Chapter 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or My Hero Academia.
Now, some people would say that Bakugo was never happy; this much was untrue. There were occasions when he felt plenty happy but the idiots around him were just unable to discern the difference because he didn't start acting like he was hyped up on drugs like they did. On this particular day, however, he was feeling an extreme dose of unhappiness and, while some people might not notice his happiness, everybody could notice his unhappiness.
The seat in front of him was empty, the seat behind him was vacated, and the seat next to him was practically quarantined. The intense scowl on his face prevented even the noblest of citizens from attempting conversation and, when he looked at one girl who was crying about dropping something, she halted and hugged herself into her mother's chest when his red eyes landed on her. For a lot of fellow riders, they were probably made uneasy because they recognized him from the Sports Festival and knew one of their passengers was clearly pissed off and capable of destroying the whole thing in the blink of an eye.
What made him so unhappy? Well, Hokage did not give a proper address, instead, giving the title of a train to get on and instructing him to get off at a small stop that turned out to be another hour of travel away. He hated having his time wasted and he hated being expected to play along with this stupid little game. When Bakugo stood up and walked toward the door after having finally reached his stop, the other riders held their breaths in anticipation that something terrible was going to happen. When he got off, they collectively breathed a sigh of relief. This reaction was much different from Bakugo who, standing for a minute, was not approached by anybody and realized that he now had no idea where he was going.
"Damn it!" He yelled and, when one mom gave him a stink eye for public profanity, his glare was easily enough to make her rethink her position. Nothing else to do, he started walking just for the sake of walking. He knew that people who were lost should stay in the same position for someone to find them, but there was no way he was just going to stand there after wasting so much time on those trains. Noticing now that he was feeling hungry, he decided to try to grab a bite to eat; unfortunately, looking at the selection of foods, the best summary he could think of to describe them was piss poor selection with ludicrous prices. Deciding not to pay for any of that, he then left the small station altogether because, at that point it was so late that if the guy showed up then fuck him. Feeling like his wallet had no other choice, he settled on a small ramen stand that was only made to sit eight people and only one seat was even taken. That did not get his hopes up about a quality meal but at least it'd probably be edible. It better be.
"Miso," he said between gritted teeth to the woman who greeted him. He thought she might have given a name or something but didn't even hear it. It only took a brief moment to get annoyed by the guy sitting two seats to his left, who was slurping his ramen as if the entire food were destined to be wiped from existence in five minutes and he needed to devour as much as possible before it happened. "Hey buddy, how about you shut the hell up with your eating!" Then he looked over, and felt a little bad, because the guy was wearing a black tracksuit with orange on the side and orange pants and, though most people may not realize, he tried not to be so mean to the mentally handicapped. It's not like they'd even get it. The man was blond, a much yellower blond than his own, and seemed to be probably two years or so older. It was also worth noting that there were many empty ramen bowls in front of the guy.
"Sorry, guess I got a bit carried away" the guy said with a laugh, rubbing his neck, as Bakugo turned away from him and waited for his food with fingers tapping on the counter. "Oh hey, you're Katsuki Bakugo aren't you?"
"What about it?"
"I was hired to take you to Hokage! My name is Naruto Uzumaki."
Fury. That was the only word to describe the feeling that overcame Bakugo in that moment. He was so angry he could hardly think about what an unbelievably stupid name it was. Seriously, what kind of idiots want a child then name it 'Naruto'? It was practically child abuse.
"Then WHY weren't you at the train station, damn it!"
"Guess I got distracted." That laugh was gonna make him kill this guy, he was sure of it. "Oh, don't look upset, it was an honest mistake! But don't tell Hokage about it, yeah? Don't want him mad at me."
"You'll be lucky if you ever make it back to him, shit head!"
"You were awesome in the Sports Festival, by the way. Definitely the most entertaining guy to watch. Loved the way you just walked right up and said you were gonna win; crowd reaction was golden! Knew every time they put you on the screen it was going to be awesome." The guy moved on in the 'conversation' with no acknowledgment at all of what Bakugo had said, much to his annoyance.
