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vannahfanfics · 2 years ago

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Walk With Me

Word Count: 7130

Friendship, Character Study

Summary: Throughout his time at U.A., Katsuki has grown used to Eijirou often being the one to walk at his side. So used to it, in fact, that there soon comes a time that he can't imagine him not being there.

Hello, all! Here is my story for the KiriBaku Bang! My partner UntimelyRose made some incredibly beautiful art to go with the story, so be sure to check it out!

“Oi! Shitty Hair! What the fuck was all that about, huh?!”

As Katsuki ranted angrily at Eijirou, the redhead just turned around to blink owlishly at him, which pissed Katsuki off even more. With a jab of his thumb into his sternum, Katsuki declared adamantly, “I didn’t need you to butt in! I totally had that guy!”

Katsuki had been so ready to demolish the villain bastards who had crashed their little training party at the U.S.J., starting with the crappy butler guy. Not only had Eijirou totally stolen his thunder, but he’d also been warped away from the big fight. It was so frustrating that Katsuki wanted to yank his hair out!

“Look, Baku-bro, I get that you’re irritated about getting warped away from all the action, but instead of taking it out on me, maybe you should focus on getting back over there, yeah?”

Eijirou just shrugged in the face of Katsuki’s ire. It was totally not the reaction that Katsuki had been expecting, and the fact that Eijirou so effortlessly saw through the fact that he was projecting his annoyance threw him for an even further loop. He was so stunned by the redhead’s reaction that all of his aggravation evaporated at once, replaced by wide-eyed bewilderment.

However, Katsuki didn’t have the luxury of being baffled for long. Suddenly, a series of purple-black portals materialized all around them. About a dozen villains stepped through, all sporting an assortment of fierce-looking Quirks and blunt weapons. On instinct, Katsuki and Eijirou sprung toward one another to establish a back-to-back formation.

“Humph. Focus on getting back over there, huh?” Katsuki smirked. His shoulder blade nudged against one of the gear-shaped shoulder pads encircling Eijirou’s upper arms when he adjusted his offensive stance slightly. “Fine with me. I’m gonna blast my way through these extras, so if you want to be a part of the action, keep your ass up and don’t get in my way!” he commanded as he splayed out both of his arms, small explosions crackling over his palms.

“Heard ya loud and clear!” Eijirou cried enthusiastically, and when he slammed his hardened fists together, sparks flew from the colliding edges.

“You cocky little punks!” one of the villains fumed. “This’ll teach you!” With a resounding battle cry, he charged at Eijirou; like the first domino setting of the cascade, his rush triggered the rest of the villains to follow suit. In his peripheral vision, Katsuki saw Eijirou cross both his arms in an X over his face to block the swordsman’s diagonal strike; sparks danced at the collision point of the sharp blade and Eijirou’s reinforced skin. Eijirou then snatched up the blade with one hand and punched the swordsman in the face with his other. All of this occurred in a span of maybe three seconds.

Hah! Well, he’s not a weakling; I’ll grant him that, Katsuki thought with a widening grin.

Certainly not one to be outdone, Katsuki lunged at the nearest villain and grabbed his face with his gauntleted hand. The man’s squeal of surprise was quickly overtaken by the small boom! of the explosion that Katsuki activated upon impact. It immediately rendered the man unconscious; his knees buckled, and Katsuki felt him go as limp as a fish in his grasp. With a derisive snort, Katsuki unlatched his fingers from around his smoking and soot-dusted face. Before the subjugated villain even hit the floor, Katsuki had sprung at the next.

Thump. Thump. Boom! Thump. Ka-boom! Thump. Thump. Katsuki and Eijirou rocketed around the small, dilapidated room, and one by one, the villains succumbed to their overwhelming power. To Katsuki’s great disappointment, not one of them put up any semblance of a fight; he and Eijirou were able to defeat every single one of them in less than thirty seconds. As the last villain standing crumpled to a heap at Katsuki’s feet, the blond snorted in disdain and nudged his unconscious body with the toe of his boot.

“They call themselves something as pretentious as ‘The League of Villains,’ but this is all they got? Either they’re a joke, or we’ve been so severely underestimated that it’s fuckin’ criminal,” he whined.

“Well, they are villains,” Eijirou pointed out while flashing Katsuki a shark-toothed grin. “Kinda makes sense that they would be doing something criminal, right?”

“Your puns are as shitty as your hair,” Katsuki scoffed with a roll of his eyes. There was no time to waste, so he started marching toward the door, shoving aside any incapacitated villain that obstructed his path with his feet. “If you can make a joke as bad as that, then I guess ya ain’t hurt.”

“Aw! You care!” Eijirou trilled while scurrying after him.

“Do not!” Katsuki snapped, screeching to a halt so he could whip his head around and shoot Eijirou a pointed glare. He didn’t have his mask, however, so he had nothing to hide the faint haze of pink that rose to his upper cheeks. “‘S just that if your dumb ass got hurt, then ya’d be useless, and I’d tell your ass to stay here!” Huffing haughtily, Katsuki whirled back around and resumed stomping toward the exit.

“Don’t you think we should go help everyone else, though?” Eijirou asked, hurrying to keep up with him. Though he initially tried to walk by Katsuki’s side, the door wasn’t wide enough for them to walk abreast, so he fell in step behind Katsuki as they walked through.

“Think about it, dumbass,” Katsuki countered without looking back at him. Instead, he was glancing up and down the hallway to locate the stairwell. He spotted the broken neon sign reading EXIT hanging by a single wire in front of an old, rusted metal door; he began stalking purposefully toward it and continued, “That villain is their gateway. He warped them all here, and he can warp them all out if shit hits the fan. We take his ass out, and they’re stuck. Losing their escape route will send them into a panic, including that punk wannabe supervillain leader of theirs. We can clean house before the pros even get here.”

“Wow, you’ve considered all that?” Eijirou beamed, practically radiating golden light and sparkles with how admiringly he was regarding Katsuki right now. “That’s impressive! Still, I’m worried about everyone else.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Katsuki huffed as he kicked open the stairwell door. He wasn’t worried about anyone surprising them, so he marched right on through; they’d most certainly been underestimated, and all the villains that had been sent to deal with himself and Eijirou were currently passed out in the dingy room.

Except for one, evidently.

