Good, Katsuki thinks harshly.
But then the ice is falling away and muscle fibres are shooting outward, snaking down the Noumu's body to form two new limbs. Katsuki's stomach drops.
What.
Shigaraki chuckles from behind Katsuki.
"You didn't think that was his only quirk, did you? This is his super-regeneration."
He says it with almost childlike excitement, eyes bright.
All Might, still clutching his bleeding side, straightens slowly. The white steam that had been rising off his body before is thicker now, rising faster.
"All Might," Izuku whispers urgently. "you're out of time."
Katsuki looks between the two of them in confusion, wondering what the fuck he keeps hearing about a damn time limit.
"Noumu," Shigaraki drawls lowly. "Kill All Might."
And then the Noumu is stalking towards the hunched hero and Katsuki has no time to think about any time limit.
The first punch throws back Katsuki and Shigaraki, the force of it creating a whirlwind of dust. The two meet fists in the middle, and they all stand, watching in awe as All Might and the Noumu face off, trading blows evenly. Shigaraki's smirk is gone now, and he watches as the two move so fast their arms blur. Through the flying rubble, Katsuki can see a droplet of blood drip from the corner of All Might's bared teeth, signature smile stretched across his face even as his eyes narrow in pain.
Then the Noumu is sent flying backwards, and the two of them leap into the air, All Might sending the creature slamming down into the ground so hard a crater forms around it.
And he's still fucking smiling. God, All Might is an annoying idiot, but he's so damn cool. Katsuki can feel adrenaline start to course through his veins again just watching the fight.
"Hey, villain," All Might calls gruffly. "Have you ever heard these words? Go beyond,"
He sprints towards the sluggish Noumu, eyes glinting as his hand clenches into a fist and starts to smoke. "Plus ultra!"
When his fist makes impact with the Noumu's stomach, the force of the air behind the punch sends everyone skidding backwards, and there's an explosion of yellow heat, a storm of smoke and rubble filling Katsuki's sight. When it clears enough for him to see again, all that's visible is a giant hole in the outer roof of the dome, and through that a rapidly receding dot in the distance.
There's still a storm whirling around them, and Katsuki blinks, mouth hanging open slightly.
Did he… how…
All Might just punched fast enough to nullify the Noumu's shock absorption, he realises, head suddenly feeling like it's full of cotton. What the hell.
"I feel like I'm in a comic book," Izuku mumbles next to him. Katsuki, for once, agrees with him.
"Bro…" Kirishima whispers, nudging him. "I think this is the first time I've ever seen you smile."
Katsuki snaps around to stare at him, hand rising to touch his face quickly. Shit, he is smiling, he realises. And it's that stupid smile he had as a kid, too, the one he used to wear when watching All Might on the television. The fanboy look, his mother dubbed it fondly. All sappy and big and childish. Coughing, he tries to school his expression into a scowl, but the smile just won't go away.
In the end, he gives up and just turns away from the grinning red-head and slaps a hand over his own mouth, only to come face-to-face with Izuku, who's giving him a knowing look.
"Piss off, Deku," he mutters grumpily, earning a laugh from Kirishima.
All Might's figure is still crouched in his previous position, shrouded in slowly clearing smoke.
"Man, that would've taken five hits in my prime," the panting hero says lightly, slowly straightening to hit a fist against his chest with a pained smile. "But it took me 300."
The white steam is coming off him in billowing puffs now, and blood drips from the corner of his mouth steadily.
"You…" Shigaraki rasps from where they've all but forgotten about him. "You cheated."
All Might turns to face him with dark eyes, smile fading slightly.
"You said you'd kill me," he calls out, fists clenching at his sides. "Come and get me if you can."
The gathered students stare at the face-off in awe.
"We should go," Kirishima announces finally, still smiling widely in excitement. "There's no need for us to fight."
Izuku, on the other hand, is watching All Might with an apprehensive expression.
"A bluff?" he breathes so quietly Katsuki barely catches it. "He has no time…"
Shigaraki starts to scratch his neck again, growing more agitated in the face of All Might's impassive taunt.
"If only I had Noumu…" the villain mutters roughly, the noise of his nails on dry skin making Katsuki cringe.
Kurogiri leans down to whisper something in the blue-haired man's ears, seeming to soothe him slightly.
"Yeah," Shigaraki murmurs. "Yeah, yeah, you're right. We can still kill him."
He starts to run towards All Might, Kurogiri following close behind him.
But All Might doesn't move. Katsuki watches with narrowed eyes as the hero's hand twitches into a fist, shakily moving upwards far too slowly.
He can't move, Katsuki realises belatedly. He's out of time, he can't use his quirk any longer.
All Might just stands helplessly as the two villains draw near him.
And then there's a rustle from next to Katsuki, and goddamn Izuku is gone again.
"Fucking—you idiot!" Katsuki roars, tearing after the dumbass instinctively. For good measure, too, because, predictably, Shigaraki's hand is emerging from the portal again, right towards Izuku's damn face. Maybe Katsuki should just let Izuku fuck up, for once. Maybe then the fucker will learn something, he muses. But alas, he finds himself following anyway because he knows Auntie Inko would cry if Izuku got himself killed.
Izuku is moving too fast, propelled by One for All, and Katsuki makes the split-second decision in mid-air to abandon his explosions and reach for one of the knives tucked in his belt.
There's a moment when time seems to slow down, and Katsuki sees the way Izuku's expression shifts to fear as he registers the hand approaching his face, and then the way it shifts to confusion as he sees Katsuki follow behind.
And then they're dropping, Katsuki yanking Izuku to his chest and out of the way, and there's the hum of a knife, followed by a sharp, slick sound, and Shigaraki is howling.
