully smearing even more lemon all over his face. "that's a tricky one, right there. a level three mission, definitely."

"level three," izuku nodded and muttered obediently, writing it down. level three missions required special attention and special commodities, such as sour cream pringles and five different flavored pockies.

"all right!" katsuki wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. "our job is done for today. good work, lieutenant."

izuku scrambled to do a salute. "good work, captain!"

"let's race home!" katsuki declared. "winner gets dibs on the movie choice!"

III.

Katsuki returns with a backhand and the ball is sent flying. He pulls at the collar of his shirt—it's such a hot fucking day—trying in vain to dry some of his sweat. "Love-40!"

Goddamn the sun. It rained the whole day yesterday, and now it's burning like the ninth circle of hell. And god, this game really isn't fucking worth it.

"Nice one, Bakugou!" is the only warning Katsuki got before a cold bottle is pressed against the back of his neck. Katsuki swings back to break the teeth of the perpetrator only for the perpetrator to duck and laugh good-naturedly.

Katsuki truly hates Kirishima Eijirou. Ever since the guy had enrolled to Aldera High, all he ever does is be an obnoxiously cheerful bastard and piss the hell out of Katsuki. "Fuck off," Katsuki replies. He does, however, grab the water bottle and chug it down with fervor.

"You sure gave it to him good, huh?" Kirishima says.

"It's fucking Monoma," Katsuki says, just as Monoma flashes Katsuki a pair of middle fingers from across the field—after throwing his racket to the ground in some dramatic, defeated tantrum. Pathetic. Katsuki honestly hates himself for even doing the match, because going against someone as incompetent as Monoma is just an embarrassment in itself, holy shit. "Anyone's great-great uncle can strike a score against fucking Monoma if they had a fucking stroke."

He throws the now empty bottle back at Kirishima, and pulls on his collar again. Shit, what is it, thirty degrees? Enough to give a bitch a heatstroke. Katsuki glances at his watch. Less than half an hour till P.E's over—

Katsuki barely flinches back as he identifies a blur at the corner of his eyes—and proceeds to, purely by reflex, catch the tennis ball thrown at him with no warning.

Which was thrown by Kirishima, who is the goddamn nobel price awardee at pissing the fuck out of Katsuki. Kirishima grins, challenging. The guy has somehow moved to stand across the field when Katsuki isn't looking, a racket in hand.

"Two rounds?" he prods, with that same annoying, challenging grin. As if he thinks he could win against Katsuki.

And isn't that the most annoying thing of all, the fact that Kirishima might?

Fuck this guy. "One," Katsuki says, and damn him, Katsuki jogs backwards to his spot on the tennis field.

"Loser pays for lunch," Kirishima suggests, pulling his shoulder in a stretch.

"Don't be a fucking kid," Katsuki says, and throws the first serve.

The ball flies high, but it never touches Kirishima's racket—the guy is too busy looking at something to the side of the field instead of playing the goddamn game. Before Katsuki could say what the fuck is what, Kirishima says, voice distracted and surprised, "Isn't that Midoriya?"

Katsuki frowns. "What?" he says, and turns to see.

It's easy to figure out where to look, because there is a small commotion a few good feet ahead. Anyone could recognize the tall, gaunt silhouette that belongs to Yagi Toshinori—the odd part is that the newbie English teacher is holding onto an unmoving, limp body. The wild green hair on the body is identifiable at the first sight.

"Shit, is he okay?" Kirishima says. He sounds concerned, body even moving a little, as if he's about to run there to see what's going on.

Katsuki, meanwhile, finds his own feet to be nailed to the ground. There is a small crowd surrounding Yagi and Deku, he can see that well enough from this distance. Just like the rest of them, Deku is wearing the P.E. uniform. He doesn't seem to be moving. And Katsuki—

"Is it a heatstroke, you think?" Kirishima says, still with that worried tone, and Katsuki can't help but snap.

"Who cares?"

There is a beat where Kirishima whips to look at him, sharp. The confusion in his face quickly turns into a frown. "Why would you say that?" Kirishima says, and for the first time, his voice loses that constant, ever-persistent cheerfulness that Katsuki always hears in it.

Before Katsuki could open his mouth for a reply—whatever it might be—he hears it.

No, no. It's less that he hears it, really, and more like he feels it. The sound so loud, so grand that it reverberates all the way to his damn ribcage.

It's like being under a railway as a train passes through, or an explosion going off—a sudden, thunder-lightning thing that takes Katsuki's brain a long, frozen moment to parse what in the goddamn hell is it that he's hearing. Katsuki is a human. He feels especially very much human, at the very moment, because whatever that was, it sounded like the end of the world.

He stumbles, momentarily disoriented—and then he sees the monster.

He can't make sense of what he's seeing. It's a monster. There really is no other way to describe it. It's monstrous in a way that it's comically so—a huge, terrible, fearsome creature smack dab in the middle of the sports field—its size so colossal that the students around it look like little soldier toys. It's a view straight out of a cartoon, straight from some god awful cgi effect. It's an impossible view.

The world slows down. For a moment, Katsuki wonders if he has turned crazy. If he has gone fucking mental.

"Bakugou?" Kirishima's voice momentarily reaches his ears, before it's drowned out by that sound again. The horrible sound that, apparently, comes from the monster.

The monster opens its mouth—a gaping black in the middle of the blue sky—and howls. An animalistic screech that drowns the beat of his heart, and the air feels like sinews, ruptures in itself—

And no one is doing fucking anything about it.

Katsuki steps back, several steps back, because he doesn't want to fucking die, his human instinct firing up his neurons telling him to run, run, fucking run. But no one is doing anything. People are still frolicking around, the little soldier toys at the feet of the monster. Kirishima is looking at him, questioning, and maybe Katsuki looks several degrees of fucked up because the former looks somewhat concerned. Katsuki doesn't fucking care, because—

"What the fuck is that?" Katsuki says. "Fuck, fuck, what the fuck is that?"

"What?" Kirishima says, looking at Katsuki like he's lost it. Katsuki probably fucking has. "Bakugou, are you all—"

And then there is a blur of movement at Katsuki's periphery, the monster raising its arm—claws, limb, fuck —to swipe through the field like a child on a tantrum. There is a boom. And then little soldier toys are flying like rag-dolls.

And then little soldier toys are screaming bloody hell.

Nothing makes sense. There is dust, so much of them, and a howling sound, and then things are destroyed—the basketball ring falling to the ground with a metallic screech, and then the trees, the fucking ground—

The monster moves. It moves, plowing through the field, shaking the plane like an earthquake. It is an earthquake, and people are running. But still, Katsuki realizes, faintly, feeling out of his own head. Still, no one is looking at it.

No one is looking at the monster. The monster that is coming straight to where Yagi is, holding stubbornly onto Deku's unmoving body.

Katsuki doesn't care.

Katsuki fucking runs.

What happens next, Katsuki only remembers in snapshots. He remembers Kirishima calling out to him. He remembers the wind, the dust, the sutures in the air. He remembered his eyes meeting Yagi's own, the sunken, depressed blue of them, and remembers Yagi telling him to run. He remembers thinking, what a fucking joke, because they're all gonna die, because the monster is fucking right there and Katsuki doesn't know what the hell he's doing. And he remembers looking at Deku in Yagi's arms, glasses crooked down his nose, and eyes wide open and empty, and Katsuki remembers thinking—nonsensical and precariously in hysterics—Deku's dead, I was too late.

And then the monster is right there. A monstrosity of black so black it looks void, an enormity of moving, sinewed, stygian flesh. And it's face isn't a face at all: a bone-white mask in comical shape, as if designed out of a child's depiction of imaginary creatures. And both of its eyes—the negative spaces that's merely an approximation of eyes—are looking right at Kastuki.

And Katsuki knows, if the thing so much as touches him, he would die.

Things like, pass through 'em, right? A voice from years ago, an unearthed memory. A ghost over a bridge, a bundle of purples. Mm, not all the time—

"Kacchan," a voice says.

And it's Deku, of course. Except Deku isn't the one saying it, because Deku is still unmoving in his P.E uniform, mouth and eyes slack, like a corpse in Yagi's arms. The one who is saying it is the Deku standing in front him who just appeared from fucking nowhere, wearing a pitch black kimono and holding a giant fucking sword.

"Deku," Katsuki breathes.

And because it's a day of la la fucking impossibility land, and also probably because Katsuki has gone raving mad, Deku's reply does not make a single lick of sense. "You can see me," Deku says, as if surprised by the fact.

Katsuki is a human. Katsuki is a human, and there is only so much insanity he could take in the span of a second, so despite the broken ground and the catastrophe and the monstrous demon coming to kill them all, the only thing Katsuki manages to say is: "what the fuck are you wearing?"

Deku opens his mouth, as if he's about to answer the stupid question, perhaps with something like, oh, Kacchan, I've always been into fashion, you see or whatever the fuck, but then the monster roars, and the monster is very, very close and therefore the voice is very, very loud—shaking Katsuki's core to the point of deafness.

And then Yagi, who has another Deku in his arm, says, with that somber face of his, "be careful, Izuku."

Katsuki doesn't hear Yagi saying it, because his ears are ringing like crazy, but he could read the man's lips. Be careful. As if Deku is going to—to—what, fight the monster?

He can't hear his own voice either, but Katsuki's mouth moves, and he remembers saying, "Deku, what the hell are you doing?"

Because the craziest, most impossible thing of all, is that that's exactly what it looks like. Deku looks as if he's going to fight the monster. He looks like he's getting ready to maim it with a sword the size of his entire height held in his hands as if it's a baseball bat and the ten-metres fucking monster is a goddamn pinata.

Deku looks back at him, then. Eyes green and clear and bigger than Katsuki remembers without the thick-rimmed glasses. The monster screams and Deku turns his back on Katsuki.

He doesn't answer Katsuki's question, but under the ringing, the roar and the ground falling apart, Katsuki remembers hearing Deku's voice. The voice, Katsuki finds, is unfamiliar. He's never heard that voice coming out from him. A voice distant, soft, and rigid all the same—rife with some kind of conviction. The kind of careless, god-given conviction that only children have.

Sometimes I hold their hands.

"Bankai," Deku says, and the world explodes.

And then, for the first time in his sixteen years of life, Bakugou Katsuki passes out.

iii.

"c'mon, izuku! don't cry, it's embarrassin'," katsuki said. "we aren't children anymore. we're in first grade, y'know!"

"but kacchan," izuku hiccuped. "i'm scared."

"don't say that, that's so la-me," katsuki whined. izuku can be such a kid sometimes. "what're you scared about anyways? it's just class."

"we aren't in the same class," izuku said, somehow sounding petulant even in the middle of sobbing and snotting his nose out.

