Chapter 2

Fire burned all alternative escape routes. Fear that was output as anger made it easier to sweat, therefore easier and bigger explosions. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Deku scooping up the woman.

His company had signed up for a scouting mission, nothing more. Although they had decided to send him it was more of a display of power, but when the other company sent over Deku, Uravity shadowing him only a couple feet back, it was anybody's bet on which questions he was going to be asking.

He was given the same answers, they were positive there was a gang organization starting to swell in the city and if they were to see strong heroes circling the area it would squish the rising potential of any crime syndicate. When he denied Deku the boss simply laughed at him, shuffled the papers, and paused before asking 'Uravity is fine though?'

He didn't need to explain that, she was different. He could remember from back in high school where fire blazed within her eyes, when he finally heard her reasoning she was insistent it was selfish. But no one would argue with him that she wasn't as smart as he thought she was. Becoming a hero wasn't a fling for her no matter how much others wanted to argue with him, because her reasons were 'selfish'. The people who couldn't see past the reasons she presented them made his blood boil. It was as though she needed a reason to do something so dangerous, but her eyes contained something that didn't bloom in many. Her eyes were passionate and determined. She had every quality to be a hero and then some. It was enough to shut him up, if asked later on he would just say that it was too much energy to explain.

Eventually, he had gone on the mission, Deku and all. It was a scouting mission, a show of force to quell the rising crime operations in the particular city, and to check on any rising organizations. In a town the was constantly overrun with crime. It was a trap by their bosses in hopes of getting them each murdered in exchange for paying off the underworld bosses that their own bosses had somehow come to owe.

They had been doing fine, until he was too aggressive, too into the fight, his blood pumping like it usually did. The atmosphere titled as he felt pressure fall to his side, a feeling running down his bare are and dripping onto his foot. Out of instinct, he glanced from the corner of his eye he could see the back of her head, feel her struggle to breathe, and the shaking of her skin as she attempted to support herself. From the angle of her head, she was glaring in a certain direction, up towards the sky. Uraraka. She had been shot, not with a quirk, but with an actual bullet. Everything moved slowly as the person he was fighting twisted their foot and running with all of the logic that was blurring in each of their heads. Deku reached for Uraraka, spinning her around as he darted away from the landmine. As he darted away from him.

Boom.
Flames scattered the land reaching higher then the screams for help would ever.

He reeled in the panic, anger flaring as a form of a masquerade. It was his fault. He hadn't been paying attention, he had been caught in the rush of exhilaration, the battle that let him forget all of his regrets so far. In that moment he felt like the kid he was in high school, back on one of his trips, helpless. Helpless to do anything. He had become a hero so he would never be helpless to do anything, but it was though it was a steadily growing helplessness that was rampaging around inside his head.

Deku was smart to run away from him, he glanced around, the villains that were hired to kill them clutching their necks begging for mercy. "I don't hand out mercy, which one of you did it?" His voice rolled up his throat a smooth growl sailing into the air. The villains looked at each other begging each other to fess up, no one knew what he was asking about. Katsuki let fire engulf the rest of the grass, watching as it smoldered into a burnt crispy, then glanced at the eyes of each of the villains, "so who's next?"

It wasn't the first time he had to play the villain to get information. Honestly, it was why his organization usually sent him, they wanted someone who could strike the fear of day into someone to the point they decided to reform. His hand curled around the closest villain's collar, his usually boisterous voice came out a soft quiet whisper, a smile of a different variety forming on his face, "was it you?" He asked into the ear of the villain, he could hear the man breathe, almost see the panic that was running through the man's veins. The smoke diffusing off of his skin causing the villain to beg, he threw him to the side moving to the next, and the next, and the next. Each of them saying the same things. Another herd of villains were preparing to come out to fight him.

The sound of Deku's panicking was something that he wouldn't have heard if he wasn't used to listening to the incoherent mutterings from him. His body seemed to be waiting for Deku to do what he usually did when he was thinking. Katsuki took a breath, letting go of the latest victim, the one behind that one scurrying away.

An eerie calm washed over him as he walked up the hill where Deku had hidden. "Deku go out there." He started causing Deku to look at him, a dumbstruck look painting itself on his face. "You know what we came here to do," Katsuki grumbled, irritation as Deku's lack of movement growing, as he took his gloves off.

Katsuki wiped the residual sweat the had surrounded his hands off on his pants and struggled to turn off the newly found power in his quirk that would knock the attacker out, possibly poisonous, but not yet found deadly.

Deku paused, moving slowly to the outside of the cave without arguing. Katsuki sighed he was bracing himself for a huge argument with Deku, but it had been easier to argue with the hero that was running on little to no sleep with the way his organization had been running him ragged.

