Heyy, you know how I said "yeah I should have this chapter done within the week and I won't take a month and a half like last time". Well that was a huge lie. The only part that was true was that it didn't take a month and a half and that's because it took four. Anyway, it's been a while, hasn't it? It's not entirely unwarranted though, I've been making some big steps in life. Since last chapter, I moved out and into my college dorm, which means that my time is fully my own. It also means that I'm busy as all hell doing school work, and when I'm not, I'm either sleeping or deliberately slacking off, which is a lot harder to overcome than you'd think. Anyway, now that I've settled in for the most part and I'm getting on a rhythm with the work, I wanna get back into the swing of things with this.
That brings me to my next point, which I think is really important and I'm super excited about! I made a twitter for this whole project! It doesn't seem like much on paper, but it makes life for me, and probably you too, a lot easier. I can directly post updates there, and it's a lot easier for me to respond to DMs or replies or people ing me than it is to go through the clunky messaging systems (I'll still respond to reviews and stuff, so if you wanna keep doing that then I'm still here, it's just a bit harder). That way the communication between us is a whole lot smoother. I can also post funny haha memes, I know that the BNHA community sees a meme about Deku's bones and breaks down laughing, or just post about dumb shit because I think that's funny. I'm shilling, that's what I'm doing, I'm shilling my twitter so you follow it because I wanna talk to you people, that's really cool. The account is zbnha64, please give me internet clout and human communication. Or you can just not follow it and ghost the account so you still get the updates. Or make an alt to follow it, that's what I do when I wanna follow accounts that I don't want people to see. I get it, 100% I get it. But I think that if this goes well, it'll be a great way to bridge the gap and remind me that I have this whole project going on so I can work on it more.
Anyway, with that out of the way, I hope you enjoy this new chapter! :)
"Are you ready to go, ribbit?" Asui was sliding a sweater over her head as she saw the night sky outside her window. Midoriya was changing into his gym shirt, and once he fixed the collar and grabbed his shoes, he nodded at her and they left the dorm building to meet with All Might.
The ghastly shell of the number one hero stood out in the same field they always met in, waving at the two students approaching him.
"Ah, there you are!" he smiled at them, "you both did quite well today! I'm proud of you. And there's nowhere to go but up!" He watched the pair smile at his encouraging words, Midoriya starting to cry a bit. They started to prepare for their training session, Midoriya doing some stretches and Asui finding a nice place to watch.
"He's struggling to bring his power down to a point where it won't hurt him…" Asui thought to herself, looking for a way to help her best friend. "Let's see… he told me that he can only go as low as about 20% of his power in one part of his body, but if he spreads it across his body, he can bring it slightly lower. So logically, his best option is to let it flow through his whole body, but he needs to bring it down so he doesn't shatter his whole body. What's stopping him…?"
"Alright, I'm ready!" Midoriya hopped up and looked at All Might expectantly.
"Great, let's start with some simple stuff," All Might enjoyed his excitement. "Show me some punches without your quirk, let's see what you've got." Midoriya responded by showing off his years of analyzing hero fights. He recalled some of the notes he took on short-range combat and martial arts, taking on a perfect form from his years of practicing in his room. Both Asui and All Might watched him throw his punches efficiently and tactfully, until Asui noticed something.
"Ribbit, Izuku, could you come here for a moment?" she waved to him and he made his way to her position on the field. "There's something you're doing that I think is holding you back."
"Huh?" he wore a puzzled look before leaning in, desperate to know what he needed to change to control One for All.
"Your movements, they all look like All Might's moves. You're copying his moves, thinking of him as you attack. If you're always thinking of the strongest man alive, you might be subconsciously putting more power into your punches than you want, ribbit. You need your own identity. Just because it's his quirk doesn't mean you need to use it like he does."
Midoriya paused for a moment, taking in what she said, "So I shouldn't think about All Might when I use my quirk?"
Asui nodded, "Try thinking of something softer, something fragile that you don't want to break."
"Like my arms?"
"No."
"Hmm… what about an egg?" Midoriya focused on the image of him holding an egg, squeezing on it. He envisioned himself crushing the egg in his hand if he squeezed too hard, but tried to focus on squeezing the egg without splattering it.
"Ribbit, an egg?"
"Yeah, I don't want to break the egg but if I use too much of my power, it'll burst."
