Light filtered into the bedroom through the curtains casting soft shadows around the room. Katsuki had been up for a few minutes scrolling through the news articles on his phone. Reports of their fight against All Might were front-page news on nearly every network. Even the shitty tabloids, which usually only cared about who the heroes were screwing, were plastered with the story of the two blond-haired kids who fought against the Symbol of Fear and survived.
Katsuki's phone had been going off all morning. The shitty extras at school were trying to figure out if it was him and Deku the news was talking about. Katsuki wasn't going to give them a bone and just turned off his phone after a while. He had just finished getting dressed when he heard a knock on the bedroom door.
"Hey, brats," mom called out in a softer tone than usual. Katsuki figured she was still shaken up about yesterday's events. Hell, so was Katsuki — not that he'd admit that to anyone but Deku.
"The hell do you want?" Katsuki yelled back; Deku was still sleeping soundly on the other side of the room. It would take a bit more than some yelling to wake that idiot. Besides, yelling was a common occurrence in this house at nearly all hours. Deku had years of practice sleeping through shouts.
"Don't even think about going to school today. You and your brother are gonna get some god damned rest after yesterday." Katsuki didn't mind that one bit. It's not like he and Deku were actually learning anything there. That and the thought was nagging at the back of his mind that All Might could still be in town somewhere. He wasn't eager to have a repeat performance of yesterday's fight.
"What about our detention?" Mom opened the door swiftly and stared at him with crossed arms, face set into the signature Bakugo scowl.
"You two got fucking detention?" Oh, yeah, we forgot to tell her about that. Well, it's not like we had the time.
"Yeah, that bastard got on our asses about wanting to be heroes. He said some shit about us 'exuding an aura of superiority that he found disrupting and repulsive and that we need to 'set realistic expectations for ourselves.'" He accentuated each statement with finger quotes. "After he said that shit, Deku and I just left in the middle of class, the asshole gave us detention for it. It pissed Deku off to no end. I'd never seen him flip the bird to anyone before. It was awesome." Katsuki chuckled at the expression of confused wonder that crossed Mom's face as she looked between Katsuki and the pile of blankets and pillows under which his brother slept.
Mom huffed, "Ok, so let me get this straight. Your teacher tried to tell you two that you could never be heroes, you and Izuku stood up for your dreams, and he gave you detention for it?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Katsuki smirked when the hag's left eye started to twitch. She opened and closed her hands repeatedly.
"Get your brother up; we're gonna have a family meeting." She turned to leave their room. "I need to make a quick phone call." The hag closed the door and plunged the room into muted darkness. Katuski could hear Deku still snoring under his proverbial nest of blankets. God, that guy could sleep through a war.
Katsuki walked across the room to wake up his brother. He looked at the terrarium on Deku's desk when he walked passed. When was the last time Deku fed that thing? What does it even eat anyway? The red-eyed bastard had been a constant feature in their room since Deku picked up the quirk when they were seven, and Katsuki still didn't know what the damn thing ate. Such a fucking useless quirk. They still don't even know where the damn bug is!
"Oi! Deku, feed your damn frog!" Katsuki shouted, grabbing Deku's ankle and dragging him out of bed onto the floor. Katsuki thought that his skin felt warmer than usual.
This had become the usual way of waking up his brother. If Katsuki didn't step in and wake Deku up at a reasonable time, the nerd would sleep till noon.
Deku flailed and landed on the ground with a shriek. " "Ow, that was more rough than usual…." He rubbed at his butt as he stood up from the ground. "Also, I fed him two days ago; he doesn't need to eat again till tomorrow."
"Well," Katsuki said. "I wouldn't have to be rough if you would just wake up like a normal person." Izuku crossed his arms and set his bottom lip forward.
"Kacchan, 5:00 a.m. is 'not' a time that normal people wake up."
"Yeah? Neither is noon, ya narcoleptic fuck. Also, it's eight o'clock, so you have no excuse." Katsuki chuckled and walked back to his side of the room. "Put some clothes on your freckly ass; mom wants us downstairs for a family meeting." Deku grumbled as he walked over to his dresser and pulled on some pants and another one of his dumb 'word' shirts. Deku sneezed, and Katsuki connected the dots.
