Katsuki gets his ducks in a row before the murdering starts.
WARNING: Implied rape/non-con. Not with katsuki -you'll see fam. There's nothing graphic or explicit, it's just implied.
He wakes up to ringing ears and smoke.
It strays into his nostrils, marking a burning path down his sore, dry throat. There's something wet and metallic dripping down his nose and his mouth tastes like old dried wood. His joints ache from an unknown pressure; his skin feels taunt and parched, pulled to its limits.
He lays there on the ground, unmoving as his foggy brain takes in all the information his nerves have to offer. He doesn't groan or writhe at the burns, nor does he try to alleviate the stem of blood coming from his nose. It's all too familiar and easily ignorable.
Physical pain had long become background chatter for him.
It's a simple, discartable discomfort compared to the confusion clouding his mind.
Fires crowded around him, the bright orange flames and their sweltering heat seeping into Katsuki's too dry skin. The building around him creaks and groans, the sounds of the structure barely piercing through the roar of the flames. Not even lifting his head from the floor, Katsuki swerves his gaze across what can see of the cell, taking in the holes in the walls, the fires growing around his body, the broken table and finally the smoldering, red-hot remains of a metal chair and chains.
The chair lays on its side, barely recognizable not just for the damage it had sustained, but how the flames lit it up and revealed it to Katsuki in its entirety -in a way that it had never been before. Something tight and cold constricted around his throat at the sight.
Fear.
He'd done this.
This amount of damage to the cell, its-
Shigaraki isn't going to like this, is the first thing he thinks, only for that cold, panic-inducing thought to be shortly followed by Toga won't be happy.
And then, lastly.
The door is open.
This brings his chaotic, scattered thoughts to a halt.
Because it was true -to a point. The door was not quite open but rather just gone, alongside most of the wall. There was nothing more than a giant, gaping hole where it used to be. The metal skeleton of the structure still stood, if barely, twisted and red with heat. The broken walls were blackened and burnt; dust and rubble peppered the room.
The cell was barely recognizable, especially with the light the fires cast. Katsuki's not sure he remembers a time where the room was fully lit before now.
Something above him groans, diverting his attention. Katsuki slowly tilts his head up. The ceiling creaks again over his head, spiderweb cracks spreading across stone.
It wasn't going to hold for long.
Soon it would collapse, the thick stone ceiling crushing him under its bulk.
Katsuki's mind pauses as the thought. Huh. He grabs it, pondering, twisting this dark little thing in his hands. Testing the weight. Contemplated that realization as the air grew darker and darker from smoke, until his lungs itched and burned and a part of him that was faintly more aware reminded him that if he stayed here, still and unmoving, not even bothering to protect himself…
….it will be fast.
Oh. If he stayed still, he could avoid Toga and Shigaraki's wrath.
If he gave up, if he let-
No.
He can't give up. Could he? Something scratches at the back of his head, demanding attention. It's faint and splintered but still, inexplicably, there.
A memory.
Thousands of eyes looking at him, expecting. The roar of a crowd was silenced in attention as he steps up a pedestal. He stands in front of the world, hands tucked in his pockets; the picturesque image of calm that never betrayed the thundering beat of his heart or the excitement burning in his veins.
'I just want to say...I'm gonna win.'
Katsuki exhales softly, digging his nails into the floor under him.
It's strange to remember, uncomfortable even; the difference between the burning warmth of this memory and the empty, tepid warmth that filled every inch of his battered body. He's not sure someone should be able to feel that much, even if they had been standing in front of a few thousand people.
Before, he wasn't one to give up.
He shouldn't now.
He won't die.
Guided by this quiet, centering thought, Katsuki hauls himself up, muscles screaming from the strain. His limbs protest at the exercise, his joints creaking as his naked feet plant against the ground. He feels bare, submerged in a lukewarm bath that contrasted greatly with the burning room around him.
