"...So this thing can measure my stats? How does that even work?" Bakugo asked eyeing the strange device. Izuku had brought him to a place called the guild hall. He said something about needing to register as an adventurer, and that it would help him get home. He eyed the strange device with a curious expression.
"It's better if you just accept that it works." Izuku said, rubbing the back of his leafy hair. The two were standing in front of a magical device that would read Bakugo's stats. He'd agreed to pay for the registry fee and some basic gear, but he was not about to make it a habit to keep paying for things. Bakugo may have been his friend in the past... sort of, but he couldn't keep spending money on him. "This world is weird, and the sooner you get used to the weird quirks it has, the better off you'll be."
With no better options he stuck his hand under the magical needle. The contraptions magic whirred to life as magical energy gathered around the orb atop the device. Slowly, a card was printed out of the back of the device. The energy slowed and the device shut off as the card was printed. Luna, the guild attendant, grabbed the card and looked over the card.
"Katsuki Bakugo... another strange name... Wow. You have impressive stats. Strength, Dexterity, and Agility are all fairly high, and your Magic Power is the highest I've ever seen from a novice." Bakugo could feel a vein pulse in his forehead from being called a novice. He angrily looked at the attendant, who hesitantly continued. "Um, your Health stat is pretty decent. The only stat that's low is your luck. Overall, these stats give you a pretty large selection of classes. I'm sure Izuku can help you from here." And with that, the attendant set the card on the desk and practically bolted to her office away from Bakugo's killer gaze.
Izuku tried to keep a positive face, but this definitely ticked him off a bit. Of course Bakugo had amazing stats. Why wouldn't he? "Well, Bakugo, it looks like you've got things made for you. With stats like those, pretty much any adventurer would kill to have you in your party. I can picture Barbarian or Sorcerer working out for you. I'll let you figure that out for yourself, I'm going to leave."
Bakugo panicked for a second. "W-Wait, your leaving? I still need your help!"
Izuku sighed. "Listen, I sympathize with your efforts to get home, but really, I just came to get you set up. Realistically, you should be able to take things from here. I know I did. Besides, it was nice catching up, but we didn't exactly leave on good terms, and I haven't quite gotten over how you treated me in the past. Go talk to Wiz and she'll help you the rest of the way I'm sure."
"Hang on, you're just going to leave?" Bakugo asked, exasperated. "What happened to wanting to be a hero and all that."
Izuku looked at him crassly. "Those were the dreams of a child stupid enough to believe them. I've moved on. I have a life that I'm starting to grow fond of here. I've got a nice party, a nice house, and a nice business. Defeating the devil king and getting home isn't my problem anymore." He turned to leave the guild hall.
Bakugo stared at him in disbelief. "You..." His anger got the better of him. "You useless fucking Deku!" This wasn't what he wanted to say. "I come to you in my hour of need and you walk out one me!?" He should not be saying this. He should not be saying this. "Fine then. I should've known. You abandoned us at home. What's another time, right!?" Stop, you know you shouldn't be doing this. You were finding him to apologize. This is the exact opposite. "I'll take down this devil fucker and I'll make it home, and it'll all be without you, Deku!"
Vines shot out of the ground and pinned him to the wall. Izuku stalked forward dangerously, his staff alight with green energy. "Let's get one thing clear. You don't get to call me that anymore. You don't get to treat me like this anymore. I am not your friend, and I am not the Izuku you knew. Ever notice I never once called you Kacchan. That was on purpose. You wanna throw your life away, that's your problem. Not mine. I wish you the best of luck. Goodbye, Bakugo." And with that, he retracted his vines and walked off, leaving Bakugo standing there, alone.
The guild hall's regulars were staring at him in confusion. Mumbles about what the new guy did to piss off Izuku had already started, and Bakugo didn't want to stick around for this. He stormed off as well, leaving the guild hall to work off his anger. There was surely some monsters not too far out that he could take his anger out on. He needed to blow something up. And he needed to plan his next move.