What did you do? Katsuki stared at his brother, arms crossed.
Uh… can we talk about that later? I'm still not sure what It does…
When did you even? Katsuki ran his hand through his hair; he was too tired for this shit today.
Right as we were leaving… I uh… I shook her hand.
God damn it, I thought we were going to train? How are we gonna do that if you've got the fucking flu for a week?
No, no, I'm really not that bad. I don't know; this time feels different than the past… I don't know; I already feel like I'm almost over it. I feel… healthier somehow? Does that make sense?
No.
Well, do you want to wait till I'm entirely over it? Or do you want me to go ahead and do it now?
Fuck it! Katuski said with a dramatic wave of his hand. We've got the week off anyway. He motioned for his brother to walk over.
Deku walked across the room and grabbed Katsuki's hand. His brother's eyes started to glow a bright seafoam color, and Katsuki felt a warm burning sensation all over his body. Usually, this landed both of them on their asses with flu-like symptoms for weeks. Deku was right, though; something about this felt different than it had in the past. Oddly enough, he felt less tired than he did a moment ago. And, for lack of a better phrase, healthier even… if that was possible…?
Huh, that actually wasn't that bad. He examined his body but didn't notice anything different.
Yeah, the funny thing is, I don't think this works even remotely the same as hers. I think it's more of a passive thing. I can't seem to find a way to activate it. I tried for quite a bit last night.
Katsuki stared at him with an unamused expression. Is that why you're so fucking tired this morning?
Deku chuckled meekly, uh, maybe? Sorry haha.
God damnit, Deku, you're going to be the death of me. Whatever, we'll figure it out later. Katsuki shrugged off the weird feeling from the transfer and went back to his morning routine.
Having finally finished getting dressed for the day, he and Deku walked down the stairs to an interesting sight in the family room. The hag was yelling obscenities into her phone, and Dad was trying to get the phone from her calmly.
She pulled the phone away and shouted directly into the receiver, "I will ring your heart as I stomp on your shattered spleen! I will fucking dance on the rotting corpses of your…." She stopped mid-phrase when Dad took the phone out of her palm and patted her on the shoulder.
"Honey, let me handle this." Mom glared at him but didn't take the phone back. Dad raised the phone to his ear and strolled into the other room.
"The fuck was that about?" Katsuki asked, sitting on the couch.
Deku shifted beside him, fumbling his thumbs, "Yeah… is everything alright?"
"You're fucking teacher threatened to drive here himself to drag you two to your detention. I'm not sure what power complex he has, but that bastard definitely has some kind of rebar surgically implanted in his…." Dad walked back into the room and handed mom the phone.
"He's agreed to let Izuku and Katsuki stay home from school this week. There will be no detention required, and he will also issue both of them a written and verbal apology in front of the entire class." The room fell quiet; everyone stared at Dad with their mouths hanging low.
Katsuki spoke first, "How the fuck did you manage that?" Dad smiled and patted Katsuki on the shoulder.
"Oh, you know, I just talked some reason into him," Mom shook her head.
The hag looked at him bewilderedly, "What did you threaten the poor man with? I tried everything."
Dad laughed, "Oh, just this and that," Dad said. "Don't worry; he won't be a problem for the kids anymore." Deku groaned, putting his face in his palms.
Their father was a calm man by nature. Frankly, Katsuki had never seen the man truly lose his temper. However, when he was upset, his dad was one of the most terrifying individuals Katsuki had ever seen. He had his ways of getting what he wanted.
Mom shook her head and turned to look at him and his brother. "Well, now that that's handled. Breakfast is ready. We'll eat and talk." They filed into the kitchen without another word and started digging into a breakfast of rice, eggs, and various meats.
"That posh hero school called this morning," Mom began. "They said that due to the media's… involvement in what happened to you two, the school will be upping hero patrols around our house."
"What fuckin good will that do? It's not like any of those wannabe rejects would stand a chance if All Might decided to come back." Deku flinched beside him, Katsuki felt a little bad at that. He must not have liked the reminder that the black, white, and blond asshole is still out there.