"so what, stupid? we're still gonna meet up at recess," katsuki pointed out. "we got another mission to do, remember?"

there was a moment of silence where izuku kept quiet, tracing the tiles with his red shoes. "okay."

katsuki understood, then. katsuki sighed. "is there one in your class?"

it's the only explanation—izuku only went quiet when he was really, really scared. the silence held for a few seconds before izuku whispered, "yeah."

katsuki put down his bag and sat beside him. following izuku's example, he started tracing the lines in the tiles with his shoes. "is it real bad?"

izuku nodded. "level five."

oh, that's bad. katsuki went silent for a while. They traced the same line over and over in the tiles for some time, and then katsuki nudged izuku with his shoe. "it's okay, izuku."

izuku didn't reply. he'd stopped sobbing, but his eyes were still red.

katsuki slinged an arm around izuku's shoulders, shaking him gently. "it's okay," katsuki said again. "i'll beat the shit out of the ghost."

"that's a bad word, kacchan."

"a bad word for a bad ghost."

a corner of izuku's lips quirked a little. katsuki bumped izuku's shoulder. "i'll beat the shit out of it."

izuku nodded. which wasn't a sufficient report from his lieutenant, in katsuki's opinion. "hey. i'm your captain, right?"

Izuku mumbles something like a yes. katsuki stood up, putting his hands on his hips as he looked sternly at izuku.

"what was that?" katsuki barked. "i can't hear you, lieutenant!"

"um," izuku said. "aye, sir."

"what is that stance? properly, lieutenant!"

izuku jumped out of his seat to properly give a salute. "aye, sir!"

"louder, lieutenant izuku!"

"aye, captain, sir!"

"that's right," katsuki said, satisfied. "i'll kick any ghosts' ass, because a good captain always protect his comrades, and i'm the best captain there is. ok?"

"ok."

"ok what?"

"ok, captain."

katsuki pointed at izuku. "don't cry, lieutenant! this is an order."

izuku wiped his snot with the sleeve of his uniform. "kay. captain."

"ok," said katsuki, satisfied. "let's go to your class. i'll kick the ghost's ass before first period starts. all the way to hell!"

"that's a bad word, kacchan," izuku told him. but he laughed as he was saying it.

IV.

When he woke up, he was at the hospital.

Katsuki has never fallen ill or broken a bone in his life—the last time he was at the hospital was when he was born, damn it. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy about breaking his record.

Fuckers wouldn't let him go quickly either. They said he had a concussion, and Katsuki said if they kept saying that to him one more time, Katsuki was going to give them a concussion. All in all, no one was happy about him being in the hospital, and it is pertinent to everyone's sanity and percentage risk of concussion to let him go the fuck home.

When Katsuki finally does go home, it is with his mother prattling to his ears like a one woman megaphone army. Really, it's just a little bleeding. Sure, Katsuki doesn't have any recollection of what exactly hit him and made his temple bleed, and yeah, the only memory he has from the incident is Deku fighting against a ten-metres tall monster with a giant sword in hand—but really, really, really. He's fine. He isn't brain damaged and they need to let it go.

He did also leave out the monster fighting giant fucking sword detail when the doctor questioned him, so he really has no idea what the fuss is all about, what the fuck. The doctor also told him to skip school the next day, but fuck that, so he goes anyway.

The entire sports field is under renovation, and the entire incident is written under construction accident. A mis-rigged crane from the neighboring building, falling concrete, gas explosion, this and that. No one died, lots wounded, et fucking cetera.

Ha. Ha.

Katsuki is not crazy.

Katsuki also holds top three grades in the national exam ever since he knew what national exam was, so if he is crazy, he's going to be fucking smart about it. Which is why Katsuki waits several days until Deku has one of his may I be excused to the nurse's room moment before confronting the fuck out of the shithead.

Katsuki figured it out a while ago. Whenever Deku excuses himself out to the nurse's room, he never goes to the nurse's room. He goes, instead, to the storage room on the second floor that nobody ever uses. When Deku opens the storage room's door to find Katsuki waiting in there, the horrified look on his face is pretty fucking priceless.

"Goin' somewhere, Deku?" Katsuki says. "Looking for some paracetamol, maybe? Oh no you fucking don't."

He manages to grip the fucker's hand before he runs away. Katsuki watches several emotions go through Deku's face at once—some familiar, some aren't. Katsuki pays them no mind. "Explain."

"Explain what?" Deku says, one emotion wins the fight and stays on his face: panic. "Kacchan, I need—to go—"

"Go where?" Katsuki says, and scowls at himself for it because hell, what is he, Deku's fucking mom? He lets go of the asshole's wrist. "Cut the shit. What the hell was that?"

Deku's eyes are as flighty as his whole self seems to be, refusing to hold on contact for more than a second. "What was what?"

Right, this is getting old real quick. "The fucking creature," Katsuki says, his voice taking that rough undertone that comes out whenever his temper is starting to heat. "Yagi. You. The other you. Do you need me to draw a fucking chart for it?"

Deku's throat bobs. "Kacchan," Deku says, and there it is—that voice. That aggravating, placating voice that shows up whenever he's going to start bullshitting. Deku's eyes flick to the plaster on the side of Katsuki's temple, and Katsuki's temper flares. "Do you think maybe, um, maybe you're still confused.."

"Stop fucking lying, god damn it, fuck!" Katsuki snaps. "I know what I saw. I saw you, and I saw it. Don't you even try this shit with me. What was that?"

Deku's face does that thing again where several emotions go through it in a painful succession. "I—you— shit," he says, and Katsuki blinks. Did the nerd just curse? And then he does it again: "Damn it. Kacchan, I don't—I don't have time for this. I have to go—"

Deku's words are cut off abruptly, and both of them freeze.

There is that fucking sound again.

There is no doubt about what it is; the recognition deeply imprinted in Katsuki's bones, carved. It's exactly the same sound: a horrible screech, the end-of-the-times trumpets blaring in the falsest of falsetto. "It's here," Deku says, seemingly to no one, and then he—

There is no other way to describe it other than Deku walks out of his own body.

One moment he's still standing, and the next he falls and crumples—like a doll whose strings have been cut—leaving the other Deku, the one with the black kimono and that fucking sword, standing and stepping back. From his own fucking body.

Katsuki has never been made speechless stupid before in his life, but why not? Now seems to be a good time for it.

"What—how— how —"

"You really can see me," Deku—the other Deku—says. He doesn't seem especially pleased about it, more confused and wary. "You aren't supposed to be able to see me."

He even sounds a bit in shock about it, which is insane, because if anyone should be in shock, that person should be Katsuki. Katsuki doesn't have the time or mental capability to examine all of that, however, because he is freaking the fuck out.

"What the fuck?" Katsuki says, for the nth time this minute alone. "What the fuck?"

Deku—the one on the floor of the storage room—looks dead. The same open eyes, the still, definitely-not-moving chest. Dead. Katsuki looks to that Deku to the other Deku. "What the hell is this?"

"It's just my body," he says, which explains absolutely fuck all. "It's—Kacchan, I don't have time to explain," Deku says, as if he didn't just—his body? Holy fuck. "You need to stay here. If you can see me, that means—"

Another horrible howl pierces through the air. And then, and then something changes. Something in the air. Something deep in the marrow of his bones. His lungs constricting in itself again, a sheet of heavy pressure descending just over his heart.

"That means.." Deku's voice is tense, coiled at the edges. He is looking outside the window just next to the wall. "Kacchan, can you … can you see that too?"

Katsuki doesn't have to question what exactly is this that Deku refers to. Because beyond the window, the sky is breaking apart.

Literally.

Katsuki watches, in crushing awe, as the azure blue of the horizon splits and chips. As if the sky is a broken mirror. As if the sky is a paper-mache, two-dimensional thing, now splintering apart from the middle. Chips of clouds and indigos fall away like cheap dried-up paint, and beyond the duplex-thin sky is—

(level five.)

Something. Something gigantic, and bone-white and black-ink, coming right through like a roach through a crack in the wall if the roach is a monster-demon the height of a skyscraper.

"What is that?" Katsuki says, when he finds his voice. Whatever that thing is, it's bigger than anything Katsuki has ever seen.

"A Hollow. A corrupted soul," Deku says. "A Menos Grande."

He might as well be speaking in fucking klingon. "Sure, fuck, whatever," Katsuki says, and laughs, voice all messed up with hysteria. "Shit."

Hell. Katsuki must really have lost his mind. He must really have gone to the deep end, cause that's the only logical explanation there is, or else he'll have to accept that—that the world he's been living in doesn't work the way he thinks it does. He'll have to accept that the world he lives in does not—flash fucking news!—obey the laws of physics at all. He'll have to accept that the world he lives in has a broken mirror of a sky and monsters lurking behind them and people walking out of their bodies and Midoriya fucking Izuku waving around a giant fucking sword.

Who wouldn't rather be crazy?

"Kacchan, listen to me. You're in danger. If you can see them, they can sense you too. I'll get Toshi—Yagi-sensei to get you, and then you both have to hide until it's over."

"You—I'm—" in danger? Yagi-sensei? Deku spoke quickly; words jumbling with each other like a trainwreck, which isn't helpful, because Katsuki wouldn't understand a single thing even if he hadn't. But one thing is clear to him. One insane, deranged thing. "You—are you going to fight that thing?"

Deku, who is in the middle of stuffing the other Deku—which is not the craziest thing that Katsuki has seen—into the storage room, pauses. He doesn't say anything. Holy shit.

"Holy shit," Katsuki says. "You are."

"I have to. It's my duty."

The way he says it, that word—duty. With that same conviction. God-given.

Katsuki doesn't know what to say to that. He can barely process even a fraction of what's happening. The sky is cracking, and Deku is—

"Deku," Katsuki says. "What are you?"

Deku looks at him. He looks like a different person, like this; no glasses, a pair of all-black kosode and hakama pairing with his mess of dark hair. Black on black on black. He isn't even wearing shoes; what he wears is a pair of straw-rope traditional sandals that Katsuki has never seen in real life before. Paired with that sword—the length might as well be his full height, strapped onto his back with blood red ropes—he ought to look ridiculous.

He ought. It should look like some bad cosplay, like he's playing dress-up. But he doesn't. Instead, he looks like he's been plucked from another time—another era.

He looks like he's been plucked from another world.

"Kacchan," Deku says. "I—"

"Substitute Shinigami Midoriya Izuku," a foreign voice says.

Katsuki spins, startled.

The voice is cold, sharp, and the owner of it gives the same impression. It's a guy—a tall guy, with clashingly colored hair. The next thing Katsuki notices is that he is wearing the exact same all-black clothes that Izuku wears. The next, next thing he notices is the nasty scar on the side of his face, angry red skin reaching to his neck. The final thing is that the guy walks like he owns the place. In other words, he walks like he's got a stick stuck up his ass.

Katsuki barely avoids it when the asshole walks right past him, his eyes unmoving on Deku as if Katsuki doesn't exist. "There you are."

"Todoroki-kun," Deku says, eyes flicking back and forth between the asshole and Katsuki.

"We must make haste, Midoriya Izuku," the guy says. There is an old, ancient dialect in the way that he speaks, lilting oddly in his sentences. "All Might is waiting for you. Let us go."