They roll to a stop, and Katsuki glances at the knife he's still gripping tightly to see a sheen of blood dripping off of it, and a few metres away on the floor, a—
"Oh my god," Kirishima mutters from where the object has rolled to his feet, looking suddenly ill. "Is that a finger."
It is indeed a finger, Katsuki realises. He's just amputated what seems to be Shigaraki's thumb. How lovely.
Shigaraki hunches over, clutching his bleeding hand to his chest as he screams.
Kurogiri turns to him, eyes falling upon the still-dripping knife in his hand.
"You…" he begins quietly.
And then the doors are bursting open, and police officers flood in, guns aimed at the villains and shouting orders.
" Kurogiri!" Shigaraki wails, and the portal villain spares one last lingering look at Katsuki before a portal is wrapping around the two men and they disappear into nothing.
"Oh my god," Kirishima whispers again hoarsely, still staring at the severed thumb on the floor. Katsuki sighs, oddly unbothered by the gruesome sight, and wipes the bloodied knife on a patch of nearby grass before tucking it back into his belt.
Izuku is looking at him in horror, and Endeavour's son looks mildly disturbed. Of course, all of his emotions seem to be expressed mildly so Katsuki isn't quite sure what to make of that.
Kirishima sucks in a shaky breath, before turning around and throwing up into a nearby bush.
The steam emanating from All Might's body is so thick it obscures him entirely, now, his figure shrouded in white. Midoriya collapses where he stands, knees buckling under him weakly.
"Midoriya!" Kirishima lurches towards him, still looking slightly ill. But Izuku's head snaps up at the call of his name, and his gaze flickers momentarily to All Might behind him, expression shifting to one of panic.
"D—Don't come—" he squeaks, pleas going unheard. All Might's figure is still indiscernible behind the white smoke, but he seems to be hunching over, his silhouette looking smaller than ever. Izuku is flailing wildly, struggling to stop the overzealous red-head from coming over for whatever reason.
Katsuki sighs, reaching out to grab Kirishima's wrist.
"Oi," he grunts. "Go and help them get Aizawa-sensei up the stairs."
Kirishima blinks at him once, before sparing a final glance at Izuku and reluctantly turning to head toward the stairs.
"Th—thank you, Kacchan," Izuku wheezes, legs purple and limp and very much broken.
"I appreciate your help, Young Bakugou, you can go with Kirishima—" All Might begins from behind the smoke, voice strangely urgent, and Katsuki cuts him off by walking straight towards him, earning a panicked yelp.
"Young Bakugou—!" All Might cries.
Katsuki hadn't been imagining it. All Might really is smaller, cheeks gaunt and body frail, thinner and shorter somehow. He decides not to question it for now.
"When did you hit your time limit?" Katsuki asks, ignoring Izuku and All Might's weak protests and excuses. They freeze, and All Might seems to sag.
"You know," he says hollowly. Katsuki gives him a flat stare. "As much as you two idiots like to think you're being subtle, you're really not."
All Might grimaces sheepishly, and Izuku blushes.
"I was already at my limit before I came here," All Might finally responds. "I only have three hours a day, and I spent it all in a villain attack this morning."
Katsuki frowns at him, and the hero cowers away from the look, staring at the ground.
Then a cement wall shoots up behind them, blocking All Might's withered form from everyone's view, and a police officer emerges from behind it.
"Toshinori," he says in greeting. All Might bows his head lightly, looking very vulnerable without all the muscle and the smile.
"Naomasa-san."
"I'm looking for clues regarding the villains' identities. Did you recognise any of them or find anything we could use as a lead?" he asks briskly.
"I have a thumb," Katsuki cuts in stupidly. The police officer turns to stare at him blankly, and Katsuki flushes under the look.
"I mean—not my thumb. One of the villain's thumbs. Shigaraki."
He gestures at the severed digit on the floor, and the police officer stoops to pick it up with a gloved hand.
"How did this happen?" he asks seriously, inspecting the finger closely before dropping it into a plastic bag.
Katsuki swallows. Play dumb, play dumb.
"It fell off."
Not that dumb.
At this, both adults and Izuku give him an incredulous look, and he winces.
"I mean. Uhh."
The police officer eyes Katsuki's bloodied hand skeptically, and Katsuki tucks it behind his back hastily. This does nothing to conceal the equally-bloodstained knife still hanging off his belt.
"My hand slipped," he says lamely. "With the knife."
Dear god, Katsuki is going to get himself arrested for amputating someone's thumb—
The man stares at him for a moment longer, before finally nodding.
"Thank you," he says, and turns on his heel, disappearing on the other side of the cement wall.
Katsuki deflates, huffing out a weak sigh. That is, until All Might turns to him with poorly-hidden amusement on his face and says, "Naomasa-san's quirk allows him to detect when people are lying to him."
Fuck.
Chapter End Notes
warnings: canon-typical violence! there is also amputation (but no worries it's not katsuki or any of the kids/heroes) -
i hope you're all coping well in the midst of the pandemic! please remember to stay home, stay hydrated, and wash your hands!!
six
Chapter Summary
there is so much happening in this chapter that i don't even know how to summarise it. have the sports festival arc, i guess.
Chapter Notes
hello! i am back (after two months lol oops)!!! i'm super sorry this took so long, uni has me absolutely deAD. funny how i said last chapter was long at 6.1k words and then i turn up now and throw a 13.3k word chapter out LMAOOOO, this chapter is mostly filler and i really am not feeling great about it so i'm sorry if it's not up to anyone's standards :')
can't think of many warnings for this one but um, tw for very, VERY mild dysphoria at the beginning? i'm so sorry if i miss anything, please let me know and i'll add it in!! this is, for the most part, a very lighthearted chapter :D
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dark.
The air is stale, bitingly cold against her skin.
In the distance, the faint chime of piano keys, vibrations thrumming through old linoleum floors.