Bakugo was sitting under a tree, sullenly staring at his new adventurer card. Dim gray light coated the sky as the particular cloudy day matched his mood bar for bar. He was upset. No one could know, nor would he acknowledge it should someone ask, but right now, right in this moment, he allowed himself this feeling. What was the point in seeking out Izuku if he was just going to go back to treating him like garbage right after he apologized. His orange eyes studied every detail of the card for the thousandth time. His name was displayed in big bold lettering at the top. Right under it, his gender, age, and race.
Under those were his stats, as well as something he was trying to figure out called active skills. He understood the concept, but had no idea why he had to put points into any of them. On the right hand side of the card displayed a rough side profile of his face, and under it a seemingly made up chart with random symbols surrounding and empty box. He'd noticed there was a level near the center of the card saying he was level 8, whatever that meant. He could probably recite the cards details from memory by this point, seeing as studying it had been the only thing he'd been doing for the past few hours.
Asking around about details of his mission had also been difficult. The residents of Axel, the apparent town of beginners he'd been dropped near, did not seem to like him. Mutterings of the outsider who pissed off their hero Izuku had spread like wildfire, and it wasn't long before they actively began avoiding him. Was this what it was like? Was this what Izuku felt every single day? Had he really made this the reality that Izuku lived in for years of his life? He rubbed a hand through his spiky blonde hair. He'd been a jerk, and he wasn't sure how to wrestle with recognizing that for the first time. Izuku had made it so easy for him to just do what he did, it never even occurred to him exactly what he'd been doing.
He shook the thoughts from his head. He didn't have time to be feeling sorry for himself. He had to get home. He had to tell his Izuku he was sorry. He had to make things up. He clenched his rough gloved hand. He was going to get home. He just hope Izuku had been fairing better than he was.
"So, Mei, what have you found out about Izuku's... condition?" Midoriya asked, staring through the reinforced glass looking into the testing chamber. The two were currently running experiments on his younger counterpart's abilities and gathering data. "And try telling it to me in a way that make's sense. Yes, that means no ranting about random unrelated stuff this time."
"You're no fun, Deku Scrub." Mei said with a pout. Her tune quickly changed once she started explaining things however. "His energy that's emitted when using One For All is strikingly similar to your's. There are very slight deviations, and I speculate that's because his One For All never had Mirio as a host. That said, everything else is basically the same. That is, in the One For All department."
"I picked up a strange reading while he was running through the simulation, something that's never been picked up in there before." She furrowed her brow, trying to figure out how to explain this part. "It's... Strange. Whatever sent him here left behind a trace amount of energy that has been latched onto him, presumably from when he got here. The only thing I can tell you about it is that it's energy from the quirk. Past that, this substance is a mystery to me."
Midoriya squinted at the substance she'd managed to collect. Inside a small Petri dish appeared to be a tiny glass shard that faded slowly to different colors. He held it close to his face, watching the ever changing colors.
"And you're absolutely sure you've got no idea what this is." He said.
"I may be the brains of this operation, but even I've got my limits." She said. "Whatever this stuff is, I have yet to define it." She went back to typing away at her computer as Izuku exited the testing chamber, gasping for air.
"I have *gasp* No idea *wheeze* How you managed *pant* To do a second lap on that course." He said, hands on his knees. He'd just went through the mother of all obstacle courses simulated inside their testing chamber.
"Why do you think the music ramps up when you go for a second lap?" Midoriya said with an amused smile. "That's not even the hardest course, we've made much more difficult ones in the past."
"That's another thing. You've got music playing while you do the course? That doesn't seem very realistic." Izuku said wiping the sweat from his forehead before chugging half a bottle of water.
"Sure it is. Music is like, thirty percent of the fun. Sure beats paperwork." Midoriya said with hands on his hips.
"Speaking of paperwork," Mei said with a mischievous smile, "You still haven't finished the papers from your most recent outing. What if the hero commission comes after us, huh?"
Midoriya swallowed hard. "Right. How about I go knock some of that out now. Izuku, you and Mei can stay and chat while a go do... ugh... paperwork." He said with a defeated sigh.
Izuku snorted at the sight of his defeated older self sullenly leaving the 'fun' part of the building. If this was what he had to look forward to in his future, then maybe being a pro hero will be exactly what he wanted.