There is a beat where no one makes a move. Deku must be staring at Katsuki again because the Todoroki character turns to follow; a single bright blue eye among scarred tissue, staring at Katsuki as if it's the first time he notices the latter's presence.

An eyebrow is raised coolly. "A Human?" Todoroki says, disinterested. And then, with some sort of muted surprise, "you can see me."

"Who the hell is this jackass?" Katsuki says.

iv.

"tatsumi, pass!"

the ball barely touched the rim of the ring before it swooshed in. three points for his team. katsuki liked winning.

the boys cheered. katsuki grinned, holding his hand up for the upcoming high-fives and fist bumps.

"coach said he's gonna put you up on the school's team."

"no way, that's just for the fourth graders. they won't allow second graders in."

"didn't you see him back then?" tsubasa said. "i bet katsuki can do it. right, katsuki?"

duh. katsuki didn't say it, though, he just shrugged. "maybe," he said coolly.

they played three more rounds, maybe four. katsuki was attempting to spin two balls on top of his fingertips at the same time when he saw a familiar tuft of hair across the field.

he dropped the balls. "oi, izuku!" katsuki waved.

izuku didn't seem to hear him, so katsuki climbed the basketball ring until he got on top of it. he put his hands together in a cone and yelled, "i! zu! ku!"

that seemed to get his attention. izuku looked up. katsuki can't see his expression from this distance, but he grinned when izuku waved back. and then katsuki watched as izuku went back inside his classroom. he must have just returned from the toilet or something.

"you know that guy?" tatsumi said beside him, after katsuki got down. he's trying to spin the ball and failing.

katsuki swiped tatsumi's failed ball when it rolled to the ground. "izuku? sure do," katsuki dribbled behind his back, before shooting for the ring to do a lay up.

the period wasn't over yet, but some of the other kids were running to the cafeteria to buy sodas. katsuki didn't like sweet drinks, though, so he just climbed up the basketball ring again. "he's from class c, right? midorima."

"midoriya," katsuki corrected him, hanging onto a horizontal pipe, kicking his legs in the air. he attempted a pull up. "yeah. why?"

"is it true," tatsumi said, "that he can see ghosts?"

V.

Katsuki rarely ever does not understand things.

Lessons come easy to him. Physical activities like sports are even more of a breeze—one demonstration, and Katsuki's good to go. If there is one thing Katsuki doesn't understand, it's that how it's possible for everyone else to be so fucking stupid.

But this?

Katsuki stares at the cup of tea, now cold, on the table. They served him tea, as if this was a normal fucking conversation. There is a moth flying in abstract circles on the lamp ahead, flickering the light in the room. Katsuki looks up.

"You are a Shinigami," Katsuki repeats. It sounds ridiculous even now, even after everything. Shinigami. "A god of death."

"Not anymore," Yagi says, who then proceeds to sip his own tea.

"Because you gave your Shinigami powers," Katsuki says. "To Deku."

"Yes," Yagi says, and somehow sounds even more solemn than he already is. "I did."

Katsuki could laugh. He's feeling like a dumb child reciting lines from sunday morning cartoons. He could laugh, if his world hasn't just been turned sideways the fuck up. "So Deku is a Shinigami."

"Substitute Shinigami," Todoroki corrects him.

Katsuki has had an awful shit of a day, and he couldn't care less about being corrected by some dick, even if they are a god. "Shit, sorry, was I talkin' to you?"

Todoroki's eyes—the unsettling mismatch set of them—flash something hot. "Know your place, Human."

Yeah, he can keep acting like a fucking anime villain all he likes, as if that'd gain him even a shred of respect. Katsuki sneers. "Or what? You gonna whisk me off to the pearly gates, Shinigami?"

There is a beat where Todoroki's hand twitch, as if he's about to unsheathe the sword strapped to his hip and skewer Katsuki like a satay. He looks out of place, in this room, with his attire and soldier walk, and the strange coloring. Yagi advertised this place as Shinigamis' corner stop in the Living World (whatever the fuck that means), but it honestly just looks like some family shop. It's difficult to take a god seriously when he's leaning next to a dispenser of chupa chups.

"You lack manners and dignity," Todoroki tells him finally, standing upright from where he leans on the wall. His eyes move to Yagi. "This is a mistake, All Might. That Human's memories must be erased. It's protocol."

"We've gone over this, Todoroki-kun," Yagi makes a movement as if he is about to rub his temples, but aborts at the last second. He looks even more sallow under the dim light of the room—washed out and brittle. "Even if we erase his memories, he will still have the Sight—Bakugou-kun's reiryoku is strong enough for that. You understand that leaving him ignorant will be more dangerous than not."

Reiryoku. Their term for spiritual power—honest to god some chi slash chakra kinda shit. The hell. Katsuki slides a hand over his hair, messing it up. Here he is, in a room with two—well, one god of death, and an ex-god of death. How is this his life?

"And my reiryoku is the reason why that thing—" he grits the word out. "That Hollow attacked me?"

If you can see them, they can sense you too.

"Hollows are souls who became corrupted and lost their heart. They eat spiritual energies—Pluses, more often than not," Yagi says. That's another term right there, Plus = ghost. Shit, it's like an entire fucking history lesson. "But at times, yes, Humans as well. Humans with high spiritual energies—above average reiryoku. And in this case.."

Him. Bakugou Katsuki, a fucking ghost buster.

It's a bad joke. A real bad one.

"It doesn't make sense. I never saw.." empty spot, above the bridge. In that blackened house, summers ago. Always an empty spot. "I never saw ghosts before. Deku is the one who—" his words cut itself off again. Katsuki's jaw clenches. "I'm not like Deku. I'm not like him."

"Of course you are not," Todoroki says icily, before he strides across to enter the door at the corner of the room, slamming the shoji behind him.

These people (not people) didn't let him go pass beyond the living room, even after they brought Deku inside. Katsuki didn't ask either.

"Excuse him," Yagi says to the sudden silence. He sounds exhausted. Then again, he always does. "Todoroki-kun is just … worried. Izuku will be fine, however," he adds, and his tone takes a different note—an imitation of reassurance. "You need not be concerned."

Katsuki flicks his eyes to the closed door. Where, he knows, Deku is being healed up with that fucking chi flow doctor old lady or whatever. "That Half-and-half thinks it's my fault."

"It was not your fault."

Katsuki whips his head, heated. "Don't bullshit me," Katsuki snaps. "Don't lie to me. Don't—"

Katsuki clenches his fists. Clench, unclench. Digs the fingers into his thighs. Maybe his hands can stop fucking shaking like that.

It's his fault. Of course it was Katsuki's fault. He was there, damn it, he was there when the huge fucking thing ripped the sky open. He was there when Deku and that Shinigami left him in the hallway, he was there when he—ran outside the school, to the field, to see, he was there when he saw Deku—

When he saw Deku slice the Menos Grande in half like it's a fucking birthday cake.

And after that. Katsuki was there, too, when the Hollows came. Battalions of them, creatures that aren't quite animals with their comic, alabaster masks. He was there when they zeroed in on him like ants to candies. When Deku took the hit for him.

Fuck.

Katsuki's gaze snaps up when Yagi makes another aborted move as if he's going to touch Katsuki's shoulder—another imitation of reassurance. This man can't reassure people for shit, really. Katsuki glares at him, and Yagi's hand falls down, back to his lap. "I do not lie," Yagi says, then. "It was not your fault. It was his duty—Izuku's duty—as a Shinigami."

"And what is that duty, exactly?" Katsuki ignores the way his own voice cracks. "What are you Shinigamis here for?"

"We are Balancers. We purify Hollows—the corrupted souls—when needed. We help souls to cross safely to Soul Society, where they wait to be reincarnated. We protect you, Humans," Yagi takes the cup of tea from the low table, brings it to his lips. "It is our duty," he repeats. "It's Izuku's duty."

Katsuki rarely ever does not understand things. Abstract concepts like life and death and the incorporeal are not meant to be understood. His stance on abstract concepts is just that—they're abstract. It's unnecessary to accept or deny abstract concepts, because in the end, they are concepts. But this?

This?

Life and death and after-life and ghosts and gods and monsters. Hollows and Soul Society and Shinigamis. Gods of Death. What the fuck has Deku brought himself into? And what in the world has Katsuki—

"It doesn't make sense," Katsuki says, hating that he is repeating himself like some bumbling idiot. "It doesn't make sense that I can—I'm not like him."

Yagi watches him carefully above his cup. "Every living being has reiryoku. Most of the time, it's constant. But it can fluctuate—evolve. When I gave Izuku my powers.." he trails. "That is one example. After an extreme contact with the spiritual, it may trigger that evolution."

He puts down his cup. Eyes cast down. "It's rare for Humans to have a high spiritual power. It's even rarer for Humans to become Shinigami. Sometimes anomalies happen. A Shinigami that is also a Human … may affect their surroundings to a certain degree."

After an extreme contact with the spiritual, it may trigger that evolution. "You are saying Deku infected me with this ghost business." As if it's a fucking flu.

Katsuki never would've thought that he could be surprised after everything that happened that day, but then Yagi laughs. It's the first time Katsuki has seen him laugh—first time Katsuki has seen him smile, even, ever since he showed up as a new teacher all those months ago. It's a little unnerving—he didn't think the man was even capable of it.

Yagi's laughter is a fragile, pallid sound. It stops with a painful cough, and then silence, mouth downcast. Depressing mode activated again. "That is certainly one way to put it, child," he says. "Yes. If another human is in close contact with a Substitute Shinigami for an elongated time, their reiryoku might be affected, which gives them the Sight."

There are questions. There are a lot of questions. Things don't make sense—the afterlife part, mostly, and the whole ghosts and gods and monsters exist part. Nothing makes sense. But what comes out of Katsuki's mouth, stilted and rough, is this: "Deku and I aren't close."

Yagi watches him, still. It makes Katsuki uncomfortable. It makes him angry, too, but he is too exhausted to be angry, so it just leaves the uncomfortable part, which fucking sucks. What comes next makes it worse.

"Is that so?" Yagi says, soft. "You are the only person I have ever seen him talk to in school."

Way worse.

Katsuki doesn't reply. Can't. Doesn't want to.

Katsuki doesn't know how he's supposed to go home with all of this. With all of this information, with this new fucked up perspective on the world. Goddamn, fucking congratulations to Katsuki, huh? Lucky him. The great, big question of What Happens After You Die answered within half-an-hour crash course on after-life from his fucking english teacher, of all people.

Shit. What the hell is Katsuki supposed to do with that? How is he supposed to go home carrying the Secret of Universe and staying fucking sane? How is he possibly going to explain to his mother the reason why he's going home at one in the morning from a Shinigami's house? Both questions seem equally urgent, because apparently, that's just life.

"Rest well," Yagi says, when he walks Katsuki outside. As if Katsuki just went to his house for something mundane like tutoring and not because he was in a battle of life or death with supernatural creatures, fuck. "Izuku will be fine."