Asui nodded at him, validating his egg idea. He returned to where he was standing and focused his mind, thinking about not imitating All Might and not breaking the egg. The resulting punches were much more controlled and thought out. He imagined holding two eggs in his hands while punching, striking the air in very specific places that he envisioned in his mind. Those places he struck aligned with a person's face and abdomen, and he varied each punch slightly to try and mentally account for his imaginary opponent shifting around. All Might called off his flurry of punches and clapped.
"That was impressive, my boy! A lot faster than I expected too, all without One for All."
"All Might," Midoriya turned to him, a very confident look in his eyes, "can I practice controlling my quirk right now?"
"Are you sure?" he responded, "you'll need to be mobile for tomorrow's class."
"I'm positive," Midoriya responded with an even more intense expression. "Tsuyu gave me a great idea and I trust her judgment."
"If you insist," All Might conceded, slightly apprehensive of Midoriya practicing to control his power.
Midoriya took a few steps forward and took a few deep breaths. He squatted down slightly and concentrated on drawing out the power of One for All. He expelled All Might from his mind for the first time in his life and focused on the egg in his mind.
"Don't break don't break don't break!" he grit his teeth as he felt the power surge inside of him, wanting to exceed what he was trying to maintain. Feeling that he was about to panic, he tried focusing on his breathing more and kept taking deep breaths, still imagining the egg in his mind the entire time. After holding his quirk back, he adjusted to having that power spread across his body. He stood up straight and felt it all flow through him, almost like it was in his bloodstream. His heartbeat echoed in his head as he tried to move around with it, feeling lighter and stronger than ever. Eventually though, it was too much for his body to hold up and he released his quirk and dropped to his knees.
"Young Midoriya, you did it!" All Might cheered. "You didn't hurt yourself while using it! Well done!"
"Thank you, All Might," Midoriya slowly stumbled to his feet and smiled at his mentor. He saw Asui rise from her sitting place and approach him. Once she made it to him, she jumped at him and wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.
"Good job, Izuku, you did it!"
Midoriya felt his eyes begin to water as he returned the hug. Once they finished, All Might had him practice activating and holding his Full Cowling form, as Midoriya coined it, so he could draw out the power on the spot and hold it. He also had Midoriya do some of the quirk apprehension tests from earlier that day using his quirk, just to let him get used to it.
Eventually, All Might called it a night and the two students returned to their dorms.
"So, ribbit," Asui turned to Midoriya on the way back, "how much of your power would you say that you were using out there?"
"Umm, it's hard to say," Midoriya thought about it for a moment, "Probably about 2%? Maybe 3%?"
"Ribbit?!" Asui let out a surprised croak, "You're joking! I could feel the wind on my face with every move you made!"
"Really? That's intense. It's almost frightening," Midoriya grimaced slightly. "It feels like almost too much power for one person. I really have to control this quirk."
"Hey, you're doing fine. You'll get there soon enough." Asui smiled as they reached the door to their building and left for their respective rooms. They both slept restlessly, anxious for the next day.
… … …
The next morning came and went pretty unspectacularly. Class 1-A had their first day of formal instruction, which consisted of general education classes in the morning, and hero training at noon, right before lunch.
Once their last class ended, Aizawa rose from the depths of the classroom and appeared in front of everyone.
"Today will be your first hero class. It will be taught by none other than All Might."
All Might, dressed in one of his old hero costumes, rushed through the door before appearing in the front of the classroom next to Aizawa, assuming a heroic pose.
"I am here! To teach you how to be a hero!"
The whole class cheered for him being their teacher for the hero course. He suddenly pressed a button on the lectern Aizawa had stepped away from to allow the number one hero to take the stage.
"But first, you must look the part!" One by one, shelves tumbled out of the wall, revealing each student's costume case. "Please change into your costumes and head over to Ground Beta!"
With that, everyone clamored for their case and ran to the locker rooms, excited to see what their costumes looked like. Asui eagerly approached her locker and swung open the case. She fondly remembered the costume design sheets that Midoriya had made for her for her birthday, and hoped the design company did it any justice. She was delighted to find a green and black striped wetsuit in the case, along with her huge goggles and armored boots. She changed into her costume and looked at herself in the mirror. They matched Midoriya's designs perfectly. She smiled inwardly as she walked out to Ground Beta, wondering what Midoriya's costume ended up looking like.