Katsuki whirled around just in time to grab ahold of the two-by-four on a collision course for both their skulls with one hand; his other whizzed past Eijirou’s head to blast the tenacious villain to kingdom come. Eijirou looked over his shoulder to see the villain shooting down the hall like a missile; he crashed into the concrete wall at the end, which immediately collapsed at the impact and buried the villain under chunks of gray concrete and other debris. Eijirou slowly turned back to face Katsuki, his eyes owlish.

“We’re all students of U.A.!” Katsuki asserted while clenching his gauntleted fist. His vermilion eyes weren’t on Eijirou but focused on the crumbled wall at the end of the hall. They blazed with a fierce fire as he barked, “If they can’t handle villains as crappy as these, then they don’t deserve to be here! That goes double for that damn nerd, Deku!”

Katsuki then whirled around to start plonking down the stairs. Without looking back, he snapped at Eijirou, who was still standing in a shocked stupor on the landing.

“Walk with me, Shitty Hair!”

There was a momentary pause, followed by the sound of Eijirou’s footsteps rapidly descending after him.

“Right behind you, Baku-bro!”

“All right, looks like everyone’s assembled,” Aizawa-sensei frowned while sweeping his weary gaze over his gaggle of students, who had all changed into their hero uniforms and piled into the spacious training gym. Based on the way almost everyone was fidgeting, they’d spent their very short remainder of summer break just as tense as Katsuki had. After enduring such a chaotic summer, everyone was apparently keen on jumping back into hero training. Katsuki supposed that watching your classmates drop like flies—and one of them be kidnapped—could do that to you.

Thinking about the incident made Katsuki flex his fingers with impatience.

Stronger… He wasn’t nearly strong enough yet if he let a bunch of villains get the drop on him like that.

“It’s only been a day since you moved in, so we’ll take it easy—just for today,” their instructor continued. “You can practice your techniques individually or spar in small groups; just don’t overexert yourselves. I’ll be monitoring.”

He said that, but he immediately stretched out his bright yellow sleeping bag and wormed his way into it.

Katsuki just rolled his eyes; whether Eraserhead was watching or not really didn’t matter to him. He didn’t need a goddamn babysitter. He crossed his arms as he stood there, mulling over whether he should blast a boulder to smithereens or spar with one of his classmates. While he was debating, Eijirou skipped over to him with a broad grin.

“Hey, Baku-Bro! I got a proposition for ya!” When Katsuki nodded at him to indicate he was listening, Eijirou explained, “I wanna see how my Quirk holds up against Mina’s acid, and Fumikage’s itchin’ to get a rematch with you.”

The redhead jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to where the bubbly pink girl was waving cheerily at them while standing next to the brooding “Prince of Darkness,” prompting Katsuki to snort. He’d been waiting since the Sports Festival to have another go at him, huh? Well, far be it from Katsuki to begrudge him that. Katsuki was definitely still sour about how his match with Shoto went.

“So, I was thinking that you ‘n me could team up against them. Two-on-two is way more fun than one-on-one, and we make a good team, yeah?” Eijirou continued while nudging Katsuki repeatedly with his elbow.

They did make a good team, Katsuki could admit. He didn’t have to worry about limiting his explosions thanks to Eijirou’s Quirk, and the guy’s iron-wall tactics complemented Katsuki’s more agile and dynamic fighting style. Plus, Eijirou trusted his judgment and would therefore listen to his commands without giving him any annoying lip. Sparring was honestly much more interesting than blasting a buncha rocks all afternoon, too. In summary, Katsuki really didn’t see any good reason to refuse.

“All right,” he agreed with a nod and uncrossed his arms. “Let’s get to it.”

The four of them secured a nice open area in the corner of the gym for themselves. Momo, who’d chosen to spend the training period working on her endurance, agreed to be their moderator. She stood on the fringes of their “battlefield,” matryoshka dolls cascading from her body and slowly piling at her feet. She waited until both the duos had taken up their positions, then sliced her arm down through the air with a shout of “Begin!”

“Here I come!” Katsuki roared. He splayed his palms out behind him to discharge several large explosions that sent him rocketing across the field. Fumikage didn’t flinch at his rapid approach, but rather braced himself to dodge. Right before Katsuki collided with him, however, Mina lithely skipped into the small space between them.

“Not so fast!” she cried while slinging acid from her body.

Katsuki barely managed to change direction to avoid being splattered by the substance; he lurched himself to the side using his explosions, aiming at a downward angle so that he could fall into a rolling dodge. The ground rumbled as Dark Shadow plowed into the space he’d landed only seconds before.

“Yahoo!” Eijirou crowed and leap-frogged off of Katsuki, prompting the blond to bark out a complaint as he jumped to his feet.

“Oi! I ain’t your springboard!”

“Sorry-not-sorry!” the redhead laughed, then grinned wickedly. While still in mid-air, he hardened his entire body and snatched Dark Shadow into a fierce grapple before the amorphous being could slither out of reach. Once Eijirou locked his arms around him and planted his feet against the ground, he slung his entire body around, thereby whisking Fumikage right off his feet and hurling him in a circular path toward Katsuki.

“Special delivery!” Eijirou called as he released his hold on the angrily writhing black shadow. He then hurled himself into a rolling dodge just in time to avoid the glob of gooey acid that Mina shot toward his feet to try and immobilize him. “Oi! I haven’t forgotten about you!”

“Buckle up, Bird Brain!” Katsuki shouted, then blasted the still-airborne Fumikage with a massive explosion. Despite the intense light generated by it, Dark Shadow managed to dig its claws into the rocky ground and yank Fumikage away at the last second; Fumikage emerged from the billowing smoke cloud with his arms crossed in front of him and his legs tucked in, a little sooty but otherwise no worse for wear.

“Woo! I knew this would be a workout!” Eijirou laughed as he landed in a crouch beside Katsuki, flicking globs of acid from one of his arms.

But Katsuki wasn’t laughing. No, he was slipping, irises shrinking into the whites of his eyes and his breathing hitching. Stronger, he needed to be stronger; this wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. His entire body shook as black emotions swirled inside of him—anger, frustration, desperation, fear. He had to be sure, be sure that no one could get ahold of him like that again—

“Hey! Look lively!”

Eijirou grabbed Katsuki by the arm, then threw himself sideways to avoid the oncoming rain of acid bullets, thus dragging the dazed Katsuki with him. When Katsuki landed in a clumsy squat, Dark Shadow loomed up behind him with a screech; more on instinct than anything, Katsuki drop-rolled onto his back to blast the shadowy creature with a large explosion. Through the smoke cloud, he saw the disgruntled bird hastily retreat back into Fumikage’s cloak to momentarily recuperate.