He must have said that a dozen times. At first, Katsuki thought that was to assure Katsuki, but now, it's starting to sound like Yagi is trying to assure himself. He has no idea which one is worse. Katsuki isn't sure if things are ever going to get better around here.

He left his bag in school, no idea what happened to it. Another thing he has to somehow explain to his mom. Shit, it's funny. You could have your entire worldview changed, your entire life flipped upside down, and you still will have shit to explain to your mom. You still gotta go to school the next goddamn day.

Life doesn't make much sense at all, Katsuki has found out. Both its priorities and its after-life politics.

Katsuki doesn't answer, walking out of the door like an idiot in silence. Yagi watches him quietly, as Katsuki walks out of his porch. And then he says, "don't worry. You are under our protection, now. I'm sorry we brought you into this."

Katsuki turned to look at him. It's never there before when he taught, but now there is that accent, too, in Yagi's speech—a strange, olden way he pronounces his words. God of death, he said. How old is he? Do gods age? Were they—

"Were you human?" Katsuki says. "Before this?"

Yagi smiles again. A dim thing, but genuine, as if Katsuki just said an inside joke. The smile shutters out quickly, like flickering neon.

"I am Human, child," he says. "Those who are not were all Humans too, once."

v.

"here."

mom looked up from her magazine. "ah. test results?"

"yep."

"these are good," she said, putting down her magazine and flipping through the exam papers. "good job."

katsuki snorted. "it's borin' is what it is."

"careful now, your head can't afford to get any bigger than that. where are you going, brat? you just got home."

"play."

"with?"

katsuki glanced at her, annoyed by her nagging. "goin' to yamada's house. with tsubasa and the rest."

"come back before dinner."

"can just eat dinner there," katsuki mumbled. "food tastes better anyway."

"say that again and you can say goodbye to dinner anywhere," she retorted.

she didn't mean it, katsuki knew. she never did. "fine."

"Your shoes are getting too small," she took note, walking to the porch to see him off. so unnecessary.

"just a little."

"we'll have to buy a new pair soon," she said. "or i can just buy one for you. you want red again?"

"huh?"

"red shoes. you wanna twin with izuku, right?"

oh. that. katsuki shrugged in the middle of tying his shoes. "i don't really care."

"haven't seen that kid in a while. ask him to come by sometimes, will you?"

"maybe," katsuki said.

VI.

It's none of his business, that's one. None of it.

Okay, so a part of Katsuki's brain has been rewired somehow (he refuses to believe in the reiryoku shit), and he can see ghosts now. So fucking what? It's not like he's become a telepathic mutant clairvoyant overnight, has he? It's not like seeing ghosts is something he can put down on his resume, or something that will help him get a scholarship in Tokyo University. And these Hollows motherfuckers—demonic supernatural beings or not, Katsuki isn't gonna let them stop him from getting a scholarship in Tokyo University.

So. He gets home, gets yelled at by his mother—the worst one of her sessions, so far—and the next day, he goes to school. And the next. And the next after that. And the next after the next. Business as fucking usual.

If there are people-who-aren't-actually-people with chains hanging from their chest and bloody clothes loitering around in the street crying over their deaths, well, fuck them. They are none of his business, for sure.

And if Deku keeps skipping school for three days a week and cutting classes, that's none of his business either.

And most importantly: Katsuki doesn't care. Right? No shits given. Not a single fuck. So, if Deku wants to—wants to get fucking expelled and become a full-time god of death slash demon slayer or whatever—then fuck, right? Let him fuck up his career prospects all he wants. Katsuki doesn't care. He doesn't.

"We need to talk," Katsuki says.

Yagi looks up from his lunch—a meagre bento with very little rice—and stares at him with those depressing fucking eyes. "Bakugou-kun."

The entire teacher's room goes silent—it has been so since Katsuki stomps into the place without so much a knock. Yeah, they can look all they want; Katsuki has been doing them the favor of raising the school's prestige since he was six. What are they gonna do, scold him on the importance of etiquettes?

"Now," Katsuki insists.

Ex-god of death, huh? Katsuki isn't sure if he can see it. Most of all, Yagi Toshinori just looks like a very exhausted man. Tall and gaunt and sunken.

"Did you have questions about last period's worksheet, Bakugou-kun?" Yagi says, his voice mild.

Yagi leads him to an empty class. They can still hear the laughter and chatter of other students mid-recess, faint through the thin wall. "Well?" Yagi says, closing the door behind him. The class they are in is an unused, old one; the chairs and desks battered, and they still use blackboards, one written with chalk. "Anything I can help with your homework, Bakugou-kun?"

"Where is he?"

The light in the classroom is off. What little sunlight slipping from the curtains shine dusts in the air. Yagi walks to sit at the teacher's desk, heavy and weary, as if it takes much effort for him to stand for too long.

"The matters of after-life," Yagi says to the silence, "are not something of a concern to a Human."

"Funny you should say that," says Katsuki. "When you're a human yourself."

Yagi pauses. That's what he told him, isn't it. He was once a Shinigami flavored human, and now he's just human flavored human. And he does look like one: he looks human, and old, and tired.

"Well?" Katsuki says.

Yagi sighs. "Izuku and I—and our predecessors … we are different. We are a necessity."

Katsuki frowns. "Predecessors?" he repeats, slowly.

"There is one in every generation," Yagi says. "A Human god of death. There has to be. One Human to hold One for All. And in this generation, that Human is Izuku."

"One for All?"

"One for All," there is a veneration there, in those three words. "It's the name of our power. Our Shinigami power, to be passed down when the time comes."

Something in the way he says it. There has to be. With some kind of conviction. And something else that Katsuki doesn't like.

Because let's face it—it's pretty obvious that the man is dying.

Really, reiryoku or not, anyone can see that. From the way he walks, the way he speaks, hell, the way he breathes. Even his shadow seems thin and greying, as if his existence isn't quite solid enough to leave traces in this world. In any world. Yagi looks like he is fading, and he is doing so rather quickly.

"What happened to you?" Katsuki says.

This earns Katsuki a slight, woeful smile. And maybe Katsuki can see it, just a little. Like this, in the dark shade of the room, the sparse and decrepit daylight slipping through the curtains—Yagi Toshinori could, perhaps, once be a god. A forgotten one.

"You are a bright child, though I'm sure you have been told that many times. Many times," Yagi pauses. And then he says, "Shinigamis, they are made of death. But Humans are life itself. Which makes us Human Shinigamis … very powerful. And therefore needed."

That day. Deku, high in the fractured sky. Green sparks racing along his blade, cutting the monster in half like it's nothing.

Katsuki thinks he knows where this is going. "You passed down your powers to Deku. Someone passed down their powers to you too.."

"That's the only way to create us."

Create us, he said. As if they were a thing.

Katsuki understands, then, what it is he doesn't like about Yagi's voice. There is an emptiness there, an impression of something being given up. It makes Katsuki sick. "One every generation, you said," Katsuki says. His heart hammers in his chest, due to some unfathomable reason. A bad instinct. "How long exactly … is a generation?"

There are several seconds of silence, before Yagi speaks. "Including Izuku and I," he says, voice a wisp, "there have been nine Substitute Shinigamis throughout time."

Katsuki stares. "Nine?"

Just nine of them? Throughout time?

"Shinigamis last for a very long time," Yagi says. Last, Katsuki notices; not live. "That stays true for us Subtitute Shinigamis … in our time as one, of course."

And he isn't one anymore. Katsuki isn't fucking stupid. He knows what that means, and Katsuki has never been one to bullshit. "How much time do you have left?"

"Not enough," Yagi says.

Right. Of course. That's why Deku is in this shit in the first place, isn't it? So fucking simple. They just needed a replacement, and the nerd won the fucking main character lottery.

Katsuki thought he could handle it, he really did. But the enormity of it all hits him like a truck. He steps back, leaning on one of the battered student's desks. The matters of after-life are not something of a concern to a Human. It's true, of course. It's true.

This is what Deku has brought himself into. Something beyond a teenager, beyond life.

The bell rings, signaling recess to be over. Neither of them move. "So what," Katsuki says, when he finds his voice. "Deku is off fighting some evil warlord, or something? Off to save the world?"

What a bad joke.

"As is his duty," Yagi says.

vi.

"look. that's him, right?"

katsuki looked. it's izuku. he's sitting alone at the corner of the cafeteria, scribbling in his notebook, head held down. his bento was next to it, untouched.

katsuki looked away. "yeah."

the boys looked at each other, and then looked at him, silent. waiting for his next move.

katsuki rolled his eyes. "it's not that interestin'," he said. but he stood up anyway, and walked over to izuku's table.

izuku brightened up the moment he noticed katsuki walking towards him. the moment he noticed the boys following behind katsuki, though, his smile faltered a little.

"hey, kacchan," he said. voice small. "been a while."

"hey," katsuki said. he pulled a chair and sat next to him. the rest of the boys sat around the table, snickering with each other.

"whatcha got there?"

"um," izuku said. He smiled politely to tatsumi, fingers closing his notebook quickly. "just. some, um, drawings."

"well, give us a look then."

"oh," izuku jolted and stared, shocked, when the book was snatched from him.

the other kids passed the book to each other, laughing. "what the hell is this?"

"'vol. 13'? holy shit, have you got twelve more of this thing, midoriya?"

"look at this, bakugou. there is a map, here," the boys laughed, as if it was so hilarious. "and mission levels. oh my god."

"give it back, please," izuku said. his cheeks were red. "it's mine."

"that's okay, izuku, they're just borrowing it for a while," katsuki said. he put an arm around izuku's shoulders. "they're just playing around."

"but—"

katsuki grinned at him. "you don't mind, right?"

"hey, midoriya, i think you're real talented at this," someone said.

"how did you even think up all this stuff?" they laughed.

izuku swallowed. "i'm.."

"they're just playing around," katsuki repeated, shaking izuku's shoulders in a roughhouse. "we're friends, aren't we?"

izuku looked at him. blinked. "okay," he said, quietly. and smiled.

he didn't really say anything else throughout the lunch. if he had, katsuki didn't remember.

VII.

After school, Katsuki finds him—unsurprisingly—on the rooftop.

The air is dry and crackling—summer vacation closing in soon and fast, hot even in the evening. Around them, the blue of the sky is tinged orange.

Deku makes no move, or sound, as Katsuki approaches him. Doesn't even look at him. He doesn't show any indication that he is aware of Katsuki's presence at all, in fact, until Katsuki stands close enough to hear him speak.

"You can see her now, can you?" Deku says, abrupt into the silence. "Her name is Togeike-san."

"Oh, can he, now?" says the girl with the fucked up face and a link of brittle chains jutting out from the chest of her bloodied uniform. "Well, that's rather rude of you not to say hi, don't you think?"

She is sitting on top of the chain link fence, swinging her feet back and forth like a child, peering down at him like he's a show. Katsuki swallows. He keeps his eyes on Deku, ignoring the ghost—the Plus. "Deku—"

His words are cut off with an involuntary start. One second, she is at the edge of the roof, and the next she is right in front of Katsuki, grinning from ear to ear. Katsuki struggles not to step back.