She showed up between two tall buildings to find that hardly anyone had changed as quickly as she did. Her classmates poured in one by one, all with costumes that seemed to suit their quirks well. Then Midoriya showed up. He was dressed in a dark green jumpsuit accented with black around the seams, and a cute red utility belt clasped at his waist. He had large black elbow pads, and similar black padding all down his legs, to his red shoes. He had his green mask with the bunny ears covering his whole head, with a steel mask over his jaw. Other than the white gloves lines with blue stripes at the cuff, it was identical to the design they worked on together at the hero cafe almost a year ago, the day after they met. She approached him with a smile on her face.
"Hey, ribbit, I like your costume."
"Th-thanks," he looked at her in her costume and shifted on his feet, blushing slightly. "I like your costume too."
Asui took note of his blush, "Well of course you do, you designed it after all."
"Huh?" Uraraka stepped out. "Deku, you designed Tsu's costume?"
He took one look at her in her skintight outfit and blew a gasket, "Uh, well, you see, it wasn't really me, I mean, um—"
"Yes, he did," Asui interjected. "He did most of the design work on his own costume too."
"Wow!" Uraraka exclaimed. "That's so cool!" Midoriya struggled to look at her without freaking out. When Asui noticed his panic, she elbowed him in the ribs.
"Izuku, what do we say when people give us compliments?"
"Ahh, um, right, thank you!" he bowed quickly and overdramatically to hide his erratic behavior.
Once everyone had shown up, All Might and Aizawa explained their first hero practice. A classic heroes versus villains scenario, where the villains guarded a fake nuclear weapon and the heroes either captured the weapon or the opposing team with their allotted capture tape. After drawing lots, the crowd broke up into their assigned groups. Midoriya was partnered with Uraraka, while Asui was with Tokoyami. They waved goodbye to each other, regretful that they couldn't work together.
Once the class was assembled in pairs, All Might drew lots to determine which teams would fight in the first round. Midoriya's heart dropped when the team A ball was pulled. He and Uraraka had to go first as the hero team. He nearly threw up when he saw that team D was his opponent: Iida and Bakugou.
"So Deku, what's the plan?" Uraraka chirped.
"Uhhh…" Midoriya saw Bakugou shoot him a sideways glance as he ignored Iida's voice. He took a deep breath and composed himself. "Ok, I've got a plan."
… … …
Midoriya and Uraraka entered the building through a window on the third floor. The rest of the class watched through the cameras set up on site. Asui watched intently, silently cheering Midoriya on. Tokoyami stood with her, brooding as usual. She found out that he had a bit more personality depth than just being edgy, mostly from Dark Shadow, which made her a little more comfortable working with him.
Team A walked through the labyrinth halls of the third floor, stalking the premise. Until they heard Bakugou shout.
"Hey, shithead! I know you're around here! Why don't you show your face before I blast it off!"
Midoriya shuddered at his echoed voice reverberating throughout the twisted paths laid out. Midoriya and Uraraka both sought the source of the shouting, eventually finding Bakugou storming the halls.
"There you two bastards are!" he shouted before charging at them. Midoriya stepped in front of Uraraka and braced himself, reading Bakugou's movements. Once he saw his right arm draw back, he prepared to catch the attack. He sidestepped Bakugou and clutched his massive gauntlet before twisting his whole body in order to swing Bakugou over his head and into the ground.
"Now!" he screamed, prompting Uraraka to try and use her quirk on Bakugou. However, just as soon as she approached, Bakugou launched an explosion at her and she jumped back. He used his explosions to launch himself up in the air and back on his feet before taking another swing at Midoriya. Unprepared for the attack, Midoriya simply tried to block it, but it hardly worked. He took a blow to the side of the head, blowing the cloth of his mask off and loosening the steel mask so that it hung around his neck.
He could hear ringing in his ears as Bakugou dropped his boot onto his chest.
"Listen Deku. Just because you've got some flashy quirk now doesn't mean I'm gonna go easy on you. Whether you're gonna be a hero or not, I'm still gonna be better than you!"
Uraraka charged at Bakugou, trying to grab him and float him off of Midoriya. Instead, Bakugou took his foot off of Midoriya and sidestepped Uraraka's approach, blasting her as she passed him.