Natalia is following the music, walking–no, floating– across dusty tile. The vibrations grow stronger beneath her, the patter of the ivory keys growing louder as she feels the tremors beneath her feet.
She weaves between polished wooden pillars and yellowing lamps that line towering walls. The room is still so cold, the taste of dust and grit sitting heavy and familiar on her tongue.
The piano sits in the corner of an open-floored room, bracketed by an ornate antique archway of an entrance.
In the center of the floor, dancers. They arrange in a line, backs rod-straight and hands poised delicately like porcelain dolls as they twist through fouettés uniformly. Neatly coiled buns are matted to shining foreheads, chins raised in a mimicry of ease that belies sweat gleaming through worn fabric. Their turns are sharp, forms graceful and crisp.
But not enough.
(She knows, more than anyone. It's never enough.)
The piano stops.
"Again," the trainer barks from where he is watching with hard eyes.
The dancers don't falter, dipping into another set with their fatigue betrayed only by the slightest furrow between their brows. Natalia draws closer, presses up against the glass. She understands, more than anyone, the exhaustion that lines the stiff curve of their spines, the barely perceptible tremor of their artfully curled fingers.
"You'll break them," she murmurs to the woman that has drawn up behind her. They watch in silence for a moment.
"Only the breakable ones," she responds finally, in that tone that Natalia knows is accompanied by an elegant smile.
In the corner, watching the dancers, sit a row of trembling girls in pressed uniforms. The oldest of them couldn't be more than ten years old. Apprehension lines their soft faces, and there is an underlying bone-deep resignation in their eyes that has Natalia's chest aching.
The woman behind her raises a hand to her shoulder. She feels small under her touch, fragile and exposed.
"You're made of marble," she says lightly.
There's a smugness to the words that makes Natalia's stomach turn.
And then the fingers against her shoulder are melting away, the dancers dissolving into red, seeping through the floorboards and into nothingness. Gunshots echo through the room, and the kneeling children crumple one-by-one, heads slumping forward and crimson soaking through crisp white dresses. There's the press of an arm around Natalia's neck, yanking tightly from behind and she suddenly can't breathe. Her head starts to spin, lungs burning for oxygen as the room begins to crumble down around her. She scrabbles weakly at the elbow that's clamped against her throat, watching through blurred vision as the children are buried beneath rubble and dust, and her vision fills with red.
Katsuki wakes with a choked gasp. He pushes up to a sitting position, fingers already curled around the hilt of his knife as he sucks in a deep, shuddering breath. His chest is tight, hands trembling where they're clenched against the bedsheets, and there's the faintest smell of burning fabric.
His entire body is shaking slightly, and for the briefest of moments, he feels wrong. It's the same
feeling he has when he looks in the mirror sometimes, seeing himself bigger than he feels, bigger than what he should be. It's never been like this, though. In the past, it's been disorienting—an inconvenience at most. It's been his shoulders looking weirdly squared, his chest feeling a little too light, gait on the edge of feeling too heavy. But it's never been this, this hypersensitivity where even the brush of his sheets feels rough against too-calloused hands, heart beating wildly against a hard and flat chest that doesn't feel like his own. His hair is matted against his forehead, dampened with sweat, and the knife is sharp against the pads of his fingers.
What the fuck.
Katsuki lifts his head to look at himself in the mirror propped against his wall, and meets glistening red eyes that seem far too haunted to be his own. A shaking hand raises to brush through hair that feels short, coarse on his skin.
He doesn't do his ballet stretches that morning. The mere prospect of it sends his stomach churning so violently he finds himself hunched over the toilet bowl for the next hour.
The class is way too excited for a group of teenagers that were attacked by actual villains less than a day ago. The moment he walks in, Kirishima is perking up in his seat like an eager puppy, making Katsuki scowl on instinct and push his earphones deeper into his ears. This does absolutely nothing to deter the redhead, who follows him to his seat and fearlessly plucks an earphone out and pops it into his own curiously, falling silent to listen in for a moment. Katsuki lets him, if only because he's still jittery and slightly shaken from the morning, and he has absolutely no energy to bat away the idiot's hands.
He doesn't even know what he's fucking listening to, for fuck's sake. It's some stupid Chinese podcast about the reason behind the country's failing hero industry or whatever. He stopped listening long ago, opting to just let the earphones deter anyone from attempting to talk to him.
It fails, evidently, because moments later Kirishima is turning to him with wide eyes.
"Dude, what language is this? Is this Chinese ?" he asks, nonplussed. "Can you understand this?"
Katsuki grunts noncommittally, feeling the beginning of a migraine coming on at the volume inside the classroom. He really doesn't really have the energy to get into explaining his baffling fluency in like, fifteen different languages. He doesn't even fully understand it himself, half the time.
A scrunched up paper ball sails across the room and into Katsuki's suddenly outstretched hand, cutting off Kirishima's rambling line of questions.
"Dude," Kaminari breathes from where he's just thrown it. "What the hell are your reflexes? You didn't even see it!"
Katsuki glares at him, groaning internally at the way Kirishima takes this turn of conversation to conveniently jump into the story of their fight at the USJ.
"Yeah, yeah, villains are scary and whatnot, can we talk about the fact that Bakugou straight up amputated that one villain's finger?" Jirou drawls from where she's draped over her seat lazily.
"It was his thumb," Katsuki corrects listlessly, kneading at his throbbing temple.
"Dude, is that seriously the only correction you're gonna make? You cut off a villain's finger !"
Kaminari cries in disbelief, arms flailing.
"Thumb," Katsuki corrects again. The scandalised expression Kaminari gives him has Jirou snickering, and even Kirishima looks a little amused (although he also looks slightly sick at the memory).