She doesn't have a physical body, Katsuki knows that much, but he could almost smell the iron and the rust and the rot coming off her. Her hair must have been chestnut brown, once; now it's matted with clotting blood so thick it looks black.

"Isn't this a party," says Togeike. When she smiles, her teeth are shown ruined, blood all over the gums and cracked molars. Katsuki tries not to look at her, even though she's right in front of his face. "It's so lonely up here. Midoriya-kun is the only one I got to talk to, y'know? A girl gets bored."

There is a disturbing way in the way they move, these ghosts. These Pluses. They don't look incorporeal, and they are certainly not see-through as ghosts are advertised in films and shows. They look opaque enough, solid enough—realenough at first glance. The telltale sign, Katsuki has noticed from the past few days, is the static, undulating air radiating off their skin. The way the atmosphere ruptures and blurs, as if reality is just ever slightly distorted around them.

These Pluses are more disturbing than Hollows. At least Hollows look like monsters, clear and simple. At least Hollows don't look like what's left of a high school girl after falling a twelve-metres height to her death.

"You can call me Togeike-san too if you'd like. Midoriya-kun called me Togeike-senpai, at first," Togeike says, her voice a sweet, raspy alto. "But then I told him, aren't we technically peers? I killed myself when I was his age, after all."

"Togeike-san," Deku says. "Be nice."

The air distorts once more as she walks backwards away from Katsuki's face, skipping even, laughter bubbling out of that messed up mouth. Her laugh is a gleeful, teenage sound—it rings loud enough that it should echo in the open plane of the rooftop, but it doesn't. Her voice does not exist in the physical world.

"See you later, if you're unlucky enough," she says, cheerfully waving broken fingers at him. She is missing a pinky and a ring finger. She laughs again at whatever look is on Katsuki's face, and then she's gone.

"You shouldn't show her you're scared," Deku says. "She likes it. It makes her worse."

"I'm not scared," Katsuki snaps. Deku doesn't answer.

Katsuki's heart still hammers in his chest. He pretends it doesn't. He breathes. "Her chains," Katsuki says. They're falling apart—almost gone entirely. Yagi has told him what that means: a sign of a corrupted soul. "She—"

"She's going to turn into a Hollow soon," Deku says. "I know. What do you want, Kacchan?"

Katsuki stares at him. It's jarring to hear that voice out of Deku. A voice that sounds like he doesn't give a fuck anymore. An emptiness that makes Katsuki feel sick.

Deku is sitting still, back against the fence at the edge of the roof. His backpack is beside him, despite skipping every period today, and he isn't wearing any glasses. Doesn't seem to be doing anything at all either. Just leaning against the fence, looking to the side—to the sky. It's steadily growing red, the sky.

There is something unsettling about this moment that Katsuki can't put a finger on. Something cold at the pit of Katsuki's chest. A bad instinct. Katsuki's jaw flexes, and he puts his bag down from one shoulder, unzips it, and tosses Deku a notebook.

Deku catches it with ease that Katsuki never saw before. That ease disappears, though, as he lowers his hand, and his eyes flick up to Katsuki for the first time in this conversation. "What's this," he says, a familiar wariness slipping back to his voice. When Katsuki doesn't answer, Deku looks down and flips through it. Slowly at first, and then faster. And then he says, bewildered, "these are lesson notes."

"Look at that, you still know what notes look like," Katsuki snarks. He zips up his bag and hoists it up to his shoulder, movement quick and tense.

Deku looks up, stares at him. He says, voice sounding so bewildered you'd think someone just told him ghosts existed, "Kacchan, have you been taking notes for every lesson I skipped?"

"You're fucking welcome," Katsuki says, and fuck, fuck fuck. He hates this. Hates this with every inch of his skin, so much that his mouth feels acidic. Katsuki spins and turns to leave and—

"I'm quitting school."

Katsuki stops in his walk. He turns back, eyes wide.

Something unsettling again; cold and uncomfortable slipping between his ribs like a knife. He stares. Deku is standing now, eyes calm and looking straight back at Katsuki. Silent. As if waiting, waiting for Katsuki to—

"What? " Katsuki says. His voice echoes in the open plane of the rooftop, sharp and angry. "Quitting school? God damn it, what the hell is wrong with you? You can't just—"

"You actually care," says Deku, wonder in his voice. "Huh."

That shuts Katsuki up. Speechlessness isn't something that Katsuki would like to get used to. He grits out, low and furious, "I don't care. I just—"

Katsuki's words petter out, abrupt.

"Just?" Deku says, into the sudden silence. "Just what?"

Just what?

He doesn't know. He has no fucking idea. "Shut up," Katsuki snarls. "I don't have to explain myself to you, asshole. You can take it or throw it away or shove it up your ass for all I—"

"What are you trying to do, really?" Deku says, cutting him off once more. That voice again—empty and jarring. "Kacchan. Why are you being nice to me?"

Nice? He has got to be joking. Katsuki's fists clench, unclench. "You need to learn to shut the fuck up."

"Toshinori-san told me," he continues, as if Katsuki never spoke, "that you can see them because you were influenced by my reiryoku."

"Yes, it's your fault that I'm in this fucking mess," Katsuki retorts, harsh. "What, you want a thank you card for it?"

"He also told me that was only possible because we were in close contact for a certain amount of time," Deku says, and holy shit, it makes Katsuki sick how calm his voice is. So calm that it sounds unfeeling. "I thought it was funny. We both know how much you hate me."

"Congrats, you have working fucking eyes."

"So then," Deku tilts his head. "Why have you been following me, Kacchan?"

Katsuki ignores, ignores the blood rushing in his ears, the pulse jumping in his wrist. "What the fuck are you talking about."

Deku walks forward.

Katsuki flinches—a reflexive movement, out of his own volition—as Deku closes the distance between the both of them with an unexpected speed.

They aren't quite eye to eye. Katsuki has always been taller than him, but at this sharp, serrated moment, Deku is unshrinking —eyes wide and dark and something shockingly empty. "You know exactly what I'm talking about," he says, voice quiet. He's paler than Katsuki remembers—even the sunlight washes his freckles out. "You've been following me. At recess. After school, sometimes. Why?"

"I don't—"

"You really think I wouldn't notice?"

"You—"

"Are you scared I'm going to jump off the roof?"

Katsuki pushes him away.

He doesn't even think about it—his hands moved on its own, in a fit of panic or anger or whatever else emotion he doesn't have the capacity to parse. He pushes with all his strength, as reflexes do, and he meets no resistance at all: Deku stumbles backward before losing his balance, falling down in a rough thump.

It looks almost deliberate. Deku didn't even look like he tried to keep standing.

Katsuki isn't sure when he's started shaking, but he is—roughly and violently. "Shut up," he says. "Shut up."

He figures out what's the unsettling thing that's been plaguing his guts the moment he stepped into the roof, then. It's the jarringness. The unfamiliarity. The realization that he doesn't recognize this Deku.

This Deku, who stays down on the tiled floor of the roof, looking up at him with dark, wide eyes. Empty and numb, an impression of something being given up.

"It's been a while since you've done that to me," Deku says, eyes steady. "Why don't you throw in a punch or two as well? Take your frustration out, Kacchan. Just like the old times."

"You.." Katsuki's mouth is dry. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"That's not what you asked back then," Deku says. "What you asked was. What am I?"

Katsuki watches, in some horrified silence, as Deku proceeds to get up, dusting away his uniform as he does so. Casually. "I think you know, though. You know what I am," Deku continues, taking his glasses out of his pocket and wearing them. They don't quite hide the empty eyes, those glasses. "Go on, Kacchan. Call me a freak like you used to."

Katsuki doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know why he feels so fucked up. Why he feels sick to his stomach. Why he's so angry he's sick. Why he's so, so—

"Fuck you," Katsuki says, and he hates how his voice shakes like a bitch. "Fuck you." Katsuki turns to leave.

Katsuki is walking away—hand gripping the strap of his bag so tight his knuckles white—when Deku speaks again behind him. "I offered to send her off."

Katsuki doesn't turn back. Deku continues, anyway, voice getting smaller as Katsuki walks farther and farther. "Togeike-san, I mean. But she refused. She doesn't want to move on. She wants to turn into a Hollow."

On the walk home, knuckles scraped and bleeding from lashing out at some unsuspecting brick wall, Katsuki realizes, suddenly, the reason why Deku has been staying on the roof. He is waiting for the Plus to turn into a Hollow.

And when she does, he'll destroy her.

As is his duty, Yagi's voice says, in Katsuki's head. Somber with some god-given conviction.

vii.

"here, right?"

"yeah," izuku said. "um.."

"pass me the flashlight!"

"whoa, this place is gross.."

the other boys laughed, exploring the insides of the burned house. the first floor was overall still intact, if charred beyond recognition. the house had a second story but the stairs seemed too messed up to put into use.

"c'mon, izuku," katsuki said, slinging an arm around izuku's shoulders to push him along. the guy was trailing behind the rest like a lost duck. "isn't this fun? we haven't done one of these in a while."

izuku smiled, mouth twisting. his glasses made him look different—smaller. but izuku had always been small. "yeah."

"hey, midoriya. where is it? the ghost."

"um," izuku said. he seemed nervous. probably cause he didn't know the others that well, different class and all. "he's in the bathroom."

"which one's the bathroom?"

all the rooms looked the same—black and filthy and falling to ruins. it smelled like coal everywhere. "um, it's just this way."

izuku led them to a small space that once might have been a bathroom, and then he took out something from his bag. katsuki stared. it's a vase. a transparent glass vase.

izuku walked inside—his red shoes a stark color against the blackened tiles—and then he put the vase under what might have once been a shower head. there was a flower inside it—a single yellow freesia.

the kids giggled behind katsuki. katsuki ignored them. he said, "where's it?"

there was a pause before izuku answered. "there is a kid," izuku said. his voice was quiet. "right there."

he pointed at an empty spot on the corner of the room, right where he had put the vase.

the laughter died down. the room was dark—the only source of light was a couple of dim flashlights some of the kids brought over. it was dark, dirty, and a little cold.

"that's creepy," someone said. someone else laughed at that, but it was awkward and short.

katsuki ignored them. "how does he look like?"

"i don't think he likes us being here."

katsuki rolled his eyes. "c'mon, don't be such a pussy," he snapped. "what does he look like, izuku?"

"all burnt up," izuku said. "he's—he's crying. but he doesn't have a throat."

the room was suddenly quiet. katsuki's heart jumped in his chest.

izuku took a step back. "he doesn't like us being here," izuku repeated. "i think we should go."

there was an expression on his face. something katsuki knew well.

"kacchan," izuku said. "i don't—i don't like this."

"i'm not scared," katsuki said. "tatsumi. give me it."

tatsumi passed him the lighter.

no one said anything. no one except izuku, staring at him with that look on his face. a familiar look.

fear. izuku was scared.