Once Midoriya's head stopped spinning from Bakugou's prior attack, he began pulling himself up. Bakugou saw this and launched an explosion onto his back, burning away his costume. He saw the huge burn scar that painted Midoriya's back. The rest of the class saw it on the cameras too.
"Oh my god, what is that?" Ashido shuddered.
"That looks pretty nasty," Kirishima commented. "And old."
"Likely too old to be treated," Yaoyorozu added.
Bakugou stared at the injury in shock, remembering when Midoriya had received it.
After school one day, during their first year in middle school, Midoriya was leaving class with Bakugou and his cronies, trying to catch up.
"W-wait, wait up!" he called to them.
"Heh heh, Deku's following us again," one of the cronies laughed.
"Why are you still here Deku?" Bakugou turned and asked.
"W-well, I don't have a-any other friends to walk home with…" he mumbled.
"You wanna know why?" Bakugou sneered. Midoriya nodded vigorously. "It's because you're a quirkless nobody!" he laughed at his own remark. "Not even we want you around!"
Midoriya grew angry at Bakugou's laughing, "Oh yeah? W-well, do you really think people want to be around you?"
"What did you just say to me?" Bakugou's previously mocking tone turned venomous in an instant.
"Yeah! People only like you for your quirk! They think it's cool, so they hang out with you, but they're really afraid of you! Face it, nobody would do anything with you unless you threatened them to!"
Bakugou's cronies saw the tensions rise with one of Midoriya's rare backlashes and ran off once they realized it wouldn't end well for him.
Bakugou, seething with anger, watched his "friends" leave right before his eyes and decided that he'd deal with them later. In the meantime, he decided to vent his frustrations to his punching bag, decking Midoriya in the teeth almost immediately. Midoriya clutched his face and spit out the blood that had pooled within his mouth. Right after that, Bakugou punched him in the stomach and then pushed him over into the grass. Midoriya landed on his side, grasping at his stomach as he resisted the urge to vomit. He rolled over onto his stomach and coughed up some more blood from his mouth. Bakugou then began repeatedly blasting him in the back, over and over again. Through his school uniform and straight to his exposed back, over and over. He didn't stop when he started to smell burnt flesh, he didn't stop when he heard Midoriya scream for help through blood-choked wheezing, he didn't stop when the skin turned dark and bloody. He stopped when he got tired. He looked at Midoriya as he got up from attacking him and noticed that he had long since passed out from the pain, leaving his blood to drip from his bottom lip into the dirt beneath him. Bakugou stared down at the body laying in the grass, his breaths ragged from overexerting himself. He felt almost remorseful, fearing that he had gone too far. He turned away immediately and ran home, leaving Midoriya's smoking body to lay bloodied, face down in the grass.
Midoriya was absent for the rest of that week.
Bakugou stared at it for a long time as Midoriya struggled to get up. He had never expected it to turn into such an ugly scar, he thought that it healed like the rest of his attacks.
Bakugou shook himself out of his state of shock once Midoriya had risen to his feet, pushing the idea that he could have almost killed someone out of his mind.
Midoriya, meanwhile, was a bit shaken and beat up, taking some time to return to his feet.
"Yeah…" Midoriya's breath heaved, "you've been ahead of me all these years, trying to push me down and stop me… but here I am. I'm not the same Deku you've been kicking around for some many years… and I'm gonna prove that to you right here. I'm gonna show you what the name Deku means!" Midoriya began channeling One for All within his body, reminding himself of the egg that he didn't want to break. Green bolts of electricity began shooting off of his body, and the force of him using his quirk could be felt by both Bakugou and Uraraka.
"Uraraka, plan B!" he shouted. She looked surprised and frightened, but nodded and ran off.
"Okay Ochako, you can do this," she told herself. "Plan A failed, we couldn't stop Bakugou with my quirk, so now I just have to find the bomb. Shouldn't be too hard, right?" She found the stairs leading up and ran towards them on her search for the weapon.
Meanwhile, Bakugou was face to face with Midoriya, his quirk creating small gusts of wind that Bakugou could feel on his face. He steeled himself, ready to face Midoriya with his quirk.
"I couldn't give a damn about your stupid quirk, Deku! I'll still beat you, any day of the week!" Bakugou lunged forward with the force of an explosion behind him, rocketing towards Midoriya at impossible speeds. In spite of that, Midoriya stepped out of the way with ease. He was not fast enough to attack Bakugou as he flew by, but his dodge was enough to throw Bakugou off. He skid across the ground and looked back at Midoriya, who was holding his fighting stance. Bakugou, realizing that a head-on attack wouldn't work, started blasting at Midoriya from across the hall. Midoriya watched as the explosions approached him and swung his arm at them with a right hook, creating a gust of wind powerful enough to sweep the explosions away.