Katsuki's feet scrape against the hard, too hot ground with each step, cutting and bruising his skin as he hobbles to the door. The pain barely registers in Katsuki's mind; it's insignificant and temporary, chatter his muddled mind instinctively push to the back. His nerves had long become numb to most wounds.
He pauses at the doorstep, staring down at the remains of the doorframe.
It takes him a few seconds to muster the strength to step into the hallway.
.
.
.
The smoke was growing thicker as seconds trickled on.
Katsuki tucks his shirt -what he thinks is a shirt, it's wrinkled and faded- up to his nose to protect himself from the smoke as he moves. He focuses on his feet; how each footsteps took him farther and farther away from the cell.
Static fills his mind, his mind felt scattered and stretched thin yet somehow, he knew what to do.
He doesn't have much time. Minutes, if he was lucky. As soon as Kurogiri was aware of what happened, he would come here -he would bring the League. Bring Toga and Shigaraki.
Something ugly and acidic twists in his gut.
Nausea.
It's been a while since he'd felt it.
He had to leave. Find a way out -the faster he gets away from this place, the better. Had to find a emergency exit or even a window -if he worked it open, he could use his Quirk to jump out and get to safety.
Safety.
Hm.
(The concept felt alien.)
The hallway opens up to a chamber, much less damaged than his cell from the explosion but still in a severe state of disrepair. Katsuki stops, hands twitching at his sides as he scans the room. It's sizable. There's a door -and another corridor that leads further out. Rubble sits in front of what looked like another door. He quickly removes the idea of trying to clear the debris to reach the door.
Look for something useful, he thinks stoically, mind numb and frayed, working on autopilot. There's not a lot of time left, and I don't know how long I was out.
Get what you need and leave.
Besides a table, a cupboard and a old drawer, there's nothing here -that is, except familiar shapes hanging from the walls, their smooth silver surfaces glinting under the light of the fires. Katsuki's feet move on their own, carrying him over to the wall of items.
Ruby eyes look over the rows upon rows of blades, hooks, serrated knives, branding irons, hammers -the names of the torture tools float through his mind as he looks over them. They're all perfectly clean and cared for.
He lifts a hand and takes a knife from the set. It's serrated, a hunting knife almost as long as his forearm. Katsuki balances it one hand -then flips it onto his other palm. Spins it around his palm, feeling it's weight in his hands. As he does so his eyes turn back to the wall, then slide down as something else catches his attention.
He bends down and with his free hand picks up his new discovery from the pile of similar objects left on the floor. The leather feels almost too warm in his grip.
It takes him little work to strap the harness on his shoulders and torso, muscle memory guiding him through the process as he takes tool after tool, knife after knife from the wall and locks them on the right spots on the harness.
When there's no more room, he takes a step back. The mild weight of the harness feels comforting around him -he doesn't remember quite why, but it makes him feel more centered. More present.
More awake.
He has familiar tools within reach. Something recognizable that he understands and can control.
Something crashes far away, making him tense. Parts of the building were starting to collapse, drawing his time short. Silently, Katsuki pulls away from the wall.
Get what you need and leave.
Right. His attention flicks to the door next to the wall of tools, the one he noted before. Katsuki slowly reaches out to the door, keeping a hand on one of his knives as he opens it to find-
Clothes.
So many clothes.
There's a pile of clothes, left to stack in the middle of the room. It was a storage chamber, small yet bigger than his cell, with no other doors or windows. Instead, there's just clothes. Tons of clothes. Clothes of varying sizes, styles and colors.
Boots, coats, gloves, pants. Clothes that were dirty and dusty and sometimes, speckled with dried blood.
He stares, hand still on the handle.
He'd never really wondered, Katsuki realizes stoically as the seconds drag on and the smoke continues to grow thicker, where their belongings went. He'd been too focused on readying his and Toga's things to consider anything beyond what she would teach him next.
Katsuki closes his eyes.
Get what you need and leave.