As he lay there on his back, panting and wide-eyed and halfway between reality and nightmare, Eijirou dropped down onto one knee next to him.

“Hey, man, are you good?” he asked, holding up a hand to indicate for the other two to stop.

Katsuki blinked several times; with each one, the shadowy image of a dingy, abandoned bar room that had been overtaking his vision faded until it was no more. Instead, it was replaced with the image of Eijirou leaning over him, his crimson eyes wide with concern.

“Katsuki?”

“‘M fine,” Katsuki mumbled. Before he could pull himself into a sitting position, Eijirou offered him his hand.

Katsuki stared at it for a second. Then, with a grunt, he grabbed onto it and allowed Eijirou to pull him to his feet.

“I’m just fine,” Katsuki said again, this time in a murmur. What was he stressing about? No one would ever be able to get ahold of him like that again. Ever…

“Come on, Baku-bro,” Eijirou smiled and patted his back. “Let’s take a walk.”

“Yeah,” Katsuki mumbled unenthusiastically but started walking nonetheless.

Side-by-side, they walked out of the training hall and into the adjoining hallway. The first thing Katsuki did was walk over to the large stainless-steel sink, flip on the faucet, rip his mask off, and dunk his head under the gushing stream of ice-cold water. The chill seeped through his sweaty hair and skin, through his skull, and into his whirling mind, freezing over the gears to finally bring his runaway train of thought to a groaning, shuddering halt.

Katsuki let the water run over his head for at least a full minute until he could no longer ignore the way his nerves screamed at the freezing cold. He flipped the tap back off, then straightened up with a long sigh. He kept his head down, though, watching the water drip from his soaked hair down into the thin layer of water puddled in the sink’s silvery bottom. Within it, he could see his ripple-distorted reflection.

He didn’t quite like what he saw, so he tore his gaze away with a disgusted growl. He turned around to see Eijirou standing right there, smiling kindly as he offered a towel.

Katsuki momentarily debated saying something surly, but the water had cooled him too much. So, instead, he just took the towel with a soft mutter of “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

While Katsuki toweled off his hair, Eijirou just stood there, whistling as he rolled his weight back and forth from the balls of his heels to his toes. Normally, Katsuki would probably find it irritating. However, it drowned out the noise threatening to start back up in Katsuki’s head, so for once, he found himself grateful for it.

Once his hair was dry enough not to be annoying, he looped the towel around his neck and frowned at Eijirou.

“You’re not gonna ask?”

“Hmm?” Eijirou blinked, looking at him with wide, curious eyes. He then processed what Katsuki had said, and he smiled. “Oh, well, I didn’t wanna push. If you wanna talk about it, I’m all ears. But if you don’t, that’s fine, too. I’m here in whatever way you need me to be here, Katsuki.”

Katsuki’s cheeks flushed a little bit at that, but it wasn’t from anger. He really couldn’t describe the feeling at all—some mixture of embarrassment, gratitude, and validation that had his thoughts jumbling again. He sniffed, fiddling with the ends of the towel before he looked back down into the sink again.

“... I just need to get stronger,” he mumbled after several seconds. “Strong enough that nobody’ll ever snatch me up like that again. And I can’t do it fast enough.”

Katsuki didn’t look at him, but he knew that Eijirou had that almost patronizingly sympathetic look on his face. Almost, because it didn’t really feel patronizing for once. Katsuki just felt… relieved. Relieved that Eijirou didn’t laugh at him for having a panic attack in the middle of a training session. Not that the guy would; he wasn’t like that. But Katsuki feared a lot of things these days, apparently, even things he had no reason to fear at all.

“I understand that, Katsuki,” Eijirou said. After a second, Katsuki felt the redhead’s hand on his shoulder. “This might just make you mad, but… you’re not alone, you know? Just like you don’t want to end up in a situation like that ever again, we don’t want to be powerless to save one of our friends again, either. So let’s all get stronger together and have each other’s backs. Maybe it’ll be more slow going than you’d like… but a bundle of sticks is stronger than just one on its own, right?”

“A bundle of sticks, huh?” Katsuki echoed thoughtfully. As the water dripped from the faucet, it rippled across that puddle in the bottom of the sink; bit by bit, Katsuki found his reflection a little more bearable. He smiled slightly, then looked up at Eijirou. “Yeah, all right. I guess I can throw in my lot with you extras for a little while. I’m still gonna be number one, though, so don’t get any funny ideas about riding my coattails.”

“I’d never dream of it, Baku-Bro!” Eijirou snickered and flashed him a big, shark-toothed smile. “Let’s get back in there, yeah? We’ve got a sparring match to finish.”

“Hell yeah, we do.”

Katsuki tossed the towel down into the sink. It soaked up all the water, taking his reflection with it, but that was fine. Katsuki would never look that way again. Katsuki would never feel that way again. Because Katsuki was going to become stronger.

And, to grow into a mighty oak tree, you had to give the sapling a scaffold to lean on when the winds picked up.

As Katsuki blasted that prick Seiji Shishikura to kingdom come, he made a mental note of his latest addition to his list titled “Things That Will Never Happen to Katsuki Bakugo Ever Again”: Get turned into a fucking meatball.

“Look alive, guys! You aren’t the only ones that guy turned into freaky meatballs!” As he shouted it, Denki took a nervous step back. They were suddenly surrounded by several angry-looking Provisional License Examinees. On the other hand, Katsuki and Eijirou took eager steps forward, both of them cracking their knuckles threateningly.

“Hah! We know, Pikachu,” Katsuki sneered and licked his lips in anticipation. Truth be told, his pride was a little slighted after such a sorry display against Shiketsu High on his part, and so he was eager for redemption. An all-out brawl was definitely more his speed. He slammed his fist into his palm, making several mini-explosions pop off against his gauntlets. “All right, Shitty-Hair! You ‘n me are about to let loose. You’ve got our backs, right, Pikachu?”

Denki looked startled for a split second; then, he grinned brightly and whirled on his heel to take up a defensive position at Eijirou and Katsuki’s backs.

“You know I do! Let’s smash these guys and join the rest of our classmates, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Eijirou and Katsuki cheered simultaneously. Their confidence, rather than rattle their opponents, instead seemed to stoke the flames of their anger. Their show of bravado was all it took for them to spring at the group of U.A. students with a resounding battle cry.

