"Are we sure it's alright to let him go in there alone?" Vlad King asked, caution in his voice.
"Bakugou can protect himself." Aizawa defended his student, but Vlad King's wariness did not lessen. "It's really not him that I'm worried about…" He hesitantly stated.
"Young Bakugou and Young Sasaki seem to have a strong bond with one another, despite all of their fights." All Might declared. Midnight nodded in agreement, "I think we don't have much to worry about. After all, you saw how they were at the Sports Festival, right?"
With that, the teachers directed their gazes towards the monitors, a hopefulness in their eyes.
Bakugou entered the room, the door behind him sliding closed. The clink of the door seemed to echo in his ears.
At the sound of the door and his footsteps, Ayano raised her head. All of the rage within Bakugou diminished the moment their eyes met.
Her eyes were so hollow. So empty. So desolate.
She looked so…defeated.
The tension in Bakugou's shoulders completely disappeared. Seeing her like this. Seeing her so…pitiful. It depressed even him.
The tension in his shoulders returned. This wasn't right. This wasn't acceptable. She wasn't supposed to look like this. Why had she become like this?
"…Get up…" He spoke after he got his bearings. Ayano was in a straitjacket, but her legs were left unbound.
Bakugou had no intention of talking down to her and no intention of crouching to her level either. She was above that.
However, Ayano made no move to stand. She simply continued to stare at him with that awful, hollow look in her eyes. He made a low growl. "I said get up!" She still remained seated.
"GET UP, DAMN IT!" He was very close to using force when she finally moved. She stood up excruciatingly slowly, still leaning against the wall.
They were now properly face-to-face, but even looking at her on the same level, her eyes did not change. Bakugou grit his teeth. "Why do you look so pathetic." It wasn't so much a question, as it was a statement.
Ayano didn't move. Not a single indication that she had even heard him.
"Answer me!" He shouted, his hands clenching into fists.
"I apologize for the trouble that I have caused you." Her voice was just as hollow as her gaze, the coldness in it causing Bakugou to flinch.
"What the hell are you going on about?" He asked, knowing that he definitely was not going to like whatever answer she gave.
"…Had I been stronger…less foolish…you would not have had to experience what you did." Her eyes travelled to the floor, showing shame and not just the emptiness from before.
Even so, Bakugou still didn't want to see that on her either.
"What the—If you're talking about me getting caught, that's because I wasn't strong enough! I should've just blown them all to hell!" He shouted at her, not believing she was really blaming herself for something to stupid.
Ayano sighed. "Perhaps…but the underlying cause of all of this was because of my negligence. I was kidnapped because I was not strong enough. The villains invaded the training camp because of my support items."
Bakugou's eye twitched in annoyance. "Are you deaf!? I just said those idiots got me because I was too weak!"
She growled back at him. "Your kidnapping is irrelevant! Do you understand how many people got hurt!? How many of our own classmates! How do you think the villains found the training camp in the first place?! It was because of me! Because of the tracking device that I forced Izuku to bring with him…"
Bakugou's eyes widened. He hadn't known about that part, but he quickly composed himself. "So what!? They used your stupid tracking device! Whatever! They were still after me, and I shouldn't have been caught!"
Ayano just shook her head in complete denial. "If I hadn't been caught first, then they would not have been able to get to you so easily. Everyone would not have been in so much danger. Let's say that you were strong enough to ward them off. Then, that's even worse! If their target is you, then obviously they will keep going after you again and again and again. Our classmates would be put in danger again and again and again. You and I both know that."
The blond nearly wanted to tear his hair out in frustration. In theory, she was making logical arguments, but it just didn't make sense! There's no reason for her to blame herself when so many other things were involved!
"Not just our classmates…" She bit her lip, her face scrunched up in remorse. "Innocent civilians…professional heroes…Best Jeanist, Ragdoll…and even…" She tightly closed her eyes, unable to bring herself to say the Symbol of Peace's name.
"You can't be serious…" Bakugou shakily asked. "You can't honestly be thinking that's your fault. Of all things, you chose that to blame yourself for!?"
He lunged at her, grasping at the collar of the straitjacket. He shook her back and forth, trying to force her to look at him. "You saw what that guy was like! He was going toe-to-toe with All Might! Nobody else would be able to take him down and All Might defeated him because we were able to escape! We were just holding him back and us escaping is what let him have a fair fight!"
He kept shaking her while she was unresponsive, only biting her lip. "He won! All Might won, damn it! We did what we could to let him w—GAH" He was cut short by Ayano slamming her head into his.
The force of it caused his grip on her collar to loosen and he stumbled back from her. With his hand rubbing his forehead to help alleviate the pain, he glared at her. The fire in his eyes disappeared as soon as his eyes met hers though.
She shouted back at him. "Don't you get it, you idiot!? All Might wouldn't have had to fight him if I didn't get caught! My kidnapping led to the villains finding the location of the training camp. That led to you getting kidnapped, which led to the pro heroes having to intervene and come save us. That led to the fight between All For One and All Might! All Might may have won, but that's it!"