Bakugou watched in awe as his attack was nullified seemingly effortlessly. Midoriya then darted forward and had covered the distance of the hall in almost no time, throwing an uppercut straight into Bakugou's stomach. Bakugou couldn't act fast enough to stop the attack, and was launched into the wall, spitting up blood. Midoriya felt his arm rattle in pain, telling him that he had put a bit too much into his attack. His arm wasn't broken, but if he had put some more power into it then it would be.
As Bakugou struggled to pick himself up and clean the blood off of his chin, Midoriya's radio went off.
"Deku! I found it! It's in the center of the top floor, but Iida's guarding it!"
"Got it, Uraraka! I'll be up there in a moment!"
"You think you can just run away from me?" Bakugou was staggering to his feet, gripping one of his gauntlets. He pulled the pin on one of them and took aim. "Try and stop this one!"
Midoriya, realizing that the coming explosion would likely be too powerful to blow away, took a few steps backwards. He stopped short though, once he met with a wall. By that point, the explosion was hurtling towards him. He concentrated and threw a punch forward as a last ditch effort to stop the coming blast, but his jab only weakened the blast. Midoriya felt his body become enveloped in flames as he was swept off his feet.
Once the explosion died down, Midoriya was left laying on the floor, ache filling his body. He stumbled to his feet and held himself up against the wall, releasing his quirk. He turned to see Bakugou ready to pull the pin on his other gauntlet. Ready to act this time, Midoriya darted down the hall, forcing Bakugou to chase him. He focused his quirk again and tried throwing punches from down the halls as Bakugou followed him, hoping the blasts of air would hit him. However, Bakugou managed to dodge them all. As he ran, Uraraka contacted him again.
"It's no good, Deku! Iida spotted me, and there's no way I can get to the bomb like this! Are you almost here?"
"Uh…" Midoriya thought for a moment before coming up with a plan, "I'll be right there!" It was the only way he could think of that would let them win. He paused in the center of the third floor and waited for Bakugou to show up.
Bakugou rounded the corner to see Midoriya standing in the center of the room, his right arm raised overhead and crackling violently with energy. The whole upper half of his costume had been destroyed by Bakugou and him channeling as much of One for All as he could. He stared Bakugou dead in the eyes wearing a hollow expression.
"Fine! If you won't let me escape, then I'll make sure you can't follow me anymore!" Midoriya's words rang out like the sparking green energy that shot out of his arm and danced across the walls. For a moment, Bakugou thought that he was going to throw a punch at him with as much of his quirk as he could muster. He figured that with that much power, there was no way he could survive that. Instead, he swung his arm straight into the floor, blowing a hole through it immediately below the both of them. The hole ran straight to the bottom floor of the building, and continued about 10 meters deep through the foundation. His attack shattered every window on the building, including the windows on the fourth and fifth floors, due to the recoil. Uraraka and Iida felt the building quake mercilessly, worrying that the building might collapse. Even the students in the camera room could feel the ground shake below them.
As both Bakugou and Midoriya started to fall, Midoriya looked at his bloodied arm and winced in pain as it flailed limply. He grit his teeth as he used his other arm to aim downwards. He drew his quirk to his fingers and flicked towards the ground, launching himself back up to the third floor. He collapsed on the ground and almost decided to stay there, but after peering into the hole to see Bakugou propelling himself upwards through the rubble, his adrenaline kicked in and he made a break for the stairs. He considered using his quirk to blast through the ceiling and make it to the top floor faster, but decided that it would be too damaging to his body to justify it.
He reached the fifth floor and ran to the center room, where he found Uraraka and Iida at a stalemate on opposite sides of the room. Iida was guarding the bomb in the back of the room. He approached Uraraka to come up with a plan to get past Iida.
"Deku!" she cried, "What happened to your arm?!"
Midoriya glanced at his bleeding, twisted arm laying limp next to his side, "It's fine, now how are we going to get around Iida?"
Uraraka tried to shake the worry from Midoriya's arm in order to focus, "Well he can't stop both of us if we rush him at the same time, right?"