“Come and get some!” Katsuki taunted, then brought his hands together to start forming a sphere of light between them. He and Eijirou had fought together plenty of times now—more than enough for him to know what Katsuki was about to do. The redhead activated his Quirk and crossed his arms over his eyes, which he also squeezed shut, just before Katsuki discharged his Stun Grenade. The opposing students recoiled with pained screams at the searing light and stopped in their tracks; Katsuki heard Eijirou dash toward the closest-sounding one, followed by the unmistakable sound of him delivering one of his Red Gauntlet punches to their gut.

Before the incapacitated student even hit the ground, Katsuki blasted himself through the rapidly-fading light burst to land in front of another unsuspecting victim. All the older boy could do was watch in half-blinded panic as Katsuki’s fist rocketed toward the bottom of his jaw. Katsuki’s uppercut brought him clear off the ground, and the eyes that had been looking down on the blond in infuriated panic were now rolled back to the whites. Katsuki left him to drop like a felled oak and deal with later, too busy blasting his way back across the battlefield to grab ahold of a girl who’d teleported behind Eijirou and was poised to tap one of his targets.

“Oh, no, ya don’t!” the blond roared when he snatched up the back of her uniform. He didn’t know if her teleporting had a time limit or what, but he didn’t give her the time to reveal so one way or another. As soon as Katsuki had ahold of her, he whirled on his heel and flung her at one of her peers, wrenching the ball away from Eijirou’s target with only a few millimeters to spare. The girl wailed as she sailed through the air. Her shrill scream cut off with a pained “oof” as she crashed into her classmate, and they both crumpled to the ground.

“Duck, Baku-Bro!”

Katsuki obeyed Eijirou’s shouted command without even thinking about it; as the blond dropped swiftly into the crouch, several sticky webs sailed over his head to splay harmlessly over the nearby concrete wall. Eijirou vaulted himself over Katsuki’s shoulders, caught one of Denki’s conductive discs in mid-air, and jammed it into the wall to trap the unsuspecting girl in the path of the electricity that Denki discharged from his finger.

“How many times do I gotta tell ya to quit it with the leapfrog move?!” Katsuki snapped angrily while tossing a grenade nonchalantly over his shoulders. It exploded a couple of yards behind him, sending the small group that had been trying to sneak up on him scurrying for cover.

“But it works so well!” Eijirou whined.

“It’s lame as shit!” came his aggravated reply. “If we’re gonna have a combo move, it’s not gonna be a goddamn children’s game!”

“Ohoho, so, you want us to have a combo move?”

“That’s not what I said!”

“That’s totally what you said, Baku-bro,” Denki cut in.

“Stay out of this, Pikachu!” Katsuki snapped back.

As they bickered back and forth, they made a circuit of all the defeated examinees and tapped their targets. Once they’d done so, their own targets started blinking red, and little speakers within stated for them to proceed to the coliseum’s waiting room.

“Come on, let’s get walkin’,” Katsuki huffed and started walking.

After a minute or so, Eijirou pranced up to Katsuki and elbowed him lightly in the ribs.

“What, Shitty-Hair? I told ya, it ain’t happenin’—”

“No, I know, this isn’t about that,” Eijirou smiled, and Katsuki quirked an eyebrow at him. “I just wanted to make sure you were good.”

“Huh? Why wouldn’t I be?” Katsuki blinked.

“Well, you know,” Eijirou frowned with a sideways glance at Denki, who was skipping along ahead looking awfully pleased with himself. Katsuki supposed it was warranted; the electro-dunce could pull through when it came down to the wire, and he’d saved their behinds. Eijirou lowered his voice when he looked back to Katsuki and said, “I know it still bothers you, kinda—people getting the jump on you.”

“Humph. That’s all?” Katsuki sniffed. “Well, you’re worrying is unnecessary. I’m fine.”

And Katsuki was, really. He was different than he was back then. He was stronger—but that wasn’t all. No, there was something else that made it a lot less frightening to be caught unawares, to find himself at somebody else’s mercy.

He wasn’t alone.

“I knew that Pikachu would pull through. Simple as that.”

“Yeah?” Eijirou smiled crookedly at him, and Katsuki huffily pulled up the collar of his hero uniform as he felt heat rising to his face. “I’m glad to hear it, dude!” They walked on for several moments more, and then Eijirou looked at him again with a big, stupid grin. “But seriously, about the leapfrog move—”

“I said no, dammit!”

“Oi, Shitty Hair! Leapfrog!” Katsuki shouted, then dropped down into a squat with his hands against the cracked asphalt of the ruined highway. He heard the slap-slap-slap of Eijirou’s boots against the uneven ground, then felt his hands push down on his shoulders to vault himself over Katsuki’s back.

“Red Riot: Unbreakable!” Eijirou shouted as he did so, and Katsuki felt the redhead’s fingers and palm turn as rigid as rock the instant before they left his shoulders. With a tremendous roar of “Red Gauntlet!” Eijirou delivered a devastating punch to the car-sized piece of rubble hurtling toward them like a meteor. His fist drove a crater into the rock, from which cracks rippled out in all directions; in the next second, the large piece of concrete shattered into thousands of stones no bigger than Katsuki’s fist.

The blond tucked his head under his arm while the rubble and chalky white dust rained down upon him, using it to shield his crimson eyes as they searched the dust cloud for their target.

Where are you, villain?

Like almost every other hero student in the country, Katsuki and Eijirou’s hero training had been overhauled in the wake of All for One’s latest move. By now, almost every prison had been destroyed, and villains were running amok everywhere. The time for theory was long gone; it was put their training into practice or risk the deaths of thousands of innocent lives. To that end, the two second-years had been sent on patrol to scour the apocalyptic devastation for stranded civilians and offer them sanctuary at U.A.

It had been less than an hour before they’d happened upon a ten-foot brute ripping apart the highway ramp and flinging the abandoned cars and concrete pieces willy-nilly into the surrounding buildings, apparently just for fun. Eijirou had recognized him as a fellow dubbed “Wrecking Crew” who had the ability to turn his hands into wrecking balls. He was a self-proclaimed artist who believed destruction was an aesthetic and had found himself a niche in a demolition company. Well, he’d apparently found only performing government-sanctioned demolition work unfulfilling, and he had been arrested some years back for bulldozing his way through several architectural marvels for the sake of his “art.”

His haphazard demolition work had flushed out the nearby pack of hunkered-down survivors like mice fleeing their smoking mouse hole, and he’d shifted to playing some sort of twisted target practice with the scurrying civilians. Of course, the two boys would have acted anyway, but the fact that lives were on the line made it all the more imperative for them to put a stop to his wanton destruction.