"One miso ramen, sir," the girl said cautiously, looking at the other occupant as if she were worried. Then again, with as many bowls as that guy had already eaten, he probably kept the place running. Bakugo turned back to face the counter, and took perhaps the most furious bite of ramen in all known history. And, to his immense surprise, it was actually very good. Possibly the best ramen he'd ever had, come to think of it. He took another look at it, as if to confirm that it was actually that food generally associated with being cheap and tasteless.
"Oh wow, look at the time! We can't afford to just sit around. Thanks for the meal Ayame!" Naruto took out a surprisingly large amount of cash, slapped it on the counter, then grabbed Bakugo and started rushing away from the stand.
"Are you crazy! Keep your hands off me! And I was eating!" Bakugo forcefully removed Naruto's hand but continued running alongside him through the small town even as people were looking at them funnily for some reason.
"It's a long way to Hokage's, couldn't waste any more time. We need to keep a good pace."
Bakugo was panting, and he found it hard to believe that he could be breathing hard while the Naruto guy seemed perfectly composed. Maybe there was something to the guy's ramen intake that powered his quirk because this was insane. Bakugo knew he had great endurance, and rarely tired in a battle, and never asked to take a break during class, but here they were. They'd been running fairly fast for almost two hours now, deep into the hilly forests of the region, and were now fully enveloped by trees on every side for as far as he could see. As if the running weren't bad enough, the guy kept bursting into talking pretty regularly too.
"Anyway, after that, I met this nice girl, well, maybe nice isn't the best way to describe her but I think she's nice, in one of my classes and we seemed to hit it off. I thought I loved her, you know, high-school sweetheart and all that, but she kept rejecting me all the time. For a while, I was heartbroken, but then..."
"I don't care, just shut the hell up!" Bakugo loudly interrupted, begging for relief of some kind from the never ending tales of the guy's personal life. There was a short moment of silence, with Naruto looking at him briefly with a blank expression on his face, and Bakugo thought maybe the blond had finally caught on, but then it was broken.
"Like I was saying, I met this friend of mine named Lee; I guess we weren't friends at first, but we're friends now, and he's a real crazy guy. Really kept my mind off her with his shenanigans. Then again, he also liked the same girl, so I guess that was a bit weird..."
"Oh my God, just shut up!" There were some people who could not take a hint; Bakugo knew many of them. Others seemed able to pick up on every small detail, noticed everything. And then there was this guy, whom Bakugo was sure could only be successfully talked to by arranging helicopter spotlights into words to get his attention. Although, admittedly, it was ridiculous that the guy could run for so long, barely break a sweat, and almost constantly keep talking.
"Just trying to break the monotony, Bakkun."
"What. The fuck. Did you just call me?" Normally, he would have yelled, but this time, the anger was so intense that it came out gruffly through gritted teeth.
"Bakkun; I don't know, just seems to really fit you."
"Die!" Without further warning, Bakugo felt himself snap and he unleashed a huge explosion where Naruto was standing. Before the smoke even cleared, he began to cause smaller and smaller explosions. "Die! Die! Die!" He stood there, for a minute or two afterwards, red eyes staring at the area he had bombarded, practically daring any living creature to show up around it. When he could finally see the damage, there was a crater, a rather large one, but no body.
"That's not much of a heroic catchphrase. Die die die die?" He heard a high-pitched voice taunting him from somewhere, but as he looked around in the trees, he wasn't able to make out anybody; judging from the direction of the voice, he knew it was somewhere in front of him. And it was definitely not Naruto's voice. "Now, why'd you have to get rid of our guide? I was hoping he'd finally lead me to Hokage."
"Well, I don't think he's dead," Bakugo said, still trying to identify wherever the other voice was. "No way those blasts would have destroyed the remains. Don't know where the hell he went, but I'm damn thankful it's somewhere else."
"But then how are you going to deal with my surprise?"
Suddenly there were footsteps behind Bakugo, approaching him quickly, so he fell to the ground, did a quick 180 spin, and fired off a huge explosion before even identifying an enemy. Clearly, whoever was talking had hostile intentions so there was no point in beating around the bush when it came to murdering whoever showed up. There were two options: Option One was that a villain of some kind had actually followed them for two hours, keeping up with his and Naruto's pace the whole time, and Option Two was that this was a training exercise from Hokage. Bakugo knew which option he was willing to go with. If he actually killed somebody then it was their fault for underestimating him.