"Kacchan, still though, it makes sense. At least, I think it does? With the other heroes out there, they'd at least be able to hold him off for long enough till other pros arrive. That, or at least, they'd be able to help us while we fought him off long enough for Eraserhead to get here again. Though, at the same time, their presence here could also act as a target for All Might should he want to take out some more pros." Deku continued to ramble on for a few more seconds about the pros and cons of the upped patrols.
"You done?" Katsuki asked when Deku finally stopped to take a breath.
"Uhh… yeah, sorry," He winced a smile and shrugged his shoulders.
"Like it or not, that's what they are doing," Mom said. "Ultimately, your father and I think it's for the best. Even if they can't help out much, they'll at least be able to get you two help faster god-forbid, something happens again." Katsuki couldn't argue with that logic. It had taken way too long for any pros to show up during their fight the other day. Had they taken even a minute longer to show up, he and Deku would have… No, he didn't want to think about that today.
Katsuki decided to change the subject, "Speaking of the media, how much do they know? My phone was going off all damn morning with the extras from school. I just turned the fucker off, so it didn't keep ringing." Deku giggled beside him.
"Mine too," Deku said. "I ended up doing the same because people kept texting me asking about yesterday… I also got a few angry texts from our teacher about missing detention…." Mom looked at him with an appraising eye and shook her head.
"I don't get how that man is allowed to teach."
Dad shrugged in response, "Well, he might not be for long on the bright side."
What the fuck did Dad tell him? Katsuki asked Deku.
I… I don't know. I don't know if I want to know… Dad can be scary sometimes… Katsuki elbowed his brother playfully.
So can you, you know? Yesterday you were fuckin awesome!
Thank you, Kacchan; Izuku chuckled. You were amazing too! They were interrupted by their mom clearing her throat.
"You two brats done?" Mom stared at them with her arms crossed on her chest.
"Sorry about that," Deku said, rubbing his neck. "It's easy to forget that we aren't talking out loud sometimes." The rest of breakfast passed with relative ease. As they were cleaning up the dishes, Katsuki decided that he might as well go ahead and ask their parents about letting them train.
He had been holding off on it after the talk about the increased hero patrols. He was afraid that their mom would flat out say no to them going anywhere after everything that had happened the previous day.
Do you want to ask? Or should I? Katsuki asked Deku
Let me; she'll probably be more receptive if it's me asking.
Katsuki scoffed, What the hell's that supposed to mean?
It means you tend to blow up in conversation. If we want our best chance at mom saying yes, let me do the talking. As much as Katsuki hated it, his brother had a point. He and his mom usually entered conversations like two individuals preparing to duel to the death.
Fuckin fine. If she says no, I'm blaming your ass. Deku nodded
"Mom, would Kacchan and I be able to go somewhere and train? We want to get stronger so that something like yesterday never happens again." Mom looked at him like he had just asked her to go on a solo trip across Japan with hitchhikers they picked up on the side of the road.
"You're joking, right? I know you got hit pretty hard yesterday… but damn." Mom's voice was oddly lacking her normal bite of anger — it was… unsettling.
"That's exactly why we want to train; we want to make sure we're prepared if something happens again. If you want, we can disguise ourselves, and you and dad can come with us. Oh! And you can inform UA so that they can adjust whatever hero they have monitoring us!" Deku beamed a sickeningly sweet smile. If Katsuki ever tried to smile like that, he was sure that someone would burst into flames. Probably himself. But from Deku? It might actually work.
The hag sighed and rubbed at her temples. "Masaru, what do you think? I don't like it."
"Well, honey, they do have a point. It would be good if they got in more active practice with their quirks going into the entrance exams." Dad said.
She leveled a finger at Deku. "Aren't you're supposed to be resting, though? That's why you're home from school this week!" Deku shifted from foot to foot, smile wavering a bit.
"We promise not to overdo it… Please, mom? I… I'm really worried about not being strong enough. I don't ever want to see Kacchan get hurt like that again…" Tears started to well in his brother's eyes, Katsuki pulled him into a shoulder hug.
Mom sighed, "fucking fine. First, how do you two plan to disguise yourselves?"
Katsuki glanced at izuku and smirked. He turned his hair and eyes green like his brother's natural state. Deku beamed with a smile and followed suit.
"I hate both of you," Mom said, shaking her head. "Fine, but your father and I are going with you, if only just to make sure you don't kill each other."
