ii.
At the Point of Ignition
"Some trees flourish, others die. Some cattle grow strong, others are taken by wolves. Some men are born rich enough, and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. Ain't nothing fair. You know that." -John Marston
Ochako activated her quirk mid-fall, the familiar sensation of dropping in gravity's hold bringing about the reflex to exert her own will over physics. Bakugo's weight remained for a moment too long, his grip painfully tight against her upper arm that she was sure would have burn scars for the rest of her life.
He pulled them down in free fall for only a split second before his hand ignited at the same moment she removed his gravity and the two went slinging sideways across the dark, open space at terrifying speeds.
Air, humid and heavy rushed past her cheeks and ears, Bakugo's fingernails digging unforgivingly deep into the burns he'd only just graced her with. One more mark to add to the list as they used whatever means to keep from becoming separated; she was sure her nails were marking crescents of their own.
She had the distant thought, buried deep and almost entirely smothered; that if the two of them had ever bothered to partner more in class they might have a firmer grasp on some sort of cohesive, unspoken agreement like Todoroki-kun and Deku-kun always managed. Though with how willfully stubborn Bakugo was, getting any sort of cooperation of out of him was like sloughing through maple syrup. She'd known that even before agreeing to the few and far between moments that they did work together.
Weightless and catapulting at speeds she had no reference for without her eyes; Ochako knew there would be no deceleration. Something had to interrupt their momentum, and as soon as Ochako realized they'd managed to get out of the danger of being crushed again by falling debris she returned her gravity.
She pulled Bakugo down like a rock with a balloon attached to it- one that had been jettisoned from a cannon.
They hit shallow water and the momentum ripped her into a roll that had her bouncing across the waters surface like the rocks she used to skip as a kid. If anyone ever asked her in the future she would be able to confirm that yes, hitting water at high speeds was tantamount to hitting concrete. She imagined this would be what falling off a motorcycle going full-throttle on the highway would feel like.
Ochako made the mistake of returning Bakugo's gravity in a bid to slow them down and his grip was torn from her. This, more than anything else, wrenched a scream from her already dry throat. Or it could have also, realistically, been the wet crunch-pop her shoulder made when his suddenly weighted body jerked backwards in her grip.
Ochako ended up with sewage water in her mouth for her troubles, screaming bloody murder like the green hero-in-training that she was.
The sound cut off, teeth snapping together when she slammed back-first into a wall with more than enough force to knock the breath out of her.
A split second later another body hit her chest; the sound of a skull bouncing off the wall behind her resounded loudly but had little meaning to her overwhelmed, fried senses.
For an undefined, eternal amount of time there was only the haze of all-consuming agony and terror drowning every sentient thought she might have had. The dark around her wobbled, contracting and expanding- a breathing creature as neurons fired in her head; a full-on war zone in an effort to make sense of up, down, sideways, and existence.
In the first cognitive moment at the blurry end of this eternity she realized Bakugo was sliding off of her, face-down into the waist high water that she herself was barely keeping abreast of. She bent forward at an awkward angle, half on some kind of ledge and the rest of her being tugged along in a sluggish current.
Ochaka scrambled to catch him, the air in her lungs still in the afterlife and with an empty wheeze she knew it would be another long second before it came back down. Her ears rang with the explosion that had sent them careening underground, so quickly on the heels of the ones that had blown a hole into the ground and melted the skin from her upper arms.
Ochako still caught him though, of course she did.
Her upper arms hurt so badly she wondered if someday she would remember what it felt like to not be in pain- but she still caught him. Her left arm didn't want to move, but the adrenaline pumping through her body forced the issue even though she knew she'd be paying dividends for it once the high came down.
His head lolled over her forearm, limp and pliant.
She'd bet money his back was bleeding again, but it was hard to tell now that they were both completely soaked and the dark was as impenetrable as ever.
For lack of any brain cells to spare Ochako shook him gently.
Her world was spinning wildly, a sort of wom wom wom as the dark reverberated in her ears. Her best guess for this was that she'd damaged her inner ears- that or the sewer water was drugged. She guessed it was the former when her focus sharpened enough to feel something hot dripping from the shell of her ears. She couldn't tell if it hurt- everything hurt. Everything was agonizing.
Her arms screamed in bloody anguish where Katsuki had lost control of his quirk against her skin, ever present and ever at the top of the mental sensation list, partnered with what she now suspected was a dislocated shoulder. Ochako tried to console herself in the back of her mind that at least she wasn't bleeding. Bakugo's quirk would have cauterized her skin immediately with how close his palms had been. Hot tears cut a path through the grime on her face and it was distantly frustrating that she wasn't even sure what one thing she was crying over. Maybe it was all of it. Yeah, probably all of it.
"Katsuki," She choked out, demanding the sound to exist with sheer force of will. Somewhere far in the distance she could hear muted splashes and the crumbling sounds of rock, like listening to music from underneath bath water. They must have traveled quite a distance down what she could only assume was a sewer vein.
She wasn't the only one attracted to the sound, beyond many twists and turns of the tunnels a face lifted from its solitary musings, manically gleeful at the thought of company.
More pressingly however, was when Ochako reached for Bakugo's face to see how hard he'd hit his head and realized that he wasn't breathing.
AN: Uh, hey. So I didn't actually mean to update early again, its just, I got so caught up writing chapters nine and ten that I sort of, uh, well. Ahem. I got a bit excited. Yeah, so I hope you guys liked this chapter! Please leave me a review, I always love to hear your thoughts!