As the smoke from the explosion cleared, there was a figure standing in it. From the general outline, Bakugo saw that it was someone about the same height as him; as it cleared a little more, he could tell the person also had the same hairstyle and same attire as his. Then the smoke was gone, and he had to admit he was more than a little confused when he saw himself standing there, a crooked mischievous smile on its-his?-face. Surely this had to be quirk related in some way, but it seemed unlikely that it could be something to do with Hokage since Deku had said the quirk was 'Energy Manipulation;' then again, nerd also said there could be more to it.
"Hey hey Bakugo, good to finally meet ya." The voice was even the same as his! What the hell!
"What the hell is going on here?"
"I've known about you since before the Sports Festival, Bakugo." It was the mysterious voice from earlier that spoke again. "Remember that incident where you were taken captive? I could tell even then that you were special and would be worth pursuing with my particular talents. That inspired my newest line of products; anyway, I'd appreciate if you would help me with the bug testing."
"Shut up and die!" He let loose explosion after explosion at the copy of himself because, whether this was a real villain fight or not, that thing was definitely going to die. Unfortunately, it was actually really fast and seamlessly avoided all of his attacks. Next thing he knew, it was right on top of him and throwing a bunch of punches and kicks that he had a difficult time avoiding. It didn't really have the same fighting style, but it was similar, like a cheap imitation. Looking into the thing's red eyes, the way it was smiling at him, it was making him angrier by the second. Forced to fight a cheap bargain bin knockoff of himself; what a joke!
Using an explosion to propel himself quickly backward, he drew his hands together and quickly caused a huge explosion in the entire area in front of him. If nothing else, the run here had given him plenty of fuel to be able to use in this fight. Without waiting to know if the attack hit, he thrust his hands forward and aimed a series of smaller explosions across a wide area to ensure at least one of them did some damage.
"Good try." The voice was behind him but before Bakugo could even react, he found his feet kicked out from under him by a leg sweep and was then hit with a hard punch that knocked him back through the air until he was able to regain his balance. With a grimace, he admitted to himself that this opponent he was fighting was definitely above average. That damn smile, looking at him like the copy was in someway superior. Alright, that was it, this guy was clearly a tough opponent so he was going to make sure he went all-out from now on.
"You think you're better than me!?" His opponent was strong enough that his punches hurt a fair bit but it was nothing that he couldn't endure. The main problem was the speed; the copy of himself was just way faster and there was no denying that. So he needed to come up with a way to mitigate his speed disadvantage. His opponent had thus far shown no obvious sign of quirk usage and, though it looked like some kind of copy of himself, it seemed incredibly unlikely that it would be able to use the same explosive power especially if it had not already. He needed to exploit the advantage for everything he could.
Rushing in, he led with a right hook, but before the copy could block, Bakugo used his left hand to blast himself slightly to the right and then launched the attack. But in the last second before it connected, the thing somehow tilted backwards, narrowly avoiding the blow, before bringing up a knee that hit Bakugo solidly in the stomach. It attempted to follow up with a punch, but that plan was ruined when Bakugo put a hand in front of its face and attempted to blast it point-blank. In order to avoid the attack the knockoff launched itself to the left and Bakugo was sent backwards from the recoil. That engagement, though he had taken a hit, had definitely gone better because he was close to landing a few knockout hits whereas the copy was gonna need a lot more hits if it wanted to do much to him.
The thing then took its turn to attack, swinging quickly and bouncing from side to side, seemingly effortlessly, in a flurry of movement. Bakugo used small bursts to keep himself slightly out of reach, understanding at this point that his speed without using his quirk was just not quite enough to handle a fist fight. He tried to land a close range hit on the copy but the thing seemed to understand his intention from the way it constantly managed to dodge it. Finally, it broke off its attack and this particular clash could be deemed a total draw.
Naturally, this pissed Bakugo off. "I am the best, you damn knockoff!" He charged in, firing a series of explosions behind himself to increase his speed and leading with a right knee. But the thing was able to dodge it, and attacked with a right jab. Bakugo took the hit in the side of his torso, and quickly wrapping its hand underneath his arm, trapped the copy in front of him. A smile lit up his face as he brought in his other hand for the explosive kill; but to his surprise, the knockoff jumped, twisting overhead and using its free hand to throw him into a tree, bark splintering as the wind was knocked out of him. He stood, ignoring the pain, panting as he tried to catch his breath.