He knelt by Uraraka, eyes closed struggling to breathe, before he got to work. Scrutinizing the amount of damage she had on her. What kind of weapon was that? It wasn't a normal bullet.

He glanced around wishing that he had something more sanitary to work with. He unclipped the water bottle hanging limp off of Uraraka's belt, she had been working floating and controlling liquids on their way to this destination. She was insistent that it would be a help somehow, but touching liquids wasn't the easiest thing. He threw the water over his hands, it was the best he could do, before he searched for if the bullet remained inside of her. He watched her bite her lip, his hero training didn't give him this much of a medical course. It was survival tactics until someone could help them, not how to remove and fix bullets. His let his eyes mostly search for the bullet, not for the first time in his life, begging his hands not to sweat as he searched for the bullet.

After several minutes of searching and establishing blood-covered hands he found it. He plucked the bullet out setting it to the side. When they made it out of here he would have one of the scientists he could trust look at it, if these were specially made to get through his flames and kill him there were surely others. And other bullets engineered for others quirks.

He took a breath, if she lived there was no way he was going to beg for forgiveness. Absolutely not. He glanced towards her eyes surprised that she was still awake, that determination from once he first acknowledged her glaring towards the door, she was watching his back as he worked. 'Uravity is fine though?' Heck, yes, Uravity was fine. She was an excellent hero and there was no way that she was going to die here because of him.

He instinctively reached for the water attempting to wash the wound, "this is going to hurt." He whispered attempting to ignore his own words as he burned her wound shut. He burnt the wound closed struggling to keep himself from rushing to contradict her screams,

"Katsuki! Katsuki! You're hurting me!" Her voice sounded as though it was placed next to his ears, "Please!" Her voice radiated and bounced around the cave.

He felt his eyes tear themselves open as he sat up, his hand enclosed around something refusing to release it, in fear that it might disappear. The scent of smoke reeking in his bedroom, and Uraraka on the edge of his bed struggling to free her wrist from his hand. Katsuki let go of her arm, wide-eyed, as his handprint remained burnt onto her wrist.

"Don't do that." He growled, getting out of the bed as he went to the bathroom, grabbing a cloth. They had been staying in the hotel where the party was at. What had possessed this woman to come in his room while he slept? He was exactly what the news was calling him, a living time bomb. One that didn't have a problem hurting his teammates.

He glanced towards her wrist wrapping the now wet washcloth around it, "why are you in here?" He snapped, sitting back on the bed next to her. This woman of all people knew how much his flames hurt.

Uraraka glanced towards the smoldering sheets and back towards the burnt hotel walls. "It sounded like you were having a nightmare. I came in to wake you up."

Katsuki felt anger boil up inside his chest, the defensive anger that he usually used to hide any emotion that anyone else could detect. Heroes didn't have night terrors. Heroes were supposed to be all-powerful, confident, and never afraid to put themselves in danger. And here he was having night terrors that scared half the floor. He had almost lit the hotel they were staying in up in flames, how hero-like.

Uraraka shuffled, "We all have our own fears, heroes are people too." She opened her mouth, closing it again. He waited, for the clique lines that he had heard already. It's going to be okay. Talk to me. If you need anything. She turned, letting her feet rest against the edge of the bed, "Bad things happen. They're going to keep happening. Sometimes they just don't get better. I think that's what the night terrors are. For me they come when there's been calm for a long while, it's as though my body is telling me not to let my defenses fall, someone could attack you any second. Make sure you're ready." She shook her head, "The easiest way to say this is I've almost pulverized Deku once. I woke up after a particular bad mission, the worse part? I knew it wasn't real. I knew it was a night terror, but I went around in the dark, I made everything in my house into a weapon. The chairs, the table, anything that was left out. I probably would've really hurt Deku. I don't even remember why he was at the front door, but I wasn't expecting him, so in the sense of adrenaline I threw everything at him. If it wasn't Deku? The mailman maybe?" Uraraka paused, "that's not the point. But the point is, these happen. It's normal." Uraraka explained gesturing towards the scorch marks on his bed. He nodded, "Anyway try to get some rest, we're safe here." She explained, setting the cloth down on the dresser.

He watched her leave doing his best not to glance towards her wrists, before moving into the bathroom, where a pile of burnt washcloths remained. He took a breath, doing his best to push the memories down of when he had woken up and done his best to get the afterimage of her blood off of his hands. The afterimage of the nightmares where he morphed into one of those villains and was the one who had caused her to bleed, the nightmares that caused her screams to echo in his head even after he had awoken. Even when he had gone to work that day, he could still hear the exact sound of her scream, and feel her hand wrapped around her wrist doing her best not to beg him to stop.

For all of his childhood, he had pictured that villains and heinous criminals were the worst monsters that were ever brought into existence. But right now, his own memories were those monsters.