"Bakugou, my dude, you're fucking terrifying sometimes," Sero observes from where he's perched on Ashido's desk.
Ashido sits up suddenly eyeing him curiously.
"Speaking of the finger thing—"
"Thumb."
"Okay, Jesus, speaking of the thumb thing, where the hell did you get that knife? What, do you just carry knives around in your hero costume?"
Katsuki gives her a flat look.
"No."
She (and a few others) looks vaguely relieved at his response, until he continues on to say, "I have them no matter what I'm wearing."
Their expressions drop back into apprehension, and Kirishima starts to edge away from him subtly, eyeing his body quickly. Katsuki turns to give him a sharp grin that has him whimpering slightly under his breath, arms hardening tentatively on instinct.
"Your use of the word 'them' implies that you carry more than one," Jirou notes mildly, looking a mix of amused and troubled at the conversation.
"I said what I fucking said, Earlobes," Katsuki mutters, and Kirishima physically blanches away from him momentarily, before shoving a wide smile onto his face to mask the sheer terror in his eyes.
Katsuki really isn't sure why the dumbass is so intent on being his friend when he's obviously terrified of him, but he doesn't comment on it. He guesses it's kind of funny, anyway.
He's saved the effort of having to continue the stupid conversation by the entrance of Aizawa- sensei, who's covered in so much bandages he looks like he belongs in a morgue.
Upon his arrival, pretty much the entire class is sent into uproar, making Katsuki's migraine flare up and sending him sinking down into his seat with a silent groan. Aizawa-sensei, thankfully, shuts them up relatively quickly.
He announces the impending sports festival, and the volume in the room escalates all over again. Katsuki hates this class. He's given little consolation at the fact that their homeroom teacher looks
just as weary about the noise as he is. The two of them share a long-suffering look of acknowledgement, and Katsuki quietly watches the man silently slink back into his sleeping bag amongst the chaos. He's equal parts jealous and annoyed.
Izuku tries to approach him after class. He's touching the tips of his index fingers together awkwardly, looking at Katsuki all shy and demure through nervous eyes.
Katsuki groans loudly at the sight, and his slowly receding migraine starts to return.
"What the fuck is this, a shoujo manga?" he asks irritably. "Stand up straight, dumbass. And lose the whole cutesy act."
Izuku blushes down to his neck, choking on nothing.
"I—I'm not acting cute, Kacchan—!" he cries, drawing the attention of a few lingering classmates that give the duo some very suggestive looks.
Kaminari wolf-whistles, making Izuku trip over his own feet as he flails. Katsuki just raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest and watching him impassively.
"Is there something you fuckin' need, Deku?"
Izuku frowns slightly at the nickname.
"Please don't call me that, Kacchan, we've been over this."
Katsuki leans back against his desk, sensing that this is going to be a long ordeal.
"I'll stop calling you Deku when you stop being a Deku," he says simply.
Izuku's frown deepens, but he shakes his head moments later, swallowing thickly before bowing at the waist, a full ninety-degrees.
"I wanted to thank you for saving me yesterday, Kacchan!" he announces loudly, drawing even more attention to the spectacle.
Katsuki eyes the idiot's bowing figure dubiously, wondering what the fuck he's meant to do with this. All it needs is a nice box of chocolates and it'd be a lovely Valentine's day confession, what with how dramatic the nerd is being.
"I didn't save you," he says numbly, wanting to go to sleep.
Izuku straightens slightly, staring at him in confusion.
"Yes, you… did?" he utters weakly.
"You did, actually," Kaminari offers helpfully from where he's watching the conversation with a smug grin. "It was super heroic, too. You totally moved without even realising it. That's the power of love, I guess."
Izuku turns an interesting shade of scarlet, and Katsuki stares at Kaminari flatly for a long few seconds, before turning back to the green-haired boy who's still half-bowing in front of him cluelessly.
"Fine," he admits wearily. "I saved you. But don't misunderstand, Deku." he pins the other with a sharp look that has him shrinking back slightly. "The only reason I did it was because Auntie would be sad if I let your stupid ass get yourself killed so quickly. We're not friends, and I don't give a fuck what you do anymore. Don't expect me to be there next time you make a stupid decision."
He brushes past Izuku and a confused-looking Kaminari to go take a nap on the rooftop.
By the end of the day, the entrance to their classroom is completely filled by students from the other first-year classes, obviously here to check them out following the news of the sports festival. Katsuki sighs quietly at the sight. His migraine had finally receded following a short but much- needed nap on the rooftop during lunch, but the group of clamouring teenagers has it threatening to return with a vengeance.
"Oi, oi, what do you guys even want from us?!" the short purple diaper boy with the grape quirk cries, voice all nasally and whining.
Katsuki huffs another tired sigh. He knows the kid is supposed to be in his homegroup and all, but he just has the most punchable face.
"They're scouting out the competition, dumbass. We're the ones that survived the villains' attack," he mutters anyway, slowly packing his textbooks into his bag and moving towards the door slowly. "They're probably just checking us out before the sports festival."
He pauses in front of the group, watching them impassively.
"There's no point doing that now. You might as well just stay out of my way."
Katsuki is met with offended murmuring that he promptly ignores with a flat look.
The crowd stands quietly for a moment, unsure of what to do with him, before a distinct figure shoves themself to the front.
He's tall, all lanky with faded purple hair that sticks upward like a troll doll. At his arrival, the crowd falls silent.
"I came to see what the famous 1-A was like, but you seem pretty arrogant," he drawls, stopping in front of Katsuki with an unimpressed stare. His eyes are flat and tired, but there's a certain sharpness to his gaze. "Are all the hero course students like this?"
Katsuki's class begins to protest weakly, but the boy cuts them off with a sigh. He blinks slowly, hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck as his gaze meets Katsuki's again.