"Damnit!" Bakugo shouted in annoyance. He'd been stuck in a cycle in this graveyard for a while. He'd heard from a group of travelers that there was crypt nearby that had some good money to be made. He was in desperate need to get some proper equipment as his costume was one rough tumble away from tearing itself apart. With no other ideas on how to make money, he set out to the supposed dungeon.
Entering the graveyard surrounding the crypt had been easy, but he'd been foolish on his approach. His lack of knowledge led to his lack of caution, and before he knew it, he'd been surrounded by skeletons. Blowing them up was easy, but keeping them down proved impossible. He'd blow them apart, but they'd just reassemble after a few seconds, making his efforts futile. He'd tried searching for something that might've been keeping the skeletons from dropping permanently, but investigation proved difficult when you were trying to dodge skeletal claws.
Leaping over another swipe from a particularly vicious skeleton had led him to a sad realization. This world had nerfed him into the ground. At least, that's how it felt anyways. He'd learned earlier that he needed to be sparing with his explosions as he couldn't just blast them off whenever. This severely limited his options in combat as his primary form of damage was practically useless. His only other option was to fight physically. Make no mistake, Bakugo Katsuki was a menace in the ring, but there wasn't much he could do against an undying skeleton army.
He hadn't quite figured out the other skills he'd attained yet, but he was going to have to take some risks if he was going to pull through. He recalled the new abilities he'd gotten through his adventurer card. He'd gotten three skills besides explosion, skills he'd thought would help out and fit his style of fighting. Turns out, Heroism is just a skill to make people less scared, something he didn't need at all. Flash bang was good in a pinch, especially since he had a hard time recreating them with his explosions, but it did nothing against an enemy with no eyes. If only he could figure out what Seek did. Might as well try now, seeing as he was running out of energy anyways.
Activating the skill was a weird experience. Everything around him paused for a brief moment, and his vision was drawn to a gravestone with a red gem engraved in the center of its cross. The moment passed and he was back to fighting those stupid boney bastards. What the hell was that? He tried to make his way over to the grave stone, ducking and weaving over endless skeletal claws. Finally skidded to a stop in front of the gravestone, staring at the red gem. He acted quick, reaching for the stone and yanking it out of the grave. Suddenly, the skeletons fell, all in a heap of bones. As the last of them clattered to the ground, he heard the sound of a stone door opening.
Turning to the sound, he saw a particularly large grave grow a doorway that led down into the crypt he sought. Finally, with a moment to breath, Bakugo slumped to the ground. This was rough, even by his standards. And skeletons were supposed to be easy to deal with in video games. He wished he had back up. Shitty hair, Sparky, hell, even Round Face would do right now. He had a feeling this was only the first of many challenges in his way through this.
He clenched his fist. Hell no was he giving up now. He was going to get back and prove this shitty world and its shitty rules were not going to stop him.
The first room of the crypt had been laughably easy compared to the outside. A puzzle involving torches needing to be pulled in a specific order was child's play compared to the undying army that roamed the outside. They even faced each other in the order he needed to pull them in. He wondered if this cheesy tropey dungeon feel would continue throughout the whole crypt.
Of course, the second room would have to prove him wrong. He'd been stumped on this mosaic puzzle for at least an hour now. On the floor was a mosaic depicting a knight in shining armor fending off a terrible dragon. Their fight splayed all across the room, even crawling up the walls. The artistic detail would've been fairly impressive if it helped him progress even a little. He did another scan of the room. There was a mosaic chest on one of the walls, a mosaic moon that hung high on another wall. Finally, there was a princess in mosaic that had a frightened expression literally plastered on her face on the last wall. The room he'd came from had been zero help, so all he had now was his own intuition to go off of.
He'd noticed that the chest had a golden tile sticking out of it, and tried pushing it. Unfortunately, that was the wrong answer as he sprang a trap that cut his side. Who the hell traps a damn mosaic. It wasn't a super big deal, but it definitely hurt, and it was only adding to his mounting frustrations. At least a consolation prize had laid inside the mosaic chest as he picked up a golden bracelet with three red gems dangling from it. He wasn't the jewelry type so he'd pocketed it.
His next test was to see if the princess could help. Of course, a thorough inspection of the mosaic princess had led no where. There had to be a detail about the room that he'd missed up until now. He decided it was time to use Seek again. Activating the ability brought him to the same frozen moment in time as earlier. This time, his eyes darted to the princesses, before the moment passed. Something about the princess he'd missed.