"kacchan," he said. "what are you doing?"

"this place is burnt up, anyway, right?" katsuki said. he flicked the lighter open, a single lick of fire lighting up the room. "why don't we burn it down one more time?"

VIII.

It doesn't look like a Hollow, and neither does it look like a Plus.

It looks, instead, like a man. A young man, wearing normal clothes, even. He wouldn't look out of place if he were going to a fucking shopping mall. What sets him apart is the horrible scars; the fucked up, blue-purple marring what's visible of his skin, as if someone burnt his entire body and tried to put him together by stitches of pins. The scars and the mask framing half his face off-setting the dark hair, bone white just like a Hollow's.

And the hole in his chest, its shape a perfect circle.

"I don't feel good 'bout this, y'know," it—he says, his voice a tenor drawl. "I don't exactly enjoy killin' a kid. But oh, well … orders are orders, y'know?"

"Eat shit," says Katsuki, but it comes out as a pathetic wheeze instead. He coughs, tries to breathe, head spinning. Well, he's always wanted to know how being thrown against a lamp post by a supernatural being would fucking feel like. The edges of his vision are blurring, tinged blue with heat and stinging pain.

"No hard feelings, buddy," the creature says. And would you look at that, the blue isn't Katsuki's imagination after all—the creature's hands are covered entirely with them; blue flames licking along his ruined skin, distorting the air around them. "Just business, yeah?"

So he says, with his mouth grinning ear to ear with sick, unrestrained glee. Whatever this guy is—whatever being he is—one thing is clear: the guy is a real sick fuck.

Right. So this is how Katsuki is going to go. Dying from getting lit on fire by some emo looking ass guy wearing a fucking leather jacket. Dying on the way home from a fucking grocery run, of all fucking things. God. A thought that has never once crossed his mind before in his short sixteen years of life appears: my life is a fucking joke.

"Step back," a rigid, familiar voice says, "Dabi."

The world bursts with a wave of unbearable heat and frost. Katsuki gasps, and looks up to find Todoroki standing in front of him, hand at the hilt of his sword.

"Oh?" drawls the creature. Dabi. "What an honor it is to be known by you, Todoroki Shouto."

Todoroki Shouto's eyes narrow into slits. "Arrancars are nothing but Hollow filth," he says, voice as flat and undisturbed as ever. "Your likes know no honor."

"Aw," Dabi says, mirthful. An Arrancar—whatever the shit that is. He points at the emptiness in his chest. "That hurts me. Right here."

"Go to Hell," Todoroki replies. Under the moon and the street-lights, his blade looks as snow white as half his hair. "Pierce the heavens—"

Todoroki unsheathes his sword—bright white like lightning—and the night breaks in glaciers.

Bakugou Katsuki is human. He feels very much human, like this, right where he does not belong.

This isn't his place, not here, not between the battle of gods and damned monsters, between the heat and frost of fire and ice. Between violence beyond flesh, marrow and bone. He doesn't belong here. He isn't made for it.

And what can he do? What can people—humans—do, in face of the divine and the absolute wretched? What can he do?

Nothing. He can do nothing but watch.

"Todoroki," Katsuki says, hoarse. Katsuki watches, with terror, at the way Todoroki's hands shake as he holds on to his blade. "Fuck. Stop. Stop, he's—" stronger than you.

"Silence," Todoroki snaps at him. The Shinigami spits blood to the ground. Red, just like a human's. "Stay here. Don't move."

Shinigamis are made of death, Yagi had told him. He didn't tell Katsuki that even death can bleed.

"What is it, Todoroki Shouto? Feelin' a little cold, are we?"

"Shut the fuck up, you Arrancar piece of shit," Todoroki says, voice pitched low into a growl. Katsuki recognizes that tone, the temper underneath it—Todoroki has lost his composure long ago. Anger is stark on his face, evident in the eyes. Hateful eyes. Just like their blood, a god's anger does not look that much different from a human's either.

Dabi laughs in response, bright, jolting into the night. He looks less and less like a human, now, silhouetted by the moon, circled by his fire. Blue like gas flame, reflected over his damaged skin and scars like refractions on broken glass.

"I've always wanted to meet you, y'know," he says, voice slick with delight. "You don't have to die here, though. My order was just to kill all Humans with high reiryoku," he smiles, teeth white as his mask. "If you beg, maybe I'll let you off half-alive. How 'bout it, Shinigami?"

"You repulse me," says Todoroki.

"And you disappoint me," Dabi retorts with a despondent sigh, as if Todoroki is being a difficult child. "Your ice isn't much, I see. Shame. To think that your daddy is famous for his fire.."

The air frosts over from Todoroki's mouth as he speaks. "Shut the fuck up."

Dabi laughs. The more riled up Todoroki gets, the happier he seems to be. "You look just like him when you're angry, did you know that?"

"Fuck you," Todoroki snarls, raises his blade. "Bankai!"

Shinigamis last long, Yagi said. Long, but not forever. Katsuki should've asked that, he thinks faintly—he should've asked what would happen if a god of death dies.

"Todoroki. Shit," Katsuki says, after the flame dies out and the ice melts out of existence. His voice strains in a pathetic tremble. "Todoroki."

Todoroki doesn't answer. Doesn't move. Katsuki tries to get closer, but his knees are fucked—he stumbles back down, so he fucking crawls over. Katsuki can't see his face, from where Todoroki is crumpled in the ground like torn, discarded paper. What he can see is the bloodied white of Todoroki's hair blending together with the red.

"Welp, that's it, I guess," Dabi says, putting his hands together in a blithe clap. "Time's up, Human! Oh, don't look so down, kid."

He walks towards Katsuki like a predator to prey; stalking and frighteningly animal. "Death isn't all that bad. If you're lucky, you might even turn out like me."

Katsuki spits at him. Dabi laughs at that. And then he backhands him.

Katsuki gasps, cheek burning hot where it received contact—a burst of hot-white, numbing pain. Katsuki has seen the creature destroy concrete with just a flick of his hand—the strength he used to hit Katsuki must be nothing compared to it, given the fact that Katsuki still has a head. A head that is currently pounding painfully to the point of nausea.

"Oh, that's cute," beyond the ringing in his ears, the creature's voice slips through, echoing oddly in ripples. Vision swimming, Katsuki makes out a row of grinning teeth aimed at him. "You still got spunk in you, eh? I can respect that."

He doesn't look like a Human, now, to Katsuki's eyes. At all. He doesn't feel like a human, a pair of eyes glowing in the dark, looking at Katsuki with some kind of carnivore hunger as he crouches down to Katsuki's eye level.

Hollow filth, Todoroki had said. Katsuki can see it now; despite the human exterior. This man—creature—is a Hollow.

"Y'know," Dabi says. This close, Katsuki can see how sharp his canines look, how his mouth stretches inhumanely wide when he smiles. "Your reiryoku ain't much, really … but it's been such a long time since I've eaten a Human, y'see."

Katsuki is human. He never feels so human until the moment he is eye to eye with a monster.

"I was thinkin'," the monster grins. "Maybe I'll have myself a little supper."

"You won't," Deku says.

The creature spins, blue flames lit once again, but it's too late. There is a flash of light—and then Katsuki finds himself to be staring right into Deku's eyes. Deku's wild eyes, full of panic and something crazy.

Katsuki is faintly aware of Deku's hands gripping his shoulders—mainly because his grip is so tight it hurts. It takes him a slow moment to realize, distantly, that Deku is checking him for wounds as if Katsuki is some kind of—some kind of damsel in distress.

Him, Bakugou Katsuki, Damsel in Distress. Holy fuck, this is his life now, how pathetic is that?

"God, Kacchan, are you all right," Deku's voice is as strained and crazy as the look in his eyes, but he seems unhurt. If crazy. "Are you.."

His words trail into a stop. Katsuki knows why—Deku's eyes are focusing on something behind them: the unmoving body on the ground. Deku says, voice cold with shock, "Todoroki-kun..?"

"Ahh … if you're here, then that means … Himiko failed, huh?"

Whatever kind of attack that Deku dealt doesn't seem to affect him that much, seeing that he's still standing. The creature tilts its head, raptoral. "That bitch can't do one thing right, I swear. Did you kill her, Hero?"

Deku doesn't seem to be listening—he's walked, slowly, to crouch over Todoroki's body. There is a stunned look on his face, as if he doesn't quite believe this is happening. His hands, Katsuki notices, are shaking as he touches Todoroki's still body.

The creature watches the scene disinterestedly from where he's standing, as if bored. "Please, save the tears—that Shinigami isn't gone yet. Maybe after I'm done with you, Midoriya Izuku."

Katsuki doesn't see Deku unsheathe his sword, but then it's there—gleaming in the dark of the night, clashing with the monster.

There is that same distortion in the air as they collide against each other; an altercation in reality, as if they aren't quite moving in the same dimension as Katsuki. It's impossible to perceive visually, rewired brain or not. But there is some kind of—some kind of knowledge. Deep in the bone, marred on the skin. The same sensation he felt when he asked Todoroki to stop.

He couldn't see it, but he could feel it. Deku is losing.

"Huh," Dabi says. Flatly, like he's already bored with the game. "That's all you got, then?"

"Why are you doing this?" Deku says. His voice breaks in the middle. His eyes—there is something there that Katsuki recognizes. Something alarming. "Why?"

The flames die, momentarily. Dabi smiles again, as if he finds the question amusing. "Do what, exactly?"

"Attacking innocent people. Hurting them, eating them, every single—every single day. No one deserves—"

"Oh, that, " Dabi says, nodding like he just gets what Deku is talking about. "Well, I'm just an errand boy, kid. I think you mean, why is All for One doing this?"

Katsuki realizes what it is then, the look on Deku's face. A look so familiar, imprinted at the back of Katsuki's mind. Etched and dug out, an unearthed childhood memory.

Fear. Deku is scared.

"Why, huh? Gee, I don't know. Does there have to be a reason?" Dabi says. He sounds almost genuinely curious. "Reason is such a Human concept. Ain't that what you folks are all about? If there is Good, there's gotta be Evil somewhere, right?"

The Arrancar isn't making sense. Any sense. Not for Katsuki, and it seems, neither for Deku. Deku stares, uncomprehending. "I don't understand," Deku says. His voice sounds brittle, distant, like he's lost. It makes him sound young, just like all those years ago. "Why—why.."

For a moment, Dabi's smile disappears. "Oh, I see," he says, another one of his drawls. "I see. I see. They didn't tell you, did they? Didn't tell you what you signed up for? Didn't write it down on the job description, huh, Hero?"

And then he laughs again, but there is something different, this time. Something crazed, deranged, in the high notes of his voice. Hysterical, even. He laughs so hard and for so long that it feels like a nightmare. Katsuki's head spins.

"I'll let you in on a little secret, kid," he says. His laughter stops as abruptly as it begins, leaving his face stretched in a terrible, scarred smile. His mouth looks like an open wound. "There has never been a reason for this war. And there has never been a time where there wasn't a war."