"There are quite a few people who enrolled in general studies or other courses because they couldn't make it into the hero course. The school has given us a chance."
His gaze travels over their class slowly.
"Depending on the results of the sports festival, UA will consider our transfer into the hero course. And it seems they may also transfer people out."
The temperature in the room seems to drop at the thinly veiled threat, and the purple-haired boy's eyes return to meet Katsuki's.
"Scouting out the competition?" he huffs humorlessly, eyes glinting. "This is a declaration of war."
Katsuki sees a few of his own classmates shrink back at the words, looking more than a little intimidated. He just blinks at the boy, utterly unimpressed at the speech. The guy is interesting, he'll give him that much. Definitely has a lot more drive than most of the losers in Katsuki's class. But, then again, the losers are in his class for a reason. Whatever this guy's issues are, it's not Katsuki's concern.
He's mulling over the declaration placidly when there's another figure pushing to the front of the crowd. This one is loud, and Katsuki's temple starts to twinge again. He groans imperceptibly, almost instantly losing all interest in the conversation and turning to push through the crowd and get away from the noise. The guy continues to yell at his back indignantly, and the purple-haired boy watches him go silently. Katsuki is stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, Bakugou, what the hell? It's your fault they're hating on us, you can't just leave!" Kirishima demands nervously. Katsuki turns to meet his gaze indifferently. "It's not my problem if they weren't strong enough to make the hero course," he says simply, voice echoing through the suddenly very silent corridor. "It doesn't matter to me as long as I win."
He feels Izuku's eyes on him from behind, burning at his back intensely.
This time when he turns to exit, the crowd of wide-eyed students parts for him easily.
They train for the festival ceaselessly for the next few weeks. Most of his training is done with Kirishima and occasionally the rest of the redhead's crew. At one point, even Iida approaches Katsuki to spar. That ends abruptly, though, when they realise that the two of them really aren't compatible to fight together. Iida is flat on his back and winded in all of thirty seconds, and the sight is so pathetic that Katsuki can't even bring himself to feel victorious. The guy is weirdly chill when Katsuki isn't trying to piss him off, though, so they start running together in the mornings. He's not the worst running partner, if Katsuki is being honest. He can stay quiet for the most part, and his quirk makes him a good challenge. Between him and Kirishima (and his own personal training), Katsuki is kept pretty busy.
Before they know it, the sports festival has arrived.
His mom sends him off with a sharp pat on the back and a thinly veiled threat to not kill anyone.
By morning, they're all dressed in their sports uniforms and ready to go, the waiting room silent but for the occasional hushed conversation. Katsuki sits in a corner and drinks his banana milk quietly with a straw. Kirishima, Sero, Kaminari and Ashido sit with him, the four of them discussing possible tactics for the festival. He doesn't really have the heart to tell them that all their ideas are kind of shitty, what with the nervous edge to their laughter, so he doesn't contribute to the conversation.
The class all hushes unanimously when Endeavour's son, Todoroki, approaches Izuku impassively.
He stops when they're mere inches apart, and stares at the awkwardly blinking green-haired boy.
"Midoriya Izuku," he says flatly. "Looking at things objectively, I think I'm stronger than you." his words echo through the pin-drop silent waiting room. He pauses, eyes narrowing slightly. "But All Might has his eye on you, doesn't he?"
Izuku blanches at the words, almost toppling off his bench. He starts to stutter out a weak denial but Todoroki raises a hand wordlessly. "I'm not trying to pry," he says simply. "But I'm going to beat you."
No one talks for a few moments. Izuku looks a mixture of confused and terrified. Kirishima is just pushing up from his seat to laugh awkwardly and break up the tension when Izuku straightens slowly, expression smoothing out.
"Objectively," he begins quietly, making Kirishima stop in his tracks. "Maybe you are stronger. But… Everyone is working so hard to win today. So I'll be going for it with everything I have, too."
He clenches his fists passionately, eyes shining with determination and excitement.
Todoroki stares at him indifferently, and they both just stand in silence for a moment, chest-to- chest.
No one talks.
And then Katsuki takes a long, loud drag of his banana milk through his straw, the sound cutting through the silence.
Everyone turns to him and he blinks.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," he mutters to himself, grip tightening instinctively on the drink carton at the glare Todoroki gifts him with. It's really not his fault the two of them are dramatic as hell, honestly.
The tension in the room seems to drop at the words, and everyone relaxes slightly. Ashido and Kaminari have started to snicker at him, but Todoroki is still glaring. He's saved having to open that particular can of worms by the arrival of Midnight, who appears in the doorway to tell them it's time to head into the arena.
"I would've thought you'd be more offended that Todoroki was challenging Midoriya and not you!" Kirishima says curiously as they line up to exit the waiting room. Katsuki shrugs, dropping his empty carton into the bin by the doorway.
"I'm gonna beat them both anyway so it doesn't really matter to me," he says bluntly, ignoring the way Todoroki's narrowed eyes snap onto him at the words. "I just prefer to do it without all the fancy monologues."
The temperature in the room drops again, and Kirishima stares between the two of them with an open mouth, suddenly looking very much like he regrets having asked in the first place. Katsuki turns to look at Todoroki guilelessly.
"Ever considered going into theatre?" he asks coolly. Kaminari chokes on the water he's drinking, and Kirishima winces at the dangerous edge that's creeping into Todoroki's glare.
"You—" the heterochromatic boy begins quietly, but he's cut off by the sound of the buzzer, and Katsuki gifts him with a final smirk before he heads off into the arena.
When they enter the stadium, it's to the sound of deafening cheers. There's gotta be at least ten thousand spectators surrounding them, all waving banners and cameras excitedly.
In the background, Present Mic introduces their class eagerly, spouting something about surviving villain attacks and being experienced.