Katsuki heard the shrill scraping of metal against asphalt before he saw the white-yellow sparks dancing in the settling dust, so he had blasted himself well away by the time the crumpled, totaled-out SUV came careening through the spot where he’d just been. He landed next to Eijirou, who was brushing concrete bits from his hair with a disgruntled frown. A large, hulking shadow materialized in the fading dust cloud. It slowly solidified into the form of Wrecking Crew lumbering toward them, the splintered remains of the overpass quaking with each of his thundering steps.

“You good?” Katsuki asked Eijirou, who just grinned and gave him two thumbs-up.

“Totally, bro! Gigantomachia makes this guy look like a toddler kicking over his blocks,” the redhead snickered.

“Yeah, well, he’s got an impressive fucking kick,” Katsuki growled with a gesture of the devastation around them. Granted, this guy had probably only contributed to a small fraction of it, but still—if they let him have his way, he’d be kicking “blocks” until the sun went down.

Katsuki heard Wrecking Crew grunt in exertion, followed by the sound of creaking metal. They both turned to find him bending a light pole and snapping it at the root. He brandished it threateningly, then gripped it in both hands.

“Batter up!” Wrecking Crew laughed darkly, malice gleaming in his eyes. He then swung the pole like a baseball bat, roaring like a freight train all the while. That light pole would probably hit like one, too—not that Katsuki had any desire to confirm.

Katsuki blasted himself into the air, while Eijirou tucked and rolled; the light pole crashed into the overturned car that had been situated behind them, and it struck so hard that it indented the undercarriage and lodged there. Wrecking Crew tugged insistently at it several times, but when it proved that it wouldn’t be going anywhere, he released it with an aggravated huff.

“Three strikes and you’re out!” Eijirou grinned as he sprinted across the overpass toward him.

Wrecking Crew narrowed his eyes and started toward the redhead. His fist morphed into a spiked ball attached to his body by a long chain; he kicked it into the air and started whirling it around his head. The heavy ball made intimidating whoomp, whoomp, whoomps as it cut through the air, slowly becoming a blur as it rapidly picked up speed.

“Oi! Up here, Blocks-for-Brains!” Katsuki shouted down to him right before he lobbed the weapon at Eijirou. Katsuki used a series of small explosions to shoot himself through the air like a missile. When the villain glanced up, Katsuki dropped down onto his head and grabbed it to deliver a large explosion straight to his face. He swiftly sprung away before he could be squashed by Wrecking Crew’s meaty hand slapping his burned, blistered skin.

“OOOOOOOOWOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!” the villain howled in agony, and the half-collapsed overpass shuddered with each of his stumbling steps as he tottered backward. The wrecking ball slammed down into the overpass, forming a crater where it landed. The concrete structure groaned, then collapsed inward on itself, sending Wrecking Crew fumbling down the slope that formed as a result. He landed in the pile of rubble with an “Oof,” but he wasn’t dazed in the slightest; his eyes gleamed maliciously through the gaps in the fingers still plastered over his face as he started sitting up, bits of rock and chalk dust raining off of his massive, muscle-bound body.

“Take this!” Eijirou roared as he slammed his hardened body into the cab of a wrecked cargo freighter. The impact sent the cab careening down the overpass, dragging the attached shipping container with it. The shrill screech of metal-on-metal sliced through the air as the eighteen-wheeler jack-knifed; then, with a tremendous series of clangs, bangs, and crunches, it slipped down into the hole in the overpass and tumbled down the slope. Wrecking Crew’s angry roar was cut short by the thundering boom! of the freighter crashing down on him.

Katsuki landed at the edge of the collapsed section and peered down. It took half a minute for all the dust to clear, but when it did, he saw Wrecking Crew pinned beneath the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, tossing his head slowly from side to side, and groaning in half-conscious pain.

“Well, that takes care of that,” Katsuki huffed when Eijirou trotted up to him.

The redhead peered down into the hole and whistled appreciatively.

“Man, what a brute! I can’t believe he’s still conscious after that.”

“Well, I certainly don’t wanna be here when he wakes up. Let’s call the extraction team so they can sedate him and dump him back in the cesspit he came from,” Katsuki snorted and fished a cell phone out of his pocket. Even with the heavy-duty protective phone case and reinforced glass, the screen was cracked in several places. It was just a testament to how rough things were these days.

After ensuring Wrecking Crew’s capture and securing the safety of the civilians, Eijirou and Katsuki’s patrol time had all but exhausted, so they started on the long and desolate road back to U.A. Katsuki walked with his hands laced behind his head and kicking a stone in front of him, while Eijirou walked silently alongside him. After several minutes of nothing but silence, Eijirou hesitantly piped up, “Hey, Kats?”

“Yeah?” the blond asked while giving his stone another hefty kick. It skittered several yards down the cracked pavement, then fell to a rest awaiting the toe of Katsuki’s boot.

“Do… Do you think things will be like this forever?” With a sad frown, Eijirou gestured to the ruin around them—the empty houses with shattered windows and busted doors, the abandoned wreckages of cars and bikes, the overgrown flowerbeds and yards… all the lifelessness that was their new normal. “Do you think we can actually win?”

“‘Course we can,” Katsuki huffed without a second thought, prompting Eijirou to look at him with wide red eyes. Rather than kick it again, Katsuki stooped down to scoop up the rock; he continued walking, tossing it up and catching it as he did so. “First, we’ll find that shitty nerd and drag his ass back home. Then we’ll get our shit together. And then we’ll hit Shigaraki and All for One like a fucking battleship. Easy as one-two-three.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Eijirou sniggered, and Katsuki smirked, glad that his almost narcissistic confidence had raised Eijirou’s spirits. Katsuki knew damn well that it was far easier said than done, and the truth of it was that he didn’t know for sure if they could actually win. But they had to try, or else what the hell was all of this for?

“Well, Shitty Hair, let’s just say that I enjoy our little games of leapfrog way too much to let those crusty bastards make me give it up,” the blond smirked and elbowed Eijirou lightly in the ribs.

“I knew you’d come around eventually!” Eijirou laughed and nudged him back.

“Hey, I still think it’s lame as hell, but these days, I’m in no position to gripe about aesthetics. If the shit works, it works.”

“You just said you enjoyed it!”

“I sure as hell did not. You misheard me. Are your ears as shitty as your hair now?”