"Actually, I won't be able to go. I got called into work earlier this morning." Mom sighed.
"Fine, well, I'm going with you two green beans. I'm gonna go call that damn school, and we'll head out."
Deku smiled at him with a look that said, 'i told you so.' Katsuki scowled at him but didn't argue. The nerd was right; their mom would have never have said yes if he had been the one to ask.
"Where should we go to train?" Katsuki asked.
"Oh, I know of a place your father and I used to go to," mom said as she typed on her phone. "It's a beach nearby; the place is a total dump now, so no one goes there. You two should be able to blow shit up in peace without disturbing anyone."
Katsuki knew the beach she was talking about. Ever since the arrival of All Might, no one felt safe enough to go somewhere so open, so the place fell into disrepair and eventually became a dumping site for garbage and trash. The hag was right; that would be an excellent place to train.
It took about an hour for their mom to make the calls and get ready and another half hour for them to arrive at the beach. Katsuki had never seen the beach before, but he imagined that it was a strip of sand covered in trash. Dagoba beach somehow exceeded that expectation. Sure, it was covered in debris, but that trash towered into piles nearly twenty feet above their heads. It was a location to rival the Tokyo prefecture dump.
"…wow," Deku said, standing beside him on the edge of the toxic jungle. Their mom was still in the car finishing up a call with a work client.
"Yeah… how the fuck does something get to be like this?" Katsuki just couldn't believe that people could let what must have been a beautiful location become so desolate.
Deku shook his head slowly, "I don't know, but it makes me sad. Mom and Dad used to talk so much about this place. She told me once that this was where Dad took her on their first date." Katsuki looked out at the refuse piles and tried to imagine the strip of beach without the detritus. He couldn't.
"It must hurt her a lot to see this place like this," Deku nodded. Katsuki smirked; he had an idea that he knew the nerd would love.
Oi, nerd, all that trash's got to weigh a lot, right? He asked, looking at his brother out of the corner of his eye.
Uh, yeah, I guess? There are probably a thousand metric tons of garbage out there. Maybe more? Deku looked around the sea of trash with a frown on his face.
Let's clean it up. His brother's eyes widened with a smile as soon as Katsuki suggested it. We can clean the beach by hand before and after school as a form of strength training. We can also test out our various quirks on the piles of garbage before we clean them up.
That's such a good idea! Mom and Dad would be so happy to see the beach cleaned again! Deku started bouncing up and down in place like a rabbit.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Maybe we could surprise them with a picnic or something here once we clean it up. Deku sniffed loudly. Katsuki looked at him and was taken back to find his brother crying.
Oi, what did I say? What's with the waterworks? Deku rubbed at his eyes and smiled.
That's just one of the nicest things I think you've ever suggested. Kacchan, I love the idea. Let's do it! He pumped his fist, a determined gleam in his eye. Katsuki smirked and nodded back at him.
The brothers left the sidewalk and started to pick their way through the piles of garbage carefully. It was treacherous work, but eventually, they made it to a somewhat clear stretch of beach near the water's edge.
"Alright, spill. What happened this morning that you didn't want to talk about, huh? Why weren't we sick like usual?" Deku turned to him and shrugged.
"Don't know, actually. I think something about the quirk itself lessened my own body's reaction to gaining it? It's weird. I'm not going to complain, though."
"Yeah, I figured I'd feel somewhat sick by now, too. I don't, though; I feel fucking fantastic. I don't even feel sore from yesterday. What did this shit mutate into?"
Deku stared at him for a second, "Appraisal says it's called 'Accelerated Restoration.' So, going off of that, I assume it's some kind of passive healing?"
"Well, that sounds fuckin useful… that would explain why I feel so good right now. This morning I felt like I got hit by a truck; now? I feel like I could take on God himself."
Deku laughed, throwing his green curls back, "Well, you did get hit by a truck, or at least got thrown into one. Also, All Might is pretty much as close to taking on God as you can get!" Katsuki smirked. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck.
"Well, let's hope he doesn't hold back next time. That fucker's gonna need every ounce of strength he's got to take us down again!" Deku nodded with a smile.
"Speaking of All Might," Deku added. "Does the name One For All mean anything to you?"