Moments later, he's announcing class 1-B, and then 1-C. When the purple-haired boy from before stalks onto the stadium, he's glaring straight at Katsuki. It's a little unnerving, really, so Katsuki just blinks back blankly. The guy stares at him unrelentingly for the remainder of the introductions, and it's so weird that Katsuki almost misses Midnight announcing the pledge.
She's wearing her same stupid 18 rated hero costume that has all the students drooling. Katsuki really doesn't understand the point of inviting an 18 hero to teach at a school full of very much underaged teenagers, but that's neither here nor there, he supposes.
"Quiet, everyone," she calls out, and a hush falls over the stadium. "Representing the students is Bakugou Katsuki, from class 1-A!"
He finally tears his gaze away from the purple-haired student, taking this signal to trudge up the stairs with his hands tucked into his pockets.
When he reaches the microphone, he regards the silent crowd flatly for a long moment. Finally, he leans toward the stand.
"I pledge," he drawls, hands still in his pockets nonchalantly, "to win."
He hears the simultaneous facepalm of pretty much all of his homegroup behind him. Before the students can start throwing rocks or some shit, he turns to face them directly.
"For anyone who thinks they can beat me?" he says lowly into the microphone, voice carrying across the silent stadium easily. His gaze finds that of the purple-haired boy, who's still glaring at him with his arms crossed across his chest.
"I welcome you to try."
There's a moment of tense quiet before the crowd is roaring again.
"What a passionate challenge issued from the hero course's number one!" Present Mic screeches from the commentary box over all the noise. Katsuki holds the purple-haired student's gaze for a moment longer before he steps off the stage again and takes his place next to a very exasperated Kirishima.
"Dude," he whines quietly, shifting slightly in his spot at the downright venomous glares the students from the other classes are sending in 1-A's direction, "can you not go, like five minutes without pissing someone off?"
Katsuki shrugs impassively, baring his teeth at a general studies girl who's scowling at him darkly. She recoils instinctively, scowl deepening. Kirishima smacks his arm lightly, giving him a weak glare.
"Bakugou !" he hisses. "What did I just say?"
The first round is an obstacle course. The introduction lasts all of two minutes, with Midnight stepping up to the centre of the stadium with a downright lewd smirk.
"The rules for this challenge?" she calls silkily. "There are no rules. As long as you stay on the course, it doesn't matter what you do."
And with a crack of her whip, she's stepping off the field and the race begins.
There's a stampede almost instantly, the students all clamouring to get out of the narrow entranceway. As students fall over each other to get away from the blockage, Present Mic yammers on in the background, narrating the entire thing happily.
Katsuki lets himself get shoved around for a bit, considering the situation slowly. He can't really use his explosions right now, not when he's surrounded by fucking hundreds of students. He doesn't have any of his normal gear on him, too, because of the rules that prohibit use of support gear by the hero students. The only thing he has is the singular knife that he snuck in through a strap under his shirt, and if he uses it he'll probably get disqualified.
Ahead of them, some of the zero-pointer robots from the entrance exam are lumbering forward towards the students at the front.
He's trying to decide what to do when the choice is made for him.
There's a loud crackling noise and the robots are freezing, ice spider-webbing its way from the ground and up their legs to root them to their places.
Todoroki is running forward a moment later, ducking under their unmoving forms and leaving the rest of the students behind.
Dramatic bitch.
The others have stopped in their struggle to watch him in disbelief with their own legs frozen to the ground, and Katsuki takes advantage of the opening to duck between them and to the front before scaling the nearest robot the same way he had in the entrance exam. By the time he's reached the top, the students behind him have broken out of their stupors and started forward to follow Todoroki's path. Said student turns back to glance at them, before calling out a cold, "I wouldn't recommend that. The robots aren't too stable right now."
And as if to accentuate his point, one of the robots that a student is running under suddenly collapses, the ice splintering with a crack as it buries them in a manner of seconds. Katsuki freezes, staring at the spot in numb disbelief.
Did Todoroki just straight up murder a student?
To his relief, moments later the ice is breaking apart with another loud noise and Kirishima's hardened form emerges from under it. The tension bleeds slowly from Katsuki's body, and Kirishima looks up to nod at him slightly. Katsuki huffs quietly and turns to dart from his position atop his slowly crumbling robot to the shoulder of another one. He jumps from robot to robot, ignoring the cries of the students that are straggling behind. When he pushes off the last robot, tucking into a roll and landing smoothly, Todoroki is barely 20 feet ahead of him. Behind them, students follow hot on their trail, most of them from 1-A.
Present Mic is still narrating the entire race eagerly, voice echoing around the stadium loud enough that it's edging on being irritating.
The next obstacle is a straight up chasm, with the race track suddenly dropping off into nothingness. There are pillars of varying sizes rising from the gap, connected by a series of what look like tightropes. The chasm is fucking huge, and Todoroki is already gliding over the tightropes with ice. Katsuki is hot on his tail, sprinting across swaying ropes with an ease that makes him suddenly very grateful for the time he spent at the gym with Saki-sensei working on balancing. It's still fucking terrifying nonetheless, and his stomach is churning the entire time.
Todoroki is still faster than him, though, and by the time they've both passed the obstacle the gap between them is larger again.
Behind them, a girl with huge pink hair and round goggles has a fancy-ass grappling hook tool and what look like actual hover boots, and she clears the entire chasm in under a minute flat.
Katsuki doesn't know whether he should be impressed or intimidated at the half-crazed glint to her eyes.
(He settles on impressed. He doesn't know who, but she reminds him of someone he knows–no, someone he knew.)
The next obstacle is what looks like an empty field of patchy, uneven brown dirt. But Todoroki stops short momentarily as he nears it, and Katsuki realises why when he draws closer. There are certain areas that have been clearly dug up and refilled, and Present Mic announces over the speakers that the final obstacle is a minefield.