Deku pales. "No," he says, and Katsuki doesn't get it. War? All for One? He knows nothing about any of it. He doesn't understand a single thing other than Deku looking like he's about to have a breakdown. "Stop."

"They left that part out, didn't they? I bet they also didn't tell you," Dabi says, his voice mockingly pitying, "that this war will never end."

"Stop it," Deku says, voice wet and flinching. His knuckles white over the hilt of his sword. "Just stop."

Indigo sparks fly, and the suffocating heat returns. "Poor you," Dabi coos. "Ahh. What did they promise you with, Hero? Is it power? Love?" he laughs, laughs, laughs. "Did they tell you that you were special?"

"Stop it, stop it—"

"How does it feel to be the chosen one, Hero?" His grin is manic, cruel, utterly delighted. "How does it feel, giving your soul to One for All?"

Deku chokes out a sound, something fragile and despairing, and then something that sounds like a scream, a roar, or the end of the world.

And then there was light.

Nothing can explain it away, but the air feels like sinews. Like tendons, running cracks and blood rust in Katsuki's mouth. An indubitable, demanding instinct in his human brain, human flesh, human blood. His skin feels paper-thin, eardrums rupturing like sea-waves, lungs bursting as if clenched with a fist as Katsuki watches Deku turn into a monster.

Or a demon, Katsuki thinks, a part of him that feels distant, so far away, underneath the impossible shell-shock. Or a god.

And then there was light. Or so he thought. But it isn't light, that bleach-white color that shines through the dark—its bone. Bone, enveloping the entirety of Deku's face in garish alabaster, with sick reds painted over it in angular lines of blood. Not a patch of skin in sight. Not a human in sight. And in the dark twin trenches above the mask's grinning teeth, what Katsuki could see of Deku's eyes were not eyes at all but instead a flash of nauseating green that belongs to no human.

Where Deku once stood now stands the Creature (monster/demon/god?) and it bares its mouth; a hollow cavity of absolute black framed with too much teeth.

And then Katsuki hears it, the creature's voice: a horrible, animalistic screech that drowns the beat of his heart. A horrible sound. A Hollow's scream. The air thins, ruptures in itself, and a sort of indescribable heat ripples the atmosphere like a drop of ink in a pond, black like black like black.

The end of the world, Katsuki thinks. It sounds just like the end of the world.

And then there was light.

viii.

"stop it. stop it, stop it—"

IX.

"Don't touch me. Where is he? Where is—"

"Bakugou-kun."

Katsuki's head whips to the door where Yagi just entered. The man closes the door behind him and Katsuki snarls. "You," he says, and his throat tightens. "You.."

"Izuku is fine," Yagi says, and something in Katsuki's lungs undulates. "So is Todoroki-kun. They are recuperating at the moment," he nods, then, to the lady at Katsuki's bedside. "Thank you, Shuzenji-san."

"At least someone here is thankful," the old woman says sharply. The fucking Shinigami doctor or whatever. "I have never seen a Human child this unruly. What are they feeding them these days?"

"Shuzenji," Yagi says. He sounds weary. "Please."

"Keep the child in bed if it is at all possible," she tells Yagi before slamming the door shut as she leaves the room. The child meaning him, which pisses Katsuki off to an unbelievable degree.

Yagi takes the chair Shuzenji sat on a few moments ago, and sits on it with a sigh. He looks skinnier, if that's even possible—skinnier and more miserable.

"Bakugou-kun," he begins. "I am glad you are all—"

"What have you done to him?"

Yagi stops. They look at each other. Katsuki repeats his question, shaky and feverish.

"What have you done to him?" Katsuki says. "What have you done?"

"I am not quite sure what you mean."

When Katsuki lunges forward to grab Yagi's collar in a violent burst, Yagi does not respond. He sits still, staring calmly back at Katsuki. With those sad blue eyes.

"He turned into a—" monster/demon/god? "—a Hollow," Katsuki spits out the word. He continues to speak, struggling against the lump in his throat. "He turned into a fucking Hollow. Deku—"

Katsuki doesn't know he's shaking until Yagi holds his wrists—a steady and firm pressure in contrast with his trembling. Yagi gently and firmly pulls both of his hands away from his collars.

Katsuki lets him. And he feels disgusted for it. Disgusted with how weak he is. How human. How useless. "You lied to me. You fucking lied."

"I do not lie."

"Don't fuck with me, " Katsuki seethes. "You didn't tell me everything, you bastard. You said you gave your powers to him. You said he was a Shinigami—a human Shinigami. So why, why did he turn into a—"

The way Deku—the creature that had been Deku—howled. The way he had torn Dabi apart limb from limb.

The memory makes him want to throw up. Katsuki's voice breaks, overwhelmed. He doesn't know how to articulate—articulate all of this. "Just. Just tell me," he breathes, shaky. "What did you do to him?"

It wasn't a fight—it was barely a fight. The sky had lit up, so bright it looked like daylight, black so black and green so white. The Arrancar—Dabi—he had screamed, screamed as he was being ripped apart—flesh torn open and blood just as red, raining from the sky with the blue fires. It was a one man massacre, and it wasn't even a man.

There was no man there, in that sky, eclipsed by the moon. No human in sight.

The room is silent. Filled with nothing but Katsuki's harsh breathing. Yagi sighs—so weary, so exhausted, like it takes all of his strength just to breathe. Yagi looks at him with that same look he always has on his face. A sad, fading man. Katsuki glares back.

"One for All can only be wielded by a Human," Yagi says, voice soft, only a notch above a whisper. "Shinigamis are made of death, and death is stagnant, unchanging. But Humans ... we give, and we receive. We evolve. We transform."

Katsuki can feel his heart pick up a pace, jackrabbit in its cage. "Transform?"

"When we die, we become Pluses. Pluses become Hollows. We change, even after death."

Were you human, before this?

Those who are not were all Humans too, once.

"One for All is entrusted from one predecessor to the next. It carries that change. That's what makes us powerful," Yagi says. "The souls of our predecessors. Their lives—their hearts, their memories, their pain. Their powers."

Katsuki swallows. "You said you don't have much time left. By that you mean—you mean—"

Yagi smiles. Regretful.

"You really are a bright child," he says. It's awful, how gentle he sounds. "Yes. Eventually, my Human body will no longer hold my soul. And my soul will be entirely transferred to Izuku, along with my powers. That's what happens once we pass down to the next generation."

Katsuki feels numb.

Yagi continues. "My predecessor. The holder of One for All before me. She—"

Yagi's voice petters out. Something flits through his face—pain. "After she passed One for All to me … she turned into a Hollow."

Corrupted souls. Hollows are souls who became corrupted and lost their heart.

"She wasn't the only one. Being a Shinigami … carrying One for All … it is not an easy duty. It takes from us, and sometimes, it takes too much. In return, some of our predecessors turned into Hollows."

Their hearts, their memories, their pain. Understanding makes him sick to his stomach. "One for All carries that too," Katsuki says, terrified. "It carries their Hollows."

"Yes," Yagi says. His voice is barely audible now, just a whisper, as if he is telling a terrible secret. "That's what makes us powerful."

"You corrupted Deku's soul," Katsuki says, a dreadful realization. "To make him stronger?"

"It is a necessity," Yagi says. "It is the only way to create us."

ix.

"you hit me," katsuki said. surprised. and then anger blacked out everything else. "you fucking hit me, you useless piece of shit."

"i'm sorry," izuku said. eyes wide, watery. "kacchan. i'm sorry. i—i didn't mean it, i just wanted you to stop—"

katsuki walked forward, the lighter on the floor kicked away by his feet when he rushed to hold izuku by the collar. "nah," katsuki said. snarled. "what, did you think you could mess with me?"

izuku didn't even struggle. too shocked by this turn of events. "kacchan—"

katsuki pushed him. izuku fell to the ground with a rough thump.

the room, previously silent, now filled up with noise. "you should teach him a lesson, bakugou," someone said. maybe it was tatsumi. or yamada.

"we should lock him up here with his ghost friends."

"what if he tattled?"

"who's gonna believe him?" someone said. maybe it was tsubasa. "no one believes a liar."

izuku pushed himself up. he was shaking, katsuki noticed. "i'm not a liar," he said.

"yeah, you're just a freak," tatsumi said. or maybe it was hiroki. or maybe it was katsuki.

"kacchan," izuku said. "kacchan. you believe me, right?"

izuku was different, katsuki realized that. he was different from the others. but katsuki wasn't. katsuki wasn't like him.

katsuki wasn't a freak.

"ghosts aren't real," katsuki said.

X.

The room goes silent the moment Katsuki barges in.

Heads turn. Black kimonos, hands on hilt. The Shinigamis' eyes hold their gaze on Katsuki with some cold interest. Katsuki doesn't know any of their names—except Todoroki, who is there looking not so great in the bed—and Deku.

"Kacchan," Deku says. Deku stands up the moment he sees Katsuki. He is in his Shinigami's form—wearing a god's clothes amidst the gods. Katsuki wonders where his body is. Lying still in another room, maybe. "You're awake."

He sounds relieved. Like Todoroki, he looks worse for wear—bandages wrapped over what's visible of his chest. There is a split on his lips. Around him, the Shinigamis are still, cut like marble statues in black. But other than that, he looks—so fucking normal. As if he didn't just turn into a—

It's disorienting, to see him like this. To see him so human. Katsuki breathes.

"So this is Midoriya-kun's little Human friend," one of the Shinigamis says. A tall woman with an impish smile. "Maybe we can bring him along, that seems fun."

"Don't joke, Nemuri," another says, a man with dark hair and dark, severe eyes. "Humans are not supposed to meddle with our business. That child has seen too much."

Katsuki doesn't give a damn about these gods. He ignores them. "Yagi told me you are leaving."

Deku looks back at him, blank. The Shinigamis watch in silence.

"Are you going to go, Deku?" Katsuki says. "Are you going to fight for them?"

Deku's throat moves. Something flits through his face, draining the blood off it.

"Kacchan," he says, steady. "It's my duty."

Katsuki scoffs, disbelieving. Temper, intimate and recognizable, scratching under the skin like razor blades. "Oh yeah?" Katsuki says, voice low. "Who's the one to decide that? These guys?"

"Watch it, Bakugou."

For the first time since he entered the room, Katsuki takes his eyes away from Deku. He glares at Todoroki, and Todoroki returns his gaze coldly. That fight must've taken a toll on him—the guy looks like shit, dark circles under his eyes, skin pale and lips bloodless. "You have no say in this war."

There might be guilt, somewhere, deep in Katsuki's chest. Not so deep, really. Guilt, and relief, and the like. Too bad, though. Katsuki insists that he doesn't have a heart.

He's glad for it, for this flash of anger, curling under the nails. Anger is easy. Anger makes things easy. Katsuki sneers, cruel and nasty. "Big words from someone who got their shit kicked out of them. Look at you, you can't even fucking move."