It doesn't take him long to extract a thick coat from the pile. It's a dull, dark green colour, with fur-trimmed edges and a large hood. He slips it on, twitching at the soft brush of fabric against his pale, parched skin. Katsuki's unsure if he likes the sensation. Comfort was strange. Comfort was new.
(And it would be taken away from him if he doesn't move, and soon.)
Katsuki takes a pair of big black boots with him before he goes back to the utility room with all the tools. The fire was spreading to the chamber, smoke curling above his head into thick, dark clouds.
It's due to the fire that he finally noticed a metallic gleam at the other end of the room, next to the corridor leading further away from his cell. The mysterious object is tucked under a rickety old metal table, rusted and bent, but the reflection of long orange flames on polished metal drew his attention like a moth to a light.
Quickly and effectively, Katsuki pulls the item from under the table and heaves it onto the furniture. Its a case, rectangular, almost as big as Katsuki's torso. It's not too heavy but still, not light either. There's straps on the sides, and a big one that starts from the left tip and crosses diagonally to the lower right corner.
Curious, he opens the case.
He doesn't think much, at first. Just stares, silent, at the contents of the suitcase. Surveys the items inside, his mind quickly piecing together what this new puzzle meant. What all of these parts could create when pieced together.
If he didn't feel so heavy, so off key and cold, he would have snorted.
Of course Shigaraki would do this.
He slowly reaches in, running thin fingers over a burnished bronze surface, tracing the triangular patterns of the metal. It gleams red-gold under the light of the fires -which reminds him where he was, and how much time he was wasting.
Katsuki feels nothing but hollowness as he closes the suitcase and slings it over his back, adjusting the dark strap over his chest and shoulder. It feels heavier than it should.
Everything feels heavy.
Maybe if…
He immediately drives his nails into the palm of his hands. The blood feels warm and slick under his fingers.
Don't think about it.
Suitcase with him, knives at his hips, clothes on his back, Katsuki gathers what little fragments of himself were left and starts moving.
.
.
.
It doesn't take long for him to find a door with a dingy, unlit exit sign over it.
By then the rooms were dark with smoke, thick and too hot, choking him slowly. He walk quickly, bending his head low to keep the smoke inhalation to a minimum. It only takes a few minutes, Toga murmurs in his head.
It didn't bring him any panic, the idea that he could collapse here and die from the very destruction he'd caused. He doesn't think he wants to die -he can't give up, not now, wake up wake up and focus- but the idea that the very fire he set could take his life worries him little.
If anything, it was almost...comforting.
(Kurogiri should be here by now, bringing the League with him. The fact that he wasn't-)
His hands grip the heavily rusted handle. Distantly, Katsuki notes how the metal is tepid, near cold under his fingertips. The cold numbness is even worse than the one in his head, drawing him out, coaxing him to focus.
The gate screeches as he pushes against it, using his weight to open the evacuation door. It takes a moment to work it open.
When he does he stares out into the darkness, silent, mist coming out of his lips with every breath.
It was snowing.
.
.
.
Outside is cold. Dark.
Confusing.
He tucks the hood down over his face. Watches as his exhale is released as a fine, pale mist, swirling out from between his lips and dissipating into the dark night sky. The fire's long at his back, his legs carrying him farther and farther away from his former prison. Through a abandoned parking lot, into old, empty alleys.
He shoves his fingers into his pockets, a near convulsing shiver going through him as a gust of wind picks up some of the snow around him. The cold crawls in from every direction, the thin pants he has on and the too big boots do little to protect him from the cold.
Katsuki's not sure he likes this. Everything was different out here -different and familiar and somehow still new at the same time. Alien.
Katsuki inhales slowly as he ducks into a new alley -no, a street , complete with people walking around, hurrying along with hunched shoulders and lowered heads. The sight of other people momentarily stuns Katsuki, pinning him in place.