Their laughter bounced off the abandoned cars and buildings as they trekked on, playfully pushing and shoving one another while they traded jibes. No, the future was more blurry to Katsuki than ever before—but he’d take it back, make it that clear vision that he once had, bring back the tomorrow that he’d always fought so hard for.

The tomorrow that all of them were fighting so hard for.

“Hey, Eijirou, walk with me.”

“Huh? What’s up, Kats?” Eijirou blinked in confusion as he scrambled off the sofa to follow Katsuki, who was already walking toward the dorm door. He caught up with the blond as he walked through, and together they stepped out into the fading afternoon sun.

Katsuki walked to the far end of the courtyard, and Eijirou followed without pressing him any further. For a second, Katsuki just stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing up at the painted yellow-orange sky. He could feel Eijirou’s gaze burning into his back, burning much brighter than the scarlet sun that was sinking ever closer to the horizon. Tomorrow was upon them, at long last—the tomorrow they’d fought so hard for, the tomorrow that they nearly lost, the tomorrow that Katsuki had dreamt of for so long—and yet, different than what he’d imagined, way back in the beginning.

“So… we’re graduating tomorrow,” the blond said finally, turning back to the redhead.

“Yeah,” Eijirou acknowledged with a small nod. His eyebrows were knit together and his brow wrinkled in confusion, and the familiarity of the expression made Katsuki smirk. “What about it? Are you in your feelings or something, dude?” he guessed, and the way he phrased it made Katsuki snigger in laughter.

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that,” Katsuki admitted with a smile. He wasn’t immune to it, either—the feeling that he was about to pass through a door through which he’d never return, the feeling that everything was about to be different. It had him nostalgic, for better or for worse—and so here he was, on the border between today and tomorrow with the guy who’d gotten him through yesterday.

“I wanted to thank you, Eijirou.”

“Huh? Thank me?” the redhead asked, getting that owlish look on his face again.

“Yeah, ya big dumbass,” Katsuki smiled crookedly as he punched Eijirou lightly in the shoulder. “Isn’t that a thing? Thanking people for being their best friend? Come on, now, I’m never this gracious. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

“I-I mean, I am enjoying it,” Eijirou sputtered, reaching up to rub at the shoulder that Katsuki had just tapped because he seemed unsure of how else to respond. “I just… It’s not something I really need thanks for, I don’t think.”

“Well, I’m grateful, regardless,” Katsuki smirked. “Without you, I think I would’ve turned out to be a real asshole.”

“I mean, you’re still kind of an asshole,” Eijirou grinned, and Katsuki could only bark out a laugh. Yeah, he was still kind of an asshole, but that was all a part of his charm, right?

“I appreciate the sentiment, honestly,” Eijirou smiled and put his hand on his shoulder. His expression then turned a little unsure again. “There’s just something I don’t get, I guess. What brought all of this on?”

“Well…” Katsuki frowned and scratched at the back of his head as a blush rose to his cheeks. Fuck, why was this still so hard for him—saying what he meant? His frown deepened as he struggled to find the right words, and he looked down at his feet as he put a hand on his hip because he’d start flailing it about otherwise.

“I was just—thinking,” he said, figuring that if he just started word-vomiting like Izuku then he would get to the point eventually. “Thinking about, you know, the past three years. And—I realized that—you’ve always been there, you know? More than All Might, more than Deku, more than anybody. You’ve always had my back. You’ve always walked with me, and—I don’t—I don’t—

Argh, why is this so fucking hard?!” he suddenly ranted, now red-faced and scowling. He straightened up, clenched his fists at his sides, and looked Eijirou dead in the eyes though it mortified him to do so. “What I’m trying to say is—is—” After several sputtery attempts, he finally forced out, “Let’s go pro together! Start an agency with me!”

Eijirou just stared at him in stunned silence for several seconds. Each one that passed made the blood flood to Katsuki’s face. Just when he felt like his head was gonna explode, a beaming smile split Eijirou’s face.

“Dude, I thought you’d never ask.”

Katsuki released a half-huff, half-laugh at that, honestly unsure if he could believe what he’d just heard. Part of him had always wondered when the pin would drop—when he’d looked to his side to suddenly find that the redhead wasn’t there anymore. But Eijirou continued to plaster that big, stupid, cheesy-ass grin on his face that had shifted something in Katsuki on day one, and then suddenly it wasn’t so hard to believe after all—the notion that Eijirou had no intention of going anywhere, ever.

“You look like you’re about to cry, dude,” the redhead teased. “Did you really think I’d say no? You’re my best friend in the whole world, my guy. Ain’t nobody I wanna walk into the future with ‘sides you.” Eijirou snickered, then held his arms out for an embrace. “So c’mere, partner!”

And damn it all, Eijirou knew Katsuki too well, because he choked on a sob as he fell into the hug. Eijirou reached up to cradle the back of Katsuki’s head as the blond pressed his face into his left shoulder, and Katsuki gripped the other one tight to hug Eijirou close.

“You asked me to walk with you, remember?” Eijirou murmured, and Katsuki felt him smile against the side of his head. “And I promised to, every step of the way. That’s what friends do, yanno? They walk together, they get strong together, they fight together. Road doesn’t end here, Katsuki.”

“It’s just started.”

3 notes · View notes

amethystunarmed · 5 years ago

Text

A Story About Monsters

Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou; Minor Asui Tsuyu/Uraraka Ochako

Word Count: 6849

AO3 Link

My piece for the @krbkbigbang! Wonderful art for this fic was done by @writerdragon!