Katsuki feels a smirk creep onto his face at the revelation, and his gaze snaps to Todoroki, who's slowly picking his way through the field. He's still a decent way ahead of Katsuki, but he's moving slowly, and Katsuki is in his element here.
He's moving onto the field in seconds, darting between the raised dirt mounds without a second glance. Todoroki is strong, but years of training have made Katsuki light on his feet. He's caught up to the other's slow-moving figure in a matter of moments, passing him by easily.
Todoroki watches him as he tears ahead, in a mixture of anger and disbelief.
He's actually almost completely sure he's secured first place when he hears Present Mic's voice raise by about three octaves, as he screeches, "And 1-A's Midoriya Izuku seems to be… collecting landmines?!"
Katsuki actually groans out loud at this, reluctantly glancing back over his shoulder to see the idiot hacking at the ground with a metal slab, collecting the mines into a compacted pile. And as Izuku braces himself with the metal and straight up throws himself onto the heap, Katsuki can only watch as he's sent sailing over the entire field with a deafening boom.
There's utter silence as all the students stop in their tracks to watch him soar above their heads
dramatically.
It's all fun and great and very majestic until the momentum is lost and the dumbass is sent hurtling back towards the ground, dangerously fast. Katsuki can see the exact moment the situation registers in Izuku's eyes, as if he's finally remembering about the existence of gravity.
"What the fuck..." Katsuki says to himself, now standing stock-still in the middle of the field with his hands on his hips as he watches the determination in the idiot's eyes give way to sheer terror. For god's sake, he doesn't even know what Izuku thought would happen.
Todoroki, who'd paused to watch Izuku in absolute incredulity for a moment, falters at the realisation that Izuku is headed straight for him. The dumbass is hurtling down towards the other student, and his expression lights up moments before impact with a look of excitement that tells Katsuki he's just had an extremely stupid idea. Katsuki can only watch as Izuku flips around, spinning the piece of metal over his head and using motherfucking Todoroki's shoulder as a launching pad to propel himself forward. The resulting explosions from the metal's impact with the ground sends Todoroki's position up in smoke, while Izuku goes flying once again, this time over Katsuki and past the minefield. When Katsuki shakes himself out of his reverie, Todoroki has already started running, passing him and clearing the minefield. Katsuki sighs, starting to run again and grumbling under his breath all the while.
By the time he gets back to the stadium, Todoroki and Izuku are already there. The former is standing in a corner, staring impassively at the openly crying latter.
Above them, the crowd is hysterical, cheers growing in volume at Katsuki's entrance.
"I did it!" Izuku is wheezing to himself under his breath, entire body coated in dust and soot. "I told them 'I am here', just like All Might told me to!"
Katsuki freezes in his tracks, head turning slowly to face the main viewing box with sharp eyes.
All Might stands behind the thick glass, thin figure grinning proudly at Izuku's battered figure from above.
Suddenly, the determination that had clouded Izuku's eyes during the course makes a lot more sense. Katsuki feels his glare turn deadly at the implication.
As if sensing the eyes on him, All Might pauses, before he turns and makes direct eye contact with a very unimpressed Katsuki.
At the expression the student is giving him, he actually flinches, blood draining from his face visibly even with the distance between them.
He's still glaring at the cowering hero when a hand claps down on his shoulder firmly, making him whip around to face a beaming Kirishima.
"Dude! That was so cool, you came in third! And that final minefield, too, you were so fast ! What are you, a cat? That was insane !"
Katsuki lets him ramble a bit longer as he glares down a grimacing All Might until the pro finally gives in and looks away first, scratching at the back of his neck awkwardly.
After the remaining students return to the main stadium area, Midnight comes back onto the stage to announce the next event.
It's a cavalry battle. When she mentions teams, students have already started gravitating towards each other.
That is, until she announces the point system.
The second the screen displays Izuku's face next to a glaring 'ten million points', everyone is looking away from the green-haired boy sheepishly, forming their own teams. Katsuki doesn't know if he feels pity or vindictiveness at the absolute terror that overtakes the boy's expression at his sudden isolation.
"Bakugou!" Kirishima, Sero, Ashido and Kaminari wail at once, along with about ten other people. He stares at them flatly, as they beg to be teamed up with him. Do they not realise that the maximum number of members in a team is four? They wouldn't be able to be in a team together even if Katsuki wanted to.
Besides, he's already eyeing up someone else: the pink-haired girl with the grappling hook. She's crouched over an opened toolbox, muttering to herself in a corner alone as the people around her give her a wary berth. She looks fucking weird, if he's being honest. So of course, he beelines straight towards her.
"You four losers team up with each other," he throws over his shoulder at the idiots clamoring for his attention, ignoring their confused cries as he leaves.
"Oi, grappling hook girl," he calls out as he approaches the student hunched in the corner fiddling with some strange metal contraption. It takes her a few moments to glance up, before she briefly meets his look with distant eyes.
"Me?" she asks slightly breathlessly, attention already focused back on the toolbox.
He squats down next to her and watches her tinker absent-mindedly.
"You're the one with the grappling hook, right?"
At this, she actually looks up at him with shining, half-crazed eyes.
"My babies! Did you like them?"
Her… babies? Huh.
"They're not bad," he says noncommittally, watching as she tosses a small metal cube in the air, which seems to actually grow, unfurling to roughly the size of a tennis ball before shrinking back down when it lands back in her open palm.
"You make them?" he asks, still staring at the cube apprehensively. She nods eagerly, before promptly launching into a spiel that could easily rival Izuku's. Her hands never stop moving as she does so, tightening contraptions or rearranging tools in her kit. After a minute or so of this, he cuts her off with a hasty, "Yeah, okay, I'd love to hear about this later but we have less than five minutes to form teams for this next round. Wanna join mine or not?"