"No… Why?" Katsuki furled his brows. Where was Deku going with this?
"That's what his quirk is called apparently… Yesterday, during the fight, I tried to pick it up. It didn't work. It felt like it was resisting me, somehow." Deku shrugged, a hint of concern in his eyes.
"The fuck does that mean? That hasn't happened before, right?" Deku shook his head. What the hell is goin on? Katsuki couldn't think of a single reason why his brother's quirk would have fizzled out.
"I don't know. Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know."
"Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Deku," Katsuki said and ruffled his brother's hair.
"So, how do we want to do this?" Deku asked. Katsuki glanced around and shrugged.
He thought for a second before suggesting something. "Not sure, really; how about we pick one quirk and focus on that until we feel confident in it?"
Deku scrunched his features together with his hand on his chin, deep in thought. He stayed that way for several seconds, looking like a constipated asparagus before finally responding.
"I think that's a good idea. After yesterday, I want to work on Crystalize a lot more." Katsuki couldn't help but look at the spiderweb-like fracture lines on his brother's skin. "I think a good way to practice this one at least would be for one of us to crystalize ourselves and the other attack with Explosion." Deku let off a few small explosions in his hand, causing Katsuki to smile.
"Sounds like a good plan to me, nerd. You wanna take offensive first? I haven't used Crystalize too much other than to reinforce my palms. I'm pretty out of practice with it." Deku nodded with a smile.
"Oh, one other thing. Let's train without our usual commandments." Katsuki's smirk faded slightly. He had grown so used to the power that he got from them that he felt almost less of himself without them.
"Why? It's not like we're ever going to get into a fight without them?" Deku tilted his head and gave him a pointed look.
"Kacchan, listen, we never know what we'll be faced with. Who knows, we might need to use all three on something else at some point. I think it would be good to perfect all of our quirks without any augmentation from Commandment so that should the need ever arise, we know exactly what our baseline limits are." Katsuki couldn't argue with that. It was a sound reason.
"Fine," he said with a huff and let go of the commandment that he and his brother usually maintained to increase their strength, reflexes, and reaction time. He felt slow. He felt weak. He felt vulnerable. A shudder traveled up his spine. His nerves calmed a bit when he saw that his brother was dealing with the same thing. They both felt off without it.
"Alright, let's get this fucking over with," Katsuki activated Crystalize. His entire body hardened into a crystalline substance the color of deep ruby. Glittering facets covered his body that shimmered and danced in the sunlight. Deku ran towards him, letting off a large explosion in his face as his brother vaulted over him. Katsuki endured the blast, willing himself to become harder. Willing his body to become an impenetrable wall of crystal. His body glinted with pinkish-red flashes in the sunlight as he moved to counterattack his brother.
Deku let off blast after blast at Katsuki, trying to wear him down. Katsuki made no effort to avoid any of the explosions and faced them head-on. He figured that the only way to train this quirk was through brute force. As the fight went on, he grew more and more tired, small cracks started to form on his glistening skin. Finally, after being thrown onto his ass by a particularly large explosion from Deku, Katsuki called Uncle.
"Ok, I'm done with that for now, fuck! That's brutal." Deku offered him a hand up. Katsuki took it and was quickly hoisted to his feet. "Your turn, nerd," Katsuki smirked, excited to give Deku a little payback for the beating he just put him through. Deku nodded with a smile and crystalized his own body. He shimmered a deep emerald color in the noonday sun as he set himself into a defensive position.
The two of them spent the next few hours sparring in various forms. They would take turns blasting at each other back and forth. They both hardened themselves and decided to do some hand-to-hand combat at one point. Eventually, their mom's voice called them back to the car, saying it was time to go.
Katsuki and Deku thought about bargaining for more time, but they decided against it. They were exhausted. They figured that they would just keep coming here every day until the entrance exams. Starting tomorrow, they would clean up the beach for an hour or two before and after their quirk practice. At that pace, they figured that they should be able to fully clean up the beach before the exams.
"Good job out there today," Katsuki said, patting Deku on the back. "We've got a long way to go, but I know we'll get there. We'll save everyone, just like we planned."
His brother simply hummed with a smile. One day down, nine months to go. Katsuki couldn't help but be excited at what the future would hold.