Bakugou was sent out of the palace to find a monster and stay out of the way of peace negotiations. Instead, he finds a lost prince, and the key to his kingdom’s safety. That is, if curses, bandits, and swamp witches don’t stop him first.

~~~~

To say Bakugou was pissed would be an understatement. Even the mere thought of his conversation with Aizawa had him grinding his teeth. “Stupid fucking Deku,” Bakugou muttered as he tugged his cape from a thorn bush, “Gets to stay in the castle and babysit a fucking prince and I’m out here chasing a fairytale.” Or a monster, apparently. That’s what the townspeople had called it when he had asked around. A great winged creature appeared above the forest. Pleas for aid had been coming into the castle for weeks now, but Bakugou wasn’t stupid. He would have needed to be to not notice the fact Aizawa sent him out only three days before the arrival of King Enji and the rest of the party from Endeavor.

“You’re trying to get rid of me!” Bakugou had shouted. Magic had sparked at his fingers, until Aizawa leveled red eyes at him.

“This is a serious mission, but I will not deny that diplomacy isn’t your strong suit.”

“Fucking show you a strong suit, dammit!” He angrily slung an explosion at the brush in front of him.

“So, you’re the one who’s been causing all of those explosions, huh?”

Bakugou looked up and realized he’d entered a clearing. Now that he was beyond the tree line, he could see an ivy covered tower, seeming impossibly tall to be constructed this far from town. The grass nearby had been converted into a massive garden, which was currently being tended by a guy tall enough that Bakugou would have to look up at him..

He was leaning on a hoe, absolutely drenched in sweat from the work. His shocking red hair was pulled back with a bandana, and dirt coated his hands. A smear of it rested across his cheekbone, like he had tried to wipe his sweat away.

He was smiling at Bakugou like he was the greatest thing he’d ever seen.

“Some of us live out here, ya know?” he continued, teasing like his presence here made any fucking sense.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, meaning Bakugou had full view of his biceps and pecs and abs and fuck—

“It’s magic, moron,” Bakugou growled. He clenched his fist shut and the few fires left from his explosion died. “I’m not gonna start a forest fire.”

“Glad you have a plan. You don’t have a wagon, so I don’t think you’re here for me—“

“The fuck does that–?“

“—so what brings you all the way out here?”

Bakugou huffed. “Some people reported seeing a ‘monster’ in these woods. Heard anything about that?”

The other man’s smile faltered. His eyes widened in what looked like panic.

“Nah, haven’t seen anything like that out here… You sure you’re in the right forest?”

Bakugou had pretty good intuition, but didn’t need it to know this guy was full of shit. He cracked his knuckles, and when he rested his hands down, he rested his palm against the hilt of his sword.

“Uh-huh… You gotta a name?” Bakugou asked. The guy bit his lip.

“I’m Eijirou…” That name rang a bell in Bakugou’s head, but he shoved it away for now.

“Eijirou, you gonna tell me why you’re lying to me?”

Eijirou sucked in a breath.

“Well, you see,” he began.

And promptly dashed for the door.

“Oh no you don’t!” Bakugou yelled, and dashed after him.

~~~

The last thing Bakugou expected to find when he broke down the door were the luxurious furnishings that decorated the house. Velvet curtains hung over the windows, plush blue cushions adorned every seat and couch. He was pretty sure the vase on the table was actual porcelain.

“Dude! Do you have any idea how hard that is gonna be to fix?” Eijirou whined, but Bakugou ignored him. He tackled Eijirou to the ground, and held a sparking hand over him. Eijirou’s chest rumbled under him as he groaned. He glared at Bakugou and for a moment, Bakugou swore–

But Eijirou slumped down, totally normal.

“What’s this about?”

“Did you steal this stuff?” Bakugou held tighter to his throat.

“What? No! It’s mine!”

“I’m supposed to believe that some fucking farmer has a claw footed sofa?”

“Uh… it’s a family heirloom?”

“How’d you even get this tower, huh? Why did no one in town mention you either, despite pointing me in the perfect direction to find you?”

“You don’t understand–“

“Make a nice hideout for yourself and then spread a rumor to keep people away?” He slammed Kirishima against the ground. “I’m taking you back to Yuuei–“

“Kirishima!” He shouted, and shoved Bakugou off of him so quickly, the world blurred. Bakugou skidded to the side, too shocked to retaliate.

“What’d you say?”

“Kirishima,” Eijirou panted, and now Bakugou remembered why that name seemed so familiar. “Eijirou Kirishima. I’m a prince of Riot.”

Bakugou scowled. “That’s a legend. The prince is dead.”

“I can prove it!” Kirishima insisted, and scrambled over to a nearby desk. He rifled through the top drawer, spilling yellowed parchment without a care. With a relieved gasp, Kirishima pulled forth a small silver object, and held it out for Bakugou to gaze upon. Bakugou sharply inhaled. It was a signet ring, with the image of a crown inside a gear, with two touching fists below it. The symbol of the crown prince, supposedly buried with the ill-fated firstborn.

Bakugou grit his teeth and steadied his voice.

“How?”

“What do you-”

“How are you here? How are you alive?”

Kirishima stared at the floor.

“I... I wasn’t fit to be a prince,” he said, “So... I was sent to live out here.”

“That’s messed up,”Bakugou said before he could stop himself, and Kirishima’s eyes widened. He stuck his hands out, waving them as if to ward off Bakugou’s assumption.

“No, no, they took care of me! They sent nannies to look after me until I was old enough to care for myself, and sent supplies every month! They didn’t just abandon me out here!”

“Until you were... How old were you?”

Kirishima tapped his chin and thought for a moment. “I must have been... five or six, I think?”

What the actual fuck. What the hell could a five year old have done to lose the rights to a crown? Why would parents just abandon their child? Why is he defending them?

Bakugou’s head pounded with questions, each drilling into his brain like a flock of woodpeckers. He blurted out the first one he could manage to piece together.

“So you’ve just... stayed here?”

Kirishima’s shoulders hunched. He tightened his arms around himself.

“Why would I leave?” He mumbled to the floor. “They sent me everything I needed, until I was fine on my own.”

Bakugou looked around, at the fine furniture, scuffed and scratched with overuse. At the pants Kirishima wore, shoddily patched with too big stitches, only reaching his mid-shin. At the dirt and sweat coating him, from growing his own food outside.

And Bakugou realized what had happened.

“The supplies stopped coming.”

Kirishima bit his lip.

“They know I can take care of myself.”

A second realization hit Bakugou.

“You don’t know.”

Finally, Kirishima looked up at him. He cocked his head to the side, gazing at Bakugou in honest confusion.

“Know what?”

The reason the Endeaven Royalty was visiting Yuuei. The reason King Todoroki and All Might Yagi were locked in fierce debate. The reason the balance of the kingdoms was at risk.

Bakugou took a deep breath.

“The Riot kingdom fell a little more than eight years ago. The royal family is dead.”

Kirishima stumbled, and fell to one knee.

“They... They’re dead?”

Somewhere in the back of Bakugou’s brain, he realized he was talking to a king. He took to one knee and clamped a hand over his chest. He bowed his head.

“I’m sorry for your loss, your Majesty.”

Hands clamped around his shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

“Don’t- Don’t do that,” Kirishima stammered, “I’m... I’m not...”

“A king?”