The stupid thing was grinning at him as it spoke. "Is this seriously the best you have? What a joke."
Bakugo was regretting his casual clothes at the moment because he was pretty sure a solid blast from his grenade bracelets could end this whole charade in a flash. Unfortunately, those were currently in his backpack and were not an option. The copy rushed at him, and briefly, Bakugo allowed himself to wonder at the oddity of being attacked by himself. Some psychologist somewhere would just eat that shit up. Suddenly Bakugo smiled maliciously, causing his opponent to halt in its tracks. "Hah, hell no, I just didn't feel like messing up my clothes!"
The air around them was practically overflowing with nitroglycerin due to the fact that he had already been sweating when he got there. Normally, Bakugo would make more of an effort to restrict his explosions so he wouldn't run out of material, but right now, he could hardly care less about any of that. He was determined to win this fight. A laugh escaped him as he clapped his hands together. The resulting explosion rocked the section of the forest, killing several trees in the process as the experimental move ignited the air surrounding him in one gigantic fireworks display, clearing the area around him for five meters.
He was breathing even heavier after the move, his arms aching from its usage and his body somewhat hurt by the blast. He knew he had not been fully ready to add it officially to his arsenal but supposed things could have been worse. Looking around, he saw no sign of his opponent and that brought a huge smile to his face even as he looked down and saw the state his clothes were in. Mom was definitely gonna nag him for that one. Oh well, at least he had gotten a decent fight out of it. Way better than that damn Sports Festival.
"Wow, Bakugo-kun, you sure are strong!" It was that same high-pitched voice from earlier, but this time it coincided with the appearance of a figure wearing dark robes and an orange mask that seemed to have a swirl built into its design and only an eye hole for the right eye. "I knew it was going to be a good fight, but thought for sure my creation would pull through! I spent so much time designing and programming it for just this occasion. You really messed up my plans, you know that?"
"Who the hell are you?"
"He goes by Tobi." A voice came from behind, a little deep and a little gruff, before a figure appeared beside Bakugo. The man beside him was a fair bit taller than him, wearing white robes with a flame design on the bottom that stretched into a hood that covered his head and down about to his knees. Underneath the robes he seemed to be wearing blue pants with a green shirt. He had numerous pouches attached to his belt as well, but maybe the weirdest thing was his mask. A white mask with various touches of red on the forehead, three stripes on either cheek, and fox ears that identified this man as the hero Hokage. The Kitsune mask met perfectly with the hood, making it impossible to see any of the hero's features. "He's a relatively unknown villain but definitely a dangerous one."
"Ah, Hokage-san! I was hoping to finally find your secret lair but little Bakugo-kun messed that up for me. Oh well!" The guy sure sounded light-hearted for what seemed to be a stand-off between heroes and a villain.
"I suspected you'd tail him, that's why we're all the way out here. Do you think it was a coincidence that the easiest transportation option was not taken? You didn't really think it would be that easy, did you Tobi?"
"Right right, fair enough. Clever as a Kitsune, eh Hokage?" Suddenly, Tobi went from unknown villain to the very top of Bakugo's kill list for saying something that monumentally stupid. "Well, I best be leaving now. I have a lot of work to do!"
"And why should I let you leave?"
"Ooh! Ooh! Tobi knows!" This guy was a villain? For real? "Because you need to look after your little protege and you couldn't stop me anyway. Now tell me what I win!"
"Death!" Shouted a voice that Bakugo recognized, with a scowl, as Naruto's. Turns out the guy had not been obliterated earlier, much to his disappointment though not to his surprise. A second later, he was shocked to see a knife of some kind go right through the villain's chest, where his heart should have been, without any sign of contact whatsoever. No blood on it or anything, villain did not even move! Definitely meant he had some kind of spatial quirk but was it always active or did the guy somehow hear the idiot coming from behind? Naruto fell to the ground, and tumbled before coming to his feet in a fighting stance facing Tobi.