There's not a lot of civilians walking around, but just seeing unfamiliar faces that weren't twisted in pain or bearing eyes filled with terror -it left him staring, head tilting as a particularly large family of people walked past him in hurried steps. There's even children here, tucked between their parents for extra safety.
It's quiet. More so than he expected. Like they were all just minding their business and refusing to take note of those around him.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Katsuki takes a moment to center himself. It's just people. Humans. Just another factor he had to take in. He could deal with this.
He had to.
(The knives tucked under the coat felt even heavier than before. Katsuki takes that weight, that extra layer of safety and uses it to maintain his heart rate.)
The air out here was cold and raw, breaching his lips and slipping down into his lungs like a frozen knife. It was almost painful despite the numb lethargy he felt since waking up and alongside the curling dread he felt at the idea of being recaptured, it kept him from sitting down and resting.
In this weather, he's not sure he would even wake up again.
What now?
He halts, pace faltering before coming to a complete stop.
Wasn't that a thought. What now? What should he do next? His plan only went so far as to getting out from his prison.
What was his next step -what did he have to do now?
Not knowing made his hands twitch and something curl within his belly. Katsuki didn't like the idea of not knowing what to do. He didn't like having a task -it left him with too much time and too many confusing thoughts swirling within that gaping hole that was his mind. He needed to have something to do, it was the only way he could keep himself sane.
Should he find...a police station?
That was where cops worked, right? Katsuki ambled over to the nearest wall and leaned against it, exhaling as he hunched over himself slightly, fingers digging into the fabric of the green coat. Under the light of a nearby streetlamp, he can spy a few flecks of dry, brown blood just above the fluffy white helm of the vest.
And what then?
Announce his name to them, get a pro-hero on site?
Go back to Yuuei?
At the thought, his head aches. Feels like it's suddenly cracked open -the pain is enough to make him flinch and tuck his head in.
'Kacchan!'
'Hey buddy, there you are!'
'Young Bakugo!'
Shut up shut up shut up I don't want to remember -
The tiniest hysterical giggle leaves him, which he has to stifle by shoving a knuckle into his mouth and bite down until it passed. He's thankful the hood of the vest covers his face.
It couldn't be that easy.
It just couldn't.
It fucking couldn't.
Not after everything, things couldn't just snap back in place, whatever those places were. What would he even do there? Return to people he could barely remember?
Return like nothing...nothing happened?
Or start over with them?
No.
No.
He couldn't. He couldn't go back. He's too...he's not that Bakugo Katsuki anymore. He can't be that person anymore. He's not sure there even was anything left of that person in him. He's not that boy
anymore, and Katsuki doesn't even have the strength to delude himself.
(But what now?)
The uncertainty makes him shudder.
No plan.
No task.
No directive.
No orders.
Nothing to do but be subject to his own scattered thoughts.
He's not-
(Not built for this.)
A loud crash startles him, instinctively sending him reaching for a knife under his coat as his swirling thought abruptly coming to a halt. He could defend himself with his Quirk just as well, but it felt safer to do so with a weapon -something he still remembered how to use.
Katsuki peers up from under the hood at his surroundings for the source of the sound, only to see a man exit the alley he was standing not to far away from and walk away into the night. Dammit. He hadn't even noticed the alley.
He watches him go with detached eyes, observing the slightly rumbled clothes and the dark brown hair. The unhurried spring in his steps, the way he tucked his hands into his pockets and straightened his spine while the few people that were still out in the street after dark kept trying to bend low. The contrast was startling.
It stirs something in him. Makes his lips twitch with the urge to curl back and bare his teeth.
Ruby eyes flick over to the alley.
His feet carry him forward long before he makes up his mind. There's nearly no light in the alley, something that once might have made him hesitant -but Katsuki was used to the dark, and it was almost as comforting at having a something to do, a goal to reach for.
At first glance, there's nothing in the alley beyond trash and dirty, yellow snow. Scarlet eyes survey the area, slowly adjusting to the dark as he tries to pick out what had caused the commotion.