She pauses at this, before her eyes zero in on his name plastered across the scoreboard in the sky.
"You're ranked third!" she breathes. "Yes, yes, my babies will get lots of exposure with you!"
Her eyes glaze over slightly at the thought, before she turns to face Katsuki with a wide grin. "I'm in! Name's Hatsume Mei!"
"Great," he says, not bothering to introduce himself. His eyes are glued to another piece of gear in her inventory. "I've got a plan."
They team up with the guy from Katsuki's class with the multiple limbs, Shouji. He seems flustered but eager to be on Katsuki's team, and his eyes harden with excitement when the two explain the plan to him. The initial setup is slightly odd, with Katsuki perched on Shouji's shoulders, and Hatsume behind him, hidden inside a weird cocoon-like shape that the masked student makes with his other arms. Strapped to Katsuki's feet are a pair of jetpack boots that Hatsume happily handed to him.
When the strategy time ends and the teams line up, the group is given more than a few apprehensive stares.
"Just two members?" a girl from another class mutters as she blinks at Katsuki and Shouji. "That's risky…"
Inside her little flesh cocoon, Hatsume snickers quietly.
The moment Midnight cracks her whip to signify the beginning of the battle, all teams are sprinting straight towards Izuku, who's teamed up with Uraraka and Tokoyami. Their team falters at the sudden assault, intimidation clear on their faces.
In the meantime, Katsuki gives a brief tap to Shouji's shoulder and fires up the jetpack boots. There's a low, barely-audible hum for a brief moment, the air heating up around them.
And then he's sent flying up off Shouji's shoulders, so fast and unsteady that he almost careens straight into the audience. The force of it sends his gut lurching, nausea tickling at the back of his throat. The audience's screeches grow in volume as he nears them jerkily, but he rights himself just in time, slowly testing out the controls in the little remote Hatsume had handed him. By the time he's finally stabilised, slowing to a gentle drift in the centre of the arena, all the teams are gazing up at him in terror.
A slow smile creeps onto Katsuki's face, and the stadium falls into complete silence. He has enough time to smirk at Todoroki before he's hurtling back down towards him at breakneck speeds, fuelled by the jetpack boots. The heterochromic boy reels back, eyes flickering with shock as he shoots a hasty wall of ice towards Katsuki that the blonde roughly dodges.
From the commentary box, there's a loud gasp from Present Mic.
"Oh my goodness! It seems Bakugou's team is—"
The hero is cut off by a sharp slap, and then Aizawa-sensei is grumbling a faint, "Don't give away students' strategies, idiot."
Present Mic apologises sheepishly, whining under his breath. Katsuki huffs a sigh, feeling silently grateful for Aizawa-sensei. It seems the two teachers have caught onto his team's plan, but he'd
really rather not have it announced to the entire stadium prematurely.
He steels himself, before swooping down at Todoroki's team again. He dodges the next wall of ice with a noticeably smaller amount of difficulty as he adjusts to the feeling of the hoverboots. The other teams have gone back to pursuing a very harassed-looking Izuku, who's flailing at all the attacks.
On Katsuki's third swoop, he has just enough time to see the glint of a silver grappling hook shoot out from the crevice of Hatsume's hiding spot, catching cleanly onto the headband around Izuku's forehead and yanking it away into Hatsume's momentarily outstretched hand. She retreats back into the shadows of Shouji's arm barricade immediately. The entire thing happens so quickly it's barely visible to the naked eye, with Izuku's headband being there one moment and gone the next. The green-haired boy jerks at the loss, hand raising to his now empty forehead in confusion.
All the attacking teams who had been focused on Izuku's headband are left standing stupidly, before they whip around to find out who amongst them has stolen it. Izuku himself looks something like a fish out of water, hand plastered to his bare forehead in utter bewilderment.
After realising that he's of no more use to them, the majority of the teams turn to charge towards Todoroki, who's still trying to deter Katsuki's swooping advances.
Katsuki, on the other hand, takes advantage of the sudden diversion to swoop towards Kirishima's team instead. The redhead screeches at the sudden attack, arms flailing upward to shield himself.
"Dude !" he wails indignantly. "I thought we were friends !"
Sero, Ashido and Kaminari all echo the sentiment with similar looks of betrayal, and Katsuki yanks away an unsuspecting Sero's headband easily, securing their team another 175 points.
"You know what they say," he grins, baring his teeth at the group viciously. "Keep your friends close,"
He lets them finish the sentence themselves as he draws back into the air, turning to see a commotion on the other side of the field where both Todoroki and Iida have mysteriously lost their headbands. Katsuki glances back at Shouji, who gives him a brief nod, and from the cracks of her little cavern space, Hatsume winks at him and holds up the two missing headbands smugly.
By now, they've already secured more than enough points to come in an easy first place; they had from the moment they'd taken Izuku's headband. But for the sake of maintaining the charade, Katsuki spends the rest of the battle half-heartedly swooping other teams and snatching a few more headbands. When the buzzer sounds for the end of the battle, the scoreboard is projected just in time for all the students to turn and see 'Team Bakugou' shoot straight to first place, followed by a shining, '10,001,105 points'.
Like clockwork, every single head on the field turns to Katsuki slowly, just in time to see him help a grinning Hatsume down from Shouji's shoulders, headbands clutched in her fist triumphantly.
There's utter silence for one, two, three—
The stadium explodes into noise.
Kirishima looks a mixture of betrayed and awed, and Izuku just looks awed. Todoroki, on the other hand, looks like he wants nothing more than to strangle Katsuki with his bare hands. He's visibly fuming, and shrugs off Yaoyorozu's concerned hand roughly.