"Nice try! Better luck next time!" The mysterious villain then proceeded to run away, very fast, Bakugo noted, into the trees back in the direction he and Naruto had come from.
"His creations are getting stronger," Hokage said beside him in a whisper.
"Creations? There's more? And what the hell was that? Actually, what the hell has this whole day been!"
"In due time. Are you injured?"
"Nah, bastard barely landed a hit." That much may have been an exaggeration; Bakugo knew for sure he was going to have a few bruises from the clash. Still, he was standing, and the fake Bakugo was obliterated from the face of the Earth. Call it a victory. He wouldn't have minded getting a chance to fight that villain though; spatial quirks were generally rare and after that whole annoying USJ incident he would have liked the chance to get some payback on one.
"Glad to hear you're okay Bakkun!" He glared at the older blond, that nickname enough to already revive the fighting spirit inside of him even so soon after a fight. It was already challenging enough not to kill the nerd for calling him a damn stupid kid name; he did not need another one!
"Don't call me that! And why the hell did you disappear? Are you some kind of coward!?"
"I knew Tobi was around so I went to get Hokage."
"I apologize for the sloppiness of this arrangement so far, Bakugo-san. I had thought the directions should have prevented anyone from following you, but Tobi somehow knew to be at that village, so it was just a waste of your time."
"Suppose you had your reasons." Hokage, so far, seemed decent enough. Naruto, however… "Wish you could have had someone else bring me, though, that blond idiot's annoying as hell."
"Were it anyone else I do not think I could have been informed in time to prevent Tobi taking you, which he surely would have done once you defeated his creation."
"You say creation; Mask-Man said he programmed and designed it. Is it a robot or something like that?" He had to admit he was interested in learning a bit more about this because the guy's abilities reminded him a lot of that void thing that appeared during the attack at USJ. And then, hadn't that giant thing that All-Might beat also been created? But there didn't seem to actually be anything else in common between the two, considering they looked nothing alike and the thing at USJ had quirks whereas his opponent today had not. He also refused to acknowledge that the Naruto guy could have been helpful in any way, considering the guy was gone before the fighting even started.
"I'm fairly certain it is not, but I do not know what it is. I only know that he has shown up with several over the past three years, each stronger and more human-like in personality than the last. They have different appearances each time as well, always a hero of some kind. But, enough of that for now. As I said, in due time. I've been looking forward to speaking to you for some time now, Bakugo-san, about matters other than this. Had it gone my way you would not even know of these things at all, they serve no purpose for you. Let us go to my home and discuss over dinner, sound nice?"
"You said earlier that you suspected I would be tailed. Are we actually even near your home?"
"Yes; that was mostly a bluff. I doubt Tobi actually bought it; he's not so stupid as he acts. Moving at a decent speed we should be ten minutes away." Well then, if the house was ten minutes away at a quick pace, and it had been at most four minutes between the time Naruto vanished and Hokage appeared, that meant they both had to be pretty damn fast.
"Boss had us take the long route this time; next time I'm pretty sure it'll be a little more direct." Naruto had a smile on his face, the type that told Bakugo the guy must have intended some kind of humor in the statement but he had no idea what. Blond idiot's probably just amused whenever he manages to put together a thought.
But Hokage, seemed alright in his book. So far, he wasn't an overbearing asshole and that was more than he could say for most of the other pro-heroes out there. Plus, Bakugo had already gotten in pretty great fight and went up against a serious villain. Even if the Naruto guy was pretty annoying and the travel to get to this point was rage-inducing, he guessed he wasn't regretting his decision to choose Hokage just yet. But then his stomach growled, erasing his good mood and reminding him exactly how annoying the idiot blond was going to make this week.. "Alright then; what are we standing around for. Let's go."
"Hehe, you're so serious Bakkun! … Are you growling at me?"
A/N: I'm extremely thankful for all the positive reviews the first chapter got and I hope all of you will enjoy this one just as much as the first. I especially hope you enjoy the Bakugo-Naruto interaction thus far; obviously it's going to be a pretty major part of the story moving forward.
Also, Hokage's outfit can be best described as the Hokage robe from the anime, with a hood instead of a hat, and a kitsune mask added.
As always, thank you for reading. Please feel free to follow, favorite, and/or review.
Beta read by: the road I know