"Good idea!" Midoriya activated his Full Cowling and ran to the right, while Uraraka ran left. Before Iida could stop Midoriya from running at him first, the floor began to rumble. Suddenly, an explosion blew away the center of the room, and Bakugou emerged. He spotted Midoriya running for the bomb and lunged in front of him, knocking him over.
"That was a pretty dirty attack you tried to pull, asswipe," Bakugou sneered, "but you could never put me down!" He pulled the pin on his gauntlet, which he was going to use earlier before Midoriya fled.
The whole class watched in horror as Bakugou was preparing to blast Midoriya at point-blank. Asui was on the verge of tears. She felt nauseous. It had been hard enough on her to watch Midoriya break his arm and finger using his quirk, but to see Bakugou stand over him, ready to fire an attack that Midoriya surely couldn't survive was heart-wrenching.
"All Might, sir!" she shouted. "You have to stop this, it's going too far!" All Might looked back at her before grabbing the microphone.
"Bakugou, that's en—"
"KACCHAN!" Midoriya shrieked, before lurching to his feet and pushing Bakugou's arm upwards, launching the explosion to the ceiling, blowing it apart in an instant. "If you think that I'm going down so easily then you haven't heard a word that I've said!" He jumped onto Bakugou and pushed him to the ground. He was about to punch him in the face, but Bakugou fired a decoy explosion to scare Midoriya before gut-punching him and pushing him off. The both rose to their feet, Midoriya clutching his stomach. He screamed in rage before activating his Full Cowl and charging at Bakugou. He feigned a punch with his unbroken arm and kicked him with his other leg, throwing Bakugou into the wall.
Bakugou stumbled up and wiped the blood off his lip, "You little bitch. Just because you have a power now, you think you can stand up to me? I'll show you just how wide the gap between us really is!" He launched towards Midoriya, raising his arm in preparation to strike.
Midoriya screeched in response, "Shut the hell up, Kacchan! I'm not your goddamn punching bag anymore!" He drew as much power into his unbroken arm as he could and threw a hook, the force of the attack throwing everyone in the room off their feet. Iida and Uraraka were thrown to the walls, and Bakugou was pushed out of one of the broken windows. He grabbed the unbroken window frame to prevent him from falling five stories down.
By the time the chaos died down, Bakugou tried to pull himself back up into the building. However, Midoriya was already there, standing over him. He activated his Full Cowl and stomped right next to one of Bakugou's hands as a threat, the metal of the building crunching loudly as it bent like rubber below his foot.
"Where are you going, Kacchan?" Midoriya spoke slowly as he stared down at Bakugou soullessly. Bakugou could only stare back and hope that he wouldn't fall. "How many times, Kacchan? How many times did you beat on me while I was helpless, just as you are now? How many times did I beg you to stop? And how many times did you keep going? What do you have to say for yourself?"
Bakugou was frozen in shock at Midoriya's cutting words. All he could do was stare at Midoriya's broken arms and think about how much they resembled the scar on his back. He was just waiting for Midoriya to lash out and kick him off the ledge, to even the score. "No, that wouldn't even come close to all the shit that I've caused him." He kept waiting, both he and Midoriya knew that he couldn't respond. Waiting and waiting, but Midoriya never made the move. Bakugou looked up to his face and saw it contort in anguish. The tears started rolling down his cheeks as he started to speak.
"K… Kacchan… you've always been ahead of me. And you've always made sure to remind me that I would never catch you. But even now… I don't feel like I've won. Because at the end of the day, you're still on a level above me. This quirk… it's still foreign to me, and you have such talent. It's no wonder that I think of you when I think of victory. I could push you down right now and use the time that it takes you to get back up with your quirk, but…" he broke into a crude smile, "taking revenge like that isn't very heroic at all." He stepped back and motioned for Bakugou to get up.
Bakugou pulled himself back into the building and stared at Midoriya incredulously. "What the fuck are you doing? You had a free win and you threw it away, for what? You—" his voice strained, "beat me, but you gave up on it! What was the plan here, you can barely stand! Why the fuck would you do that?"
Midoriya stared back. "I did the right thing," he said confidently. "I don't want to win unfairly, not against you. It wouldn't mean anythi—"
Bakugou cut him off, "The fuck are you saying? You think real heroes let the villains get back up because they want a fair fight? To declare some sorta dumb fucking moral victory? No, you dipshit, those kinds of heroes get killed!" He paused and watched his words sink in as Midoriya's tear-stricken face washed over with confliction. "You may have the makings of a hero, but deep down, you're still the same Deku you've always been."