Walking up to inspect her blue eyed gaze, he'd noticed something he'd missed from before. She wasn't actually looking at the fight on the floor, rather, she was staring at something the wall opposite of her. He followed her eye line until he too looked up at the mosaic moon. He walked up to it feeling the smooth white and gray stones that made up its circular structure. Sliding his hands across revealed that the moon actually stuck out of the wall slightly. With some force, he was able pull it out of the wall, and the moon rolled out of the way to reveal a secret passage. So all of these are going to be cheesy dungeon puzzles.
He walked through the narrow passage, following it all the way to the dim light of the next room. Exiting the passage led him to a large open chasm with a doorway on the other side. There was absolutely nothing between him and the doorway, ignoring the 40 foot chasm that separated the two. Time to look for clues. His first thought was to just blast his way across using his explosions to fly him over. Then he looked up, and found that there were many low hanging stalactites that held traps waiting for him to enact such a plan.
That was annoying. His next look around led to him checking out the doorway he stood next to. Four brown vases sat as decorative object lining the abruptly ending the passage. This must be one of those hidden lever things. He reached inside one and felt sand and dust. He figured it must be lower. He tried reaching deeper, and felt himself grab onto something long. Must be the lever. He yanked on it and felt the lever... move!? He quickly pulled out his hand, flinging dust and sand across the room and into the chasm. The vase fell and shattered, letting the snake that called it its home slither away.
He angrily shook off the dust as he scowled at the broken vase. No way was he sticking his hand in another one of those. He looked for more clues when he noticed something interesting about the space between him and the next doorway. The dust that he'd flung across the room had landed on a pathway. Said pathway was invisible to the naked eye, but with a bit of dirt on it, the pathway just barely began to reveal itself. An idea sprouted in the teens head. He grabbed another vase, giving it a thorough shake this time to make sure nothing was living inside it.
Bakugo cautiously scattered dust on the path as he walked, being sure to not move ahead of the dust. Slow and methodical wasn't his typical style, that was Izuku's. Whenever he wasn't throwing himself into danger anyways. Maybe that's what he needed to do. Be less like Bakugo and more like Izuku. He'd been wrestling with figuring how he could improve his next conversation with Izuku. Maybe that was it. He needed to mellow out. Whatever, the introspection could wait, he'd made it across. He looked back on the path he'd now revealed, feeling an odd sense of satisfaction from piecing together the puzzle without using his new skill. He was still curious about one thing though. He tossed the vase into the chasm below, and waited to hear it hit the bottom. After not hearing a sound for a few minutes, he'd had his answer. Bottomless pits were a thing, and he should never go near one ever again.
The next room was less room and more long hallway, leading to a large wooden door. The hall was lit with eight torches burning dim green flame that softly illuminated the room. A pedestal sat between him and the door. Atop the pedestal was an old skull with green gems for eyes. Something feels off. What's the catch here? He cautiously entered the hall, and a stone wall slammed shut behind him, locking him in the hall. The skull's eyes suddenly lit up, shining a dangerous green.
"You have done well to make it this far, outsider. I am afraid you've gone far enough." A ghastly voice spoke. "What is the purpose for your visit, boy?" The skull asked, never opening its mouth to speak.
Bakugo stumbled with his words for a moment. That skull was talking. He'd seen weirder. "I'm on my way to murder the devil king. I need money to get some equipment, and heard this was the place to get it." He spoke roughly. "I just want to get home."
"And where is home, outsider?" The voice asked. "I sense something within you that is not from this world."
"Home is none of your business." He scoffed. "And what your picking up on is my quirk. It'd be better for you to open up this wall or ill show you what it can do."
"A... quirk? How peculiar." The voice ruminated. "A deal then. A proposition for you and you alone. I wish to know more about your strange power. Give it to me, and I shall send you home, outer-relmer."
"Yeah, counter offer, I don't blow you to pieces, and you let me go." He said, small pops going off in his hands.