Then he hears it.
"Stay away."
It's a tiny, snarled wheeze coming from his right, not even a few feet away from him. At the unexpected sound he tenses, grip near white on the knife hanging from his hip. Turning, Katsuki's eyes lock onto something almost hidden amongst the trash cans.
There's a woman on the ground.
Hair in disarray, purse thrown aside, contents spilling everywhere amongst the snow and trash. She's laying on her left side tucked in between two dumpsters. Her shoulders are shaking, pulled inwards to shield herself.
She's also half naked.
Her clothes are practically torn from her small figure, laying around her in disarray. Pale, feverish skin exposed to the cold winter night and covered in angry red marks and the beginning of bruises. Katsuki's gaze slowly shifts to the end of the alley where the man had left. He's out of sight, but at the calm, relaxed pace he had been walking he couldn't be more than a block away.
No more than a block...
The woman looked up to him, eyes wet and glistening with tears yet burning with something else -helpless, pathetic rage.
Hopelessness.
Katsuki feels drawn to that look. It stirs something in him -something familiar and just as ugly as when he'd contemplating letting a building fall on top of him.
In the moment, he doesn't know why he did it. But when he looks at the woman, looks at the footprints on the snow, something clicks into place. A feeling he can't truly understand slips into place and locks there, easing the tension he carried through his body.
Suddenly, he knows what to do.
Now that the threat had been located, his silent mind slowly unfurls, though not as before. Instead it sharpens, narrowing down until the only thing he sees were footprints on dirty snow and brown, fluffy hair. Like a rabid dog suddenly locking on a scent, he knows.
This is a task.
This is something he can do.
Still he hesitates, unsure of this -unsure by the lack of guiding hands, of the warmth of a body against his own and a voice in his ears. There's nobody here to tell him what to do -he's a weapon, guideless and without an owner, drifting. Here, he has no one to turn to.
Or maybe not.
Maybe that's what he thinks.
He slowly shifts his head to look back at the woman on the cold, freezing ground. She's huddled against the wall, attempting to right the torn pieces of clothing hanging off her shivering body. All long quivering limbs tucked close, a frail, broken little thing that stared up at him with eyes that are almost as empty as his.
Eyes that begged why.
A ruby gaze flicks back to the alley's exit. The footprints are there, still fresh. There's still time -the man's not far gone.
Not far gone.
Still close.
Still nearby.
Still in range.
This train of thought, this understanding reaches deep into Katsuki, gripping tight something dark and sharp hiding in the shadows and heaving it up to the forefront of his mind. A instinct buried deep, a manufactured desire that carved its place in his head through clawed hands and lopsided grins and sharp knives and white hot pain-
Katsuki swallows and shifts on his feet. His right hand grazes over his hip, touching the knife holster.
He doesn't feel the freezing, biting winter cold anymore.
He doesn't feel anything anymore.
The scattered mess of information his brain captured was drowned out by static -and the burning image of footprints in the snow.
Katsuki takes a step forward.
Then another.
And another.
His vision narrows down to the footprints, his mind filling with emotions he can no longer explain, twisting and coiling together until they drowned each other in the static and finally, there was only one thing left-
.
.
.
'...then, you'll stop feeling and just do whatever you want.'
That guy's so fucked.
So! A few strands of foreshadowing this chapter, which I'm really happy is cleared out because now we can start with the actual story. Next chapter is gonna be from Katsuki's point of view (we'll finally see what he looks like now, yay (not), and afterwards we start seeing other people's perspective. It'll be fun I swear. You won't need tissues.
I think.
Also have fun figuring where in the canon timeline we are now. I left some hints.
PS: For the ones waiting on Stygian Fire and See(Too Much) I knoooow, I'm getting my ducks in a row this weekend to push it out. Gimme a break, Stygian's next chapter is over 40 pages long on Gmail. Urghh.