Midoriya paused for a moment, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're naive. You've got a powerful quirk and some fighting skills, but you're still walking around in your own little rose-tinted world."
"No," Midoriya stated firmly. "I may not be the most mature, but I stand by what I said! I can keep to my ideals and still win!"
"Then try and prove it," Bakugou spat, "but don't come crying to me when your twisted delusion doesn't work out!"
Midoriya assumed the best fighting stance he could muster with broken arms as Bakugou charged at him. However, he could barely raise his arms to defend against the punch Bakugou threw at his chest, knocking him off his feet.
Meanwhile, as soon as the action picked back up, Uraraka charged at the nuclear missile, hoping that Iida wouldn't notice. That plan failed though, and they returned to their prior stalemate from before Midoriya and Bakugou arrived.
Midoriya tried his best to come up with a plan, but Bakugou had a good point: he couldn't do much in the sad condition that his body was in. To dodge Bakugou's follow-up attack, he rolled over and struggled to his feet. He was too slow though, and Bakugou pivoted his attack to grabbing Midoriya's shoulders and pinning him against the wall.
"How's your moral battle going?" Bakugou sneered. Midoriya finally came up with a solution in his head and took action, starting by thrusting his knee into Bakugou's stomach, causing him to let go of his shoulders. He then struggled to raise one of his arms, using the other one to lift it. He could feel the blood dripping off his arm, but he still aimed his arm at Bakugou, who was hunched over in front of him, arms clutching his abdomen. Midoriya channeled his quirk into his fingers, which exerted much less power after the whole arm broke. He flicked at the air in front of him and launched his attack, just as Bakugou looked up. Midoriya's painful screech that followed echoed throughout the room, causing both Iida and Uraraka to look over at him.
The blast of air hit Bakugou squarely in the chest and knocked the wind out of him. He dropped to the floor and wheezed, struggling to get up. Midoriya tried to advance towards the bomb so he could divide Iida's attention in hopes of either him or Uraraka getting past, but the pain in his arms was too strong, and he instead dropped to his knees. By the time he was ready to move, Bakugou was also making his way back to his feet.
In the camera room, Asui had sat down on the ground, feeling too weak in her knees to keep standing. She couldn't bear watching Midoriya keep hurting himself over and over. She drew her knees up to her chin and cried quietly, hoping no one would notice.
"Dammit!" Midoriya stopped to plan again after seeing Bakugou fail to get up on his first try. "Nothing's working! And I don't think I can move my arms anymore… Shit! It hurts… There's only one thing left that I can do, but if it fails, we lose…"
Once he and Bakugou were both finally standing, he waited for Bakugou to rush at him. But he didn't. Instead, Bakugou fired off explosions from a distance, which weren't large enough to reach. He gave up on that, and waited for Midoriya to approach him. Seeing as neither of them would make a move, Midoriya tried to provoke him.
"What, are you too much of a coward to fight me head on?"
Bakugou nearly burst a blood vessel and he lunged at Midoriya. Midoriya took a deep breath and drew One for All into his right leg, and looked directly at Bakugou coming at him. He kicked off the ground, remembering the feeling of rushing wind on his face when he used his quirk during the entrance exam as he launched forward. He rocketed through the air and drew up his shoulder to intercept Bakugou's attack and tackle him. He shoulder bashed him right in the chest and kept going, eventually crashing into the nuclear missile. They dropped onto the ground like ragdolls, Bakugou blacking out momentarily from the immense force of the impact. Midoriya made a concerted effort to touch the missile and claim victory, limply touching it with his only functioning limb, his left leg.
"I did it…" he murmured before rolling onto his front and fading out of consciousness.
Bakugou returned to his senses and tried to get up, before the pain in his chest stopped him immediately. After coughing up some blood, he craned his neck upwards to survey the scene. He saw Midoriya laying beside him, and a huge dent in the light metal shell of the prop missile above him.
"What the fuck… happened?" he tried again to sit up, but the pain struck him down again as Iida rushed to his aid.
"It would appear that we have lost," Iida said as he tried to prop Bakugou up.