"Very well then, I shall enforce the deal my way." The voice spoke dangerously. Without warning, the torches were suddenly blazing with green fire. The fire started gathering in the center of the room, building into a massive fireball. Bakugo leapt into action, flying towards the skull to blast it to hell. When he brought down his explosive palm down onto the skull, the room shuddered with the sheer force of the explosion.
"How do you like that!?" He shouted. Then he saw it. No damage had been done to the skull, as faint green sphere had illuminated around it. "How?"
"I know better than to let you attack freely." The voice taunted, the fire finishing its gathering. "You've shown what you can do, and I am unimpressed with your lack of imagination." The skull brought the massive green fireball down onto Bakugo, causing the boy to scream out in pain before the fire dispersed. "Such power would be better off in the hands of someone more capable." The skulls sphere lowered as the skull looked down on Bakugo's struggling body. "A deal is still present boy, unless you wish to suffer further punishment."
"Go... to... hell!" Bakugo spat through heavy breaths.
"I can see your manners need to be adjusted as well." The voice spoke angrily. Suddenly, Bakugo was lifted in the air by seemingly nothing. "Stay still, this wont hurt much." Bakugo thrashed against the invisible grip of the skull, only being able to move his legs and head. He watched as strange orange energy began to be sucked out of his chest. He thrashed and thrashed, but nothing seemed to help against the iron grip he was held in. Finally, the orange energy had exited his body and hovered in front of him. "Ahh, that was satisfying."
The skull dropped the boy, and the orb floated towards it. Bakugo could only watch weakly as the orb was absorbed by the skull. His mind was screaming at him to move, to take this thing down, but his body wasn't responding. He couldn't do anything. He was a useless, helpless...
"...Deku." The skull spoke softly, as Bakugo eyes widened.
"How... How do you know that name!?" He shouted angrily, the only part of his body not damaged enough to do something being his voice. The skull laughed a sickening laugh. He shouted at it again. "How do you know that name!?"
The voice didn't answer his question. "A deals a deal, boy." A glassy circular portal opened behind the skull. "Off you go, I do hope we never meet again. Bakugo wasn't having it. Wasn't having any of this. In a fit of rage, his body moved on its own. The boy lunged forward and grabbed the skull, screaming at it.
"Give whatever you stole back, now." He said, his palm raised, ready to blast the skull apart. The skull just laughed. "Fine, you asked for this." He brought his palm down to unleash the mother of all explosions... but nothing happened. "What the hell." He tried again. And again. Nothing happened. The voice's laughing grew louder and louder, growing uproariously, filling the room with his maddening laughter.
"Long have I waited for something such as this. To put an ignorant brat in his place. To make him as feeble as the ones he looked down upon." The voice said with sickly glee. "You have been a wonderful guest, more than I ever could've hoped for, but it truly is time to leave." Wind started to pick up in the room as dust began to fly towards the portal. Bakugo's body slowly floated upwards as he reached for the pedestal to hold on, holding the skull in the other hand. It was all the boy could do to just hold on, the skull too being pulled towards the portal. His grip was failing, his strength not enough for the force, and he was flung into the portal still holding onto the skull.
The two flew through the portal as sickeningly similar feeling entered Bakugo's mind. He'd been through this before. This was how he got here. The skulls laughter had returned as well, snapping out of where he was and bringing back the rage. Without thinking, he stuck his hand into the skulls eye socket and yanked out one of the green gems. The skull screeched out in pain, and a sense of satisfaction spread across Bakugo. He may be hurtling through an orange void of light and glass, but he'd gotten a bit of revenge.
The skull was not feeling the same sense of satisfaction, however, as it cast a spell to free itself from the boy's grip. "You wish pain so much. Fine. Suffer." The skull spoke shooting a green beam of light at Bakugo. In an instant, his skin felt as if it were being prodded with a thousand daggers, and the last of his energy faded. The skull floated off into the void, cackling once again at his misfortune. The last thing Bakugo saw was the gem he'd stolen before his vision faded.
I know it took a while but I did say it was not my primary focus. I know this chapter makes it feel like I kinda hate Bakugo, but that's not entirely true, he just has a pretty rough arc planned. I know this chapter also didn't feature a lot of what was going on with canon Izuku and that's cause we'll get to him later. For now, I leave you with this:
Bakugo is headed to a new universe, where do y'all think he'll end up?