Ah, there it is. The guy acts cold and unbothered, but not unlike Katsuki, he has a temper. Flashing hot behind the eyes. Todoroki looks much more like a child when he's angry that for a moment, Katsuki almost believes he is. "There is no place for you here."

"Really?" Katsuki says. "Why the fuck is that?"

"You are just a Human."

There is a pause, and then Katsuki barks out a laugh. Rough and harsh and so thick with spite it spills. Katsuki claps, sardonically and insolently. Between the peals of laughter, he looks up to find that Todoroki is staring at him as if he's lost his mind. Yeah, he has. He probably has. Katsuki laughs harder.

"Oh," Katsuki says, choking on dark, repulsed mirth. "Okay, then. Astute observation. Congratulations for stating the fucking obvious, Shinigami. Fuck you too while we are at it."

Todoroki bristles. He isn't the only one—the atmosphere in the room changes immediately, plunging to below zero. The black-clad gods, shifting their attention to the so-called unruly human child at this show of hysteria. But Katsuki couldn't give less of a flying fuck—be it a god or a demon or a monster, Katsuki wouldn't let anything stop him from giving a piece of his mind.

"You're right! I am a human," Katsuki says. "And do fucking tell me, just what exactly is your little hero over there?"

Something sharp cinches the air. Deku freezes in his place.

"Izuku is nothing like you," Todoroki says. "He is different. Izuku is—"

"Don't you fucking finish that sentence," Katsuki snaps. "Deku is a human. He is flesh and blood and he breathes, something that you Shinigami wouldn't understand. He is just like me."

Todoroki stares at him, blank. Beside him, Deku shifts forward, voice startled with some kind of awe. "Kacchan—"

"Shut up, Deku!"

Anger is easy. Makes things simple. It clears his head in the same way it blacks out everything else. He whips to look at the Shinigamis in the eyes—the gods whose names he will not bother to know. They return his look, distant and empty and uncaring to his human outburst.

"How dare you?" Katsuki asks them. He almost doesn't register the way his voice shakes with emotion. "How dare you, using a fucking kid to fight your war?"

Katsuki looks at them, at these incarnations of life and death in their stygian kimono. Silhouettes cut in black-clad statues. Cold eyes and bone-white blades sheathed at the waist, hollow hearts. Their inhumanity is stark and cold against Katsuki's skin.

They are not people. They are Shinigamis. Gods of death. And Katsuki knows that they won't get it. They don't.

These gods, these creatures don't understand. How could they? They last for hundreds and thousands of years. Time and the universe and death itself work differently for them than it does for Katsuki, for Deku. Death is stagnant. They don't live, they last. Life, for them, is a long still stretch of infinity and their so-called honor and duty.

Humans are their duty, but they don't care about humanity. To them, Katsuki is nothing. Barely a pebble in their path, some unruly human child that isn't even worth a footnote, or a slither of memory, a speck of their emotion.

And to them. To them, Deku is just a—

"Deku is a human," Katsuki repeats himself, with so much conviction that he feels like a child. "A human. He isn't your fucking weapon."

Silence falls to the room again. His volume rose word after word, leaving a little echo in the enclosed space. And Deku is staring at him, looking at him like Katsuki's gone crazy, like he doesn't recognize who he's looking at, staring at him like nothing else existed—

Katsuki can't take being looked at like that. He storms out.

Whatever that Shinigami doctor did to him, it fixed the worst of it, but Katsuki still limps as he passes through the living room, lunging uncoordinatedly to open the front door. He only manages to get out for a second until Deku catches up with him. "Kacchan!"

He doesn't want to hear it. It's raining outside, of fucking course. Dawn should be here, but the sky is dark, thunderclouds rolling ahead. The air is biting cold.

"Kacchan, wait—"

Katsuki steps into the rain, and then a hand grips Katsuki's, so tight it feels bruising. Katsuki spins to get it off, but Deku's hold is strong and infuriatingly unmovable.

"Wait, damn it!" Deku snaps, and Katsuki turns to look at him.

"What the fuck do you want?" Katsuki snaps back. "Fucking hell, Deku, just—" he winces. Deku's grip hurts.

Deku lets him go. Katsuki's wrist throbs with pain where Deku held it. It's fucking summer already, why the hell is it raining so hard?

"I'm sorry."

Katsuki freezes.

"I'm sorry," Deku says again. "Kacchan, look, I'm sorry I brought you into this, okay?"

Katsuki looks up and stares. Disbelieving. Deku continues, stammering, babbling, with that crazy look in his eyes.

The rain makes the black of Deku's kimono look impossibly darker, so much that Katsuki thinks they are going to melt and drip to the ground anytime, like ink. "I'm sorry. I didn't—I didn't mean for you to get hurt. I didn't mean for—for anyone to get hurt because of me. You, and, and Todoroki-kun, and mom—" his voice breaks.

Suddenly, in a terrifying moment, he looks like he's going to cry—but then it's gone. Deku inhales, as if he's trying to get himself together. Shaky. The wild, distant look in his eyes is now becoming familiar. "I'm sorry," he says again, voice thick. "I'm sorry. I'm going to fix this, Kacchan. I swear. They won't—I'm going to fix this. I'll—I'll find a way, to get you back into—so you won't be able to, to see them."

"Deku," Katsuki says. The rain is getting into his eyes. There is a painful lump in his throat that he wishes, wishes would go the fuck away. "Deku, fucking hell, what the fuck are you talking about?"

Deku looks up at him. Eyes full with some kind of conviction. "It's okay," Deku says. "I promise. I swear. We'll get your reiryoku back to normal, and then, and then you can forget about all of this, you can—"

Holy fuck.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Deku?" Katsuki says. His voice is a pathetic sound, words grinding with each other underneath the pitter-patter of the rain. It feels painful to speak. "Is that what you think this is all about?"

Deku stares at him, momentarily snapped out of his crazed ramble. "That's why you're—" something unsure writs on Deku's face. "That's why you're—you're mad, right?"

"You—" holy fuck. Katsuki wants to scream. Wants to shake this fucking—wants to shake him, wants to yell in his fucking face. Wants to laugh. Wants to cry. Katsuki presses the heels of his palms to cover his eyes, feeling sick, so sick. "Oh my god. You are. Fucking impossible. You idiot."

Katsuki puts his hands down from his face. Deku is still staring at him. Eyes perpetually wide, raindrops running down his face. Staring at Katsuki, empty, like he doesn't get it. God.

"How could you let them do this to you?" Katsuki says.

Deku blinks, blank. Caught off guard by the question. "What?"

"Look at yourself, Deku!" Katsuki snaps. Deku flinches. "You look like shit. You come to school everyday looking like—looking like you want to fucking die. Shit, you don't even come to school anymore. And now you're, you're telling me you're going to fight? You're telling me you're going to go to fucking war? For fuck's sake, Deku! How could you let them do this to you?"

His words feel like they're strung out of him with a rope, choking and ruined. Thunder rumbles in the sky, deep and growling. Beats pass. For a second, Katsuki thought Deku still doesn't fucking understand. But then Deku says, still with that suddenly blank look, "they're my friends, Kacchan," and Katsuki's breath hitches in his throat.

So he does get it.

That makes it even worse.

"Friends?" Katsuki repeats, increduled. Exhausted and angry and just so— "friends? God, Deku. Are you really so fucking naive?"

"Kacchan," Deku says, but Katsuki isn't done.

"These people—" not people, these are gods, for fuck's sake! "—these bastards, they are using you! Using you to fight their wars, using you for their own benefit like you're their own personal fucking child soldier—you're a fucking high schooler, Deku! This isn't your war! This isn't your fight!"

"I know."

"You—" Katsuki laughs, harsh. Speechless to the point of laughter. "Oh, I see, you know, don't you? Okay, then, good fucking job for having a working fucking brain, Deku. If you know it so well, then why the hell are you still doing this? Why are you—"

"Because they're friends with me for it."

Katsuki stares. "What?"

"Because they're my friends," he repeats. With that blank voice. "They're friends with me because of it."

"Didn't you hear a single thing I just fucking said? These people aren't your friends. They don't give a fuck about you. They are just—"

"—using me, I know," Deku says. Those jarring, infinitely empty eyes. "That's fine."

"Fine?" Katsuki echoes. Not understanding. Not understanding a single fucking thing. "Fine?"

What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Katsuki doesn't get it. He doesn't. It doesn't make any sense. Katsuki doesn't realize when his hands move to grip Deku by the shoulders, as if he could shake the latter into common sense. "You could die," Katsuki says, low, voice bordering on unhinged. "Do you fucking get that, stupid?"

Deku doesn't answer. Katsuki doesn't give a fuck. "You could die. Or worse, you could turn into—" he can't say the word. Can't. "Do you understand? You're throwing—throwing your fucking life away for this war. Your future. Your soul. Everything. Do you understand?"

For their war. Theirs. These aren't people, they're gods, and Deku is supposed to be the savior of their world? For that monochromatic world of gods and monsters with their forsaken black-bone-white blade—for something bigger than life?

It's fucking terrifying. It's the most terrible thing in the whole fucking world.

Katsuki's hands clench, crumpling the dark black of Deku's kimono. He looks at Deku in the eye, so closely, looking for something.

"You're going to kill yourself, Deku," he says.

There is a beat of stillness. And Katsuki tries to look for it, in that freckled face. In those wide eyes. Looking for anything at all, anything that hasn't been given up.

He can't find it.

"I know," Deku answers. "That's fine."

He doesn't get it. He doesn't get it. He doesn't understand. Katsuki—

"At least I'm not alone, Kacchan."

Katsuki stares. Deku stares back. Empty. "At least—at least—I'm not alone anymore."

Katsuki's heart twists in his chest.

Kacchan, you believe me, right?

A ghost of a child from the years gone by. Eyes wide and glittering, bright with elation. Kacchan, you..

You couldn't find Deku in a crowded place.

You will find Midoriya Izuku alone, with his books and his mother's homemade bento, sitting on the roof with a ghost. And here he is, surrounded by gods and monsters and death in their garish embrace. Being used to fight a war that isn't his. All because he doesn't want to be alone.

And what can Katsuki say to that? What can he do to that?

What can he do, when Katsuki has done everything he possibly could?

Deku's shoulders are warm under his hands, the heat a stark contrast against the cold of the rain. Flesh and blood. Human.

Katsuki lets them go.

x.

"kacchan, you believe me, right?" deku said. "right, kacchan?"

"ghosts aren't real," katsuki said. "hold him."

someone came forward and did just that. tatsumi or tsubasa or yamada or makoto. deku barely struggled. he was staring at katsuki like he didn't recognize him. staring at him like nothing else existed. "kacchan?" deku said. it was phrased like a question. like he wasn't sure if this was happening.

"shut up, freak," katsuki said. and then he walked to stomp the vase into the ground.

everyone laughed harder, like it was so funny. broken glass glimmered under the sole of katsuki's shoe. he turned to look at deku.

"if you want to talk to ghosts so bad," katsuki told him, "why don't you take a dive off the roof?"

and then katsuki stepped on the neck of the broken freesia.