"All Might won, and now he's retired! The Symbol of Peace is done! Over! Dead! The pillar that all of society was held up on…it's gone! How do you expect me not to blame myself for that?!"
Her head slumped down, as if she lost the strength to keep holding it up. Her uneven fringe cast a shadow over her eyes. "Tell me…Tell me why…" Her voice was quiet, sounding as though she were about to cry. Her shoulders shaking, she sharply lifted her head at him. Her eyes held unshed tears.
"WHY DID I BECOME THE REASON FOR ALL MIGHT'S END?!"
The sheer agony on her face and in her voice made Bakugou's heart pang with a multitude of emotions. Sympathy, guilt, anger.
The tears finally fell. She quickly turned away, not wanting him to see her crying. She growled in frustration, not even able to wipe the tears away because of the straitjacket. "…Damn it…Damn it! I didn't want to say it, but you just had to keep pushing! Shit!"
She stomped and kicked at the wall, hoping to relieve some of her irritations but to no avail. "If I said it aloud, then I would really be accepting the facts…I never wanted to say it, but it's true. It's because of me that All Might…that All Might…!" She couldn't bring herself to say it. Not a second time.
This wasn't right. This wasn't right at all. She didn't need to feel this way. She shouldn't feel this way. How could she think like this?
How could she think the same way that he did?
The burden that she was carrying was the very same burden that he was carrying.
What she blamed herself for was exactly what Bakugou blamed himself for. If he had been stronger…if he hadn't been kidnapped by the villains, then none of this would have happened.
He was the reason for All Might's end. Not her!
"…Shut up…" He mumbled. She continued muttering to herself about how this was all her fault. The fists at Bakugou's sides began to shake in fury. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
He lunged towards her again, grabbing the straitjacket's collar once more. He roughly pulled her forward and slammed her back into the wall. "Don't say that! DON'T YOU DARE SAY THAT! NOT YOU!"
Ayano once again tried slamming her head into his, but the same move wouldn't work twice on him. He easily moved his head to the side, but Ayano had expected this. As he did so, she made a move to kick at his side.
He felt a blunt pain at his left ribs. He grunted but quickly grabbed at her leg before she could remove it. Stuck in place with her arms bound and one leg in Bakugou's grip, Ayano had only two options: Literally use her head again or risk using her other foot.
Since using her head failed the last time, she jumped off the floor and kicked at Bakugou's stomach with her free leg. Having no footholds, the two tumbled to the floor in a struggle.
Bakugou was at a clear advantage since Ayano's arms were bound, but she still put up a big fight. The two were rolling all over the floor, struggling for dominance. Without the use of her arms, Ayano resorted to using her teeth, biting viciously at his arms.
Eventually their struggle stopped with Bakugou on top of Ayano and straddling her. In this position, her legs were useless. With one hand, he held her head down by pushing at her forehead, preventing her from moving to bite at him.
"It's not your fault, you dumbass! All Might had to get involved because of me too!" He shouted over her.
"I keep telling you that your kidnapping was irrelevant! Even if you weren't kidnapped, he still would have had to come save me since I was kidnapped first! Why don't you understand!?" She shouted back at him.
"Why is this only about him anyway?! You blame yourself for the whole incident but you're barely even mentioning the other heroes that got hurt! Why are you so stuck on All Might!?" Bakugou demanded.
"BECAUSE HE WAS OUR HERO!" Her volume felt like it could shake the whole room.
At his angry and confused look, Ayano continued in a quieter voice, losing her strength by the second. "He wasn't just everyone's hero. He wasn't just society's hero. He was our hero! Izuku's…yours…mine…"
Bakugou was beginning to lose what little patience he had left. "What are you talking about?! When we were kids, you didn't give a rat's ass about him! You said that he was just a symbol! A symbol for everyone to look up to and admire. That he wasn't a hero you could get close with on a personal level because he belonged to everyone!"
"You're right! I didn't care about him because I knew what his role in society was! What's important is that you two cared about him!" She yelled, referring to him and Midoriya. "He was your hero. You both admired the same person so much. He was everything you two aspired to be!"
"What was I to do!? Just ignore that fact!? Of course I would start admiring him too! I wanted to help you both become amazing heroes! And what was your idea of an 'amazing hero'? All Might! So, he became my idea of an amazing hero too! It was different from the two of you, but I also looked up to him!"
"He was the thing that connected the three of us! He was the reason why I was able to support you for this long! I wanted to help you become the kind of hero you wanted to be. A kind of hero like him. He was our hero! He was my hero!"
The tears had begun to fall again. Tears of frustration. Tears of anger. Tears of sadness. She grit her teeth and closed her eyes, not wanting to look at Bakugou anymore.
…What the hell…
He was her hero? She was feeling this way because of him? Because he looked up to All Might? The hero that linked them together?
If she thought that All Might was the most amazing hero, then there was only one solution.
"…Look at me." He grumbled. "Look at me!" He said louder. "Look at me and forget about him!"
"If he's the most amazing hero to you, then I just have to surpass even him!"
"I'll be your hero!"