"Get your hands off me," Bakugou spat weakly. The nurse robots showed up to take Midoriya and Bakugou to the infirmary. Uraraka and Iida watched as the both of them were hauled away before turning towards each other.
"I don't know what just happened," Uraraka said.
"I'm just glad that there were only two injuries here, although they were rather severe," Iida spoke gravely. His words hung in the air as they left the building.
Asui watched the robots carry Midoriya away on the cameras as All Might began the evaluation with the whole class. It was all white noise in her ears as she saw his limp, broken body get carried away. She couldn't chase away the idea of how much of a corpse he looked like as she broke down in the corner of the room.
… … …
Midoriya, as per usual, awoke in the infirmary covered in casts, bandages, and some metal rods to set the bones in place. After the expected "you can't keep getting away with this" talk that Recovery Girl always gives him, he laid back, exhausted. He faded in and out of consciousness for a while until he heard the door swing open. He lifted his head up wearily.
Asui had walked in with a horrified look on her face. She was used to the casts and bandages, but they were all stained a dull red, and the rods reminded her of how severe his breaks were.
"Hi… Tsuyu," he wheezed. She was frozen in place. "Oh man… is it that bad?" he chuckled quietly before gasping when he realized that it hurt. She slowly approached the hospital bed, and it wasn't until she was standing at the foot of the bed that he saw the tears streaming down her face. "Ah…! What's wrong?"
She finally took a shaky breath and spoke, "Wh-why? Why'd you go so far?"
He looked puzzled for a moment, "I guess… I got caught up in my emotions… and wanted to prove myself…"
"Prove yourself? To who?"
"... Well, me, I suppose…"
"But did you have to destroy your body for it?!"
"Well… it wasn't all bad… I still had my other leg to use… if I needed to…"
""That's how you're thinking about this, ribbit?!" Asui raised her voice. "You keep doing this! You keep hurting yourself! What if something goes wrong and you've destroyed yourself?! What happens then? If this keeps up, then one of these days, you'll…" she broke down into quiet sobs and croaks as she collapsed to the foot of the bed.
"I…" Midoriya froze and processed what she said, picking up on her implications, "I'm sorry…" She glanced up to see him staring at her with a troubled expression, tears forming in his eyes. "I didn't know… I was hurting you…"
"I—no," Asui walked over and crouched down right next to him, "It's not that, ribbit, I'm just… it's scary. I'm just worried about you. You're my best friend, my closest friend, one of my only friends… I can't lose another one…" she sniffled as she kept crying.
Midoriya tried to gesture to her to bring it in, but couldn't move his arms enough to do it effectively. She still understood what he meant and hugged him, laying her head on his chest as she let out her pent up anxiety.
"Listen…" he whispered, "I'm not… going anywhere… I would never dream… of leaving you…" he passed out again. She sat up and smiled at him, wiping the tears out of his eyes.
… … …
Bakugou had been released from the nurse's office after he had regained consciousness. Recovery Girl had said something about him being a quick healer, but he didn't really listen, the events of that afternoon weighing on him. "He did it anyway… The bastard gave it all up to me and still won… What the fuck? What happened? How the hell did he manage it? …The damn bastard's too reckless, he fucked up his body for that. He looked like he was in real shit condition back in that old lady's place. I… feel responsible for that. Why? I didn't do that!" Bakugou remembered all the times that he had lied to his teachers about beating up Midoriya, about how he didn't do it and there was some other accident. "Fuck man… I… I gotta go clear my head."
Bakugou turned away from his path towards the dorms to head to the gym instead.
"Deku's got a long road ahead of him if he wants to be the number one."
I think the writing was a bit messy during the ending, but I really hope you enjoyed! I had a great time writing all of this, I've been really excited for this chapter!
Anyway, just another friendly sellout, please follow my twitter ( zbnha64) because I'm shameless and I'm really excited about it. Or, at the very least, know that it exists out there so you can check it or hit me up if you want. My DMs are open, feel free to talk to me there, or me and I'll respond or something, however twitter actually works, I'm not super familiar with it. Or if you wanna make a review still, I'll reply there too. Although it'd be a little strange if you had an FFN account but not a twitter. I'm chill if you don't wanna follow, just know that I'll be grooving out there if you wanna send me an idea or something, or just say hi, I'm there for it.
Well, I hope you enjoyed and I hope that you have a fantastic day! ^u^