Kirishima let out a high pitched squeal that might have been a laugh.

“I’m barely even a prince!” He knotted his fingers in his hair and tugged at it. “I can’t- I’m not-” His eyes leveled with Bakugou. “What happened?”

“Have you heard of the sorcerer All for One?”

Kirishima frowned. “Isn’t he just a myth?”

“And the prince who lives in the tower in the woods isn’t?”

Kirishima’s nose crinkled, but he didn’t interrupt again.

“He sent his successor, Shigaraki, into the very heart of Riot. It was a massacre.” Kirishima flinched, and Bakugou felt a twinge of something in his stomach. He ignored it. “For nearly a decade, he and his band ruled the land, terrorizing anyone who tried to stop him. Until All Might Yagi and King Todoroki defeated him. Now of course they’re fighting over the rights to the kingdom.” Bakugou scoffed. “That’s where I would be if I wasn’t busy chasing fairytales.”

“Wait, one of the other kingdoms is just... taking over?” Kirishima said.

“Obviously,” Bakugou snorted. “It’s not like the Kirishima family can...” He paused and gazed at Kirishima intently. Kirishima’s eyes widened.

“No–” He tried to step backwards, but Bakugou snatched his wrist. He cackled.

“Bad at diplomacy my ass! I’m about to stop the biggest war in Yuuei’s history!”

Kirishima shook his head and tugged at Bakugou’s hold. “Dude, let go of me. I mean it. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Psh, like you could. Now come on.”

Bakugou tried to pull Kirishima forward, and the world inverted.

Bakugou gasped as the flip slammed him into the floor. He hadn’t prepared himself to take the hit and he was paying for it now. Kirishima stood over him, already back in a fighting stance. He grinned sheepishly.

“Sorry man,” he chuckled, “That wasn’t very manly of me.”

“I’ll get you back to the castle if I have to drag you there myself!” Bakugou spat, and launched himself to his feet. Kirishima took a breath of hesitation, and Bakugou tackled him to the floor.

It was an ugly fight. Even though Bakugou couldn’t use his magic in such close quarters, he was prepared for an easy fight. One lucky shot at the beginning didn’t mean anything. Yet Bakugou quickly found himself pulling out every trick he knew. Kirishima was clearly untrained, but strong and desperate. He clawed and bit without shame, anything to shake Bakugou’s superior training. More than once, Bakugou found himself face down in the dirt, having to quickly roll out of the way an incoming punch. He managed to get Kirishima out of the house, but he refused to move further than beyond the boundaries of his garden. He tiptoed around the areas with intricate care, like he was afraid of getting too far from the tower. It was distracting him.

The fight had been a long one, and Bakugou could tell Kirishima was losing steam. All he needed was one mistake and– there. Bakugou reached forward and grabbed Kirishima’s vest. He tugged Kirishima forward, intent on getting him in a headlock. He was prepared for surprise, for the movement to catch Kirishima off guard. What he didn’t expect was for Kirishima to completely go limp in his hold. Bakugou’s knees buckled and the two of them dropped.

They slammed against the ground, and before Bakugou could react, Kirishima flipped him on his back.

“Why do you want me to go with you?”

“What the hell?” Bakugou sneered.

“Tell me!” Kirishima was glaring directly at him. He was still lying on top of Bakugou, hands firmly pinning Bakugou to the ground. Bakugou’s face felt hot, from more than just the exertion of the fight.

“Because I’m gonna be the hero of the kingdom and show Aizawa what a mistake it was to try and get rid of me!” He snarled, desperately trying to break free of Kirishima’s hold.

“The real reason,” he insisted. It was a statement, no doubt in his voice.

“That is the reason!”

“Give me a reason to trust you, or I swear on the whole pantheon of Gods, I will lock myself in that tower and you will never get me out.” Bakugou could feel Kirishima panting. The force behind his words pressed their chests together. He tried to shove him away. Kirishima only glared.

“Fuck,” Bakugou sighed, “Okay, listen. King Enji is a warmongering tyrant. With Riot’s resources, he’d have enough power to conquer Yuuei, and any other kingdom he wants. And Yuuei is too far from Riot to properly protect it. Endeavor would just take it over anyway, or, worse, All for One may return. You coming back and taking the throne? That’s the only chance of this whole disaster not ending in bloodshed, alright?” He turned his head to the side and stared at the trees. “Happy?”

Kirshima hummed, and thought it over. He then beamed up at Bakugou, so bright he felt blinded.

And so Bakugou gained a travel companion.

~~~

Honestly, traveling with Kirishima wasn’t that bad. Bakugou had kept a close eye on him at first. He couldn’t understand the sudden change in attitude, the way he went limp into Bakugou’s hold after they fell beyond the tree line. Despite being a hermit, Kirishima was dense with muscle and (though Bakugou would never tell him this) that fight was one of the closest matches he had in awhile. If Kirishima had really wanted to run, Bakugou wasn’t certain he could have stopped him without knocking him out.

And Aizawa would actually kill him if he learned Bakugou assaulted a prince.

But Kirishima never tried to run, despite his earlier protests. He merely trailed behind Bakugou, quietly at first, but becoming chattier as the day went on. At first, he paused after sentences, giving Bakugou space to respond. After Bakugou’s fifth uninterested grunt though, he seemed to take the hint, and talked more at the forest then at Bakugou. He commented on Bakugou’s fighting skills, talked about how manly Bakugou’s moves were. He babbled on about the training regimen he’d created for himself at his tower, the equipment he’d created for himself (which Bakugou honestly was a little disappointed that he hadn’t been able to see.) At one point, he stopped in his tracks, and gasped at the site of a fawn lying in a glen. He’d slapped Bakugou’s arm so hard, Bakugou instinctively flipped him and pinned him to the ground. Even then, the dopey smile never left his face.

That’s not to say Kirishima wasn’t weird as hell. The dude was twitchy as fuck. Bakugou initially assumed he just wasn’t used to being in open spaces after being locked up in that tower, but there was more to it than that. Kirishima jumped at every snapped branch, followed every bird that circled overhead with his eyes. At one point, a squirrel dashed across the path in front of them, and Kirishima lunged at it with his staff. He bared his teeth, and the look in his eyes went distant. Bakugou was pretty sure he saw him run his tongue over his canines.

“Shitty hair,” Bakugou grunted. He knew better than to touch someone with that look in their eyes. “It’s a squirrel.”

The rigidity melted from Kirishima’s posture, and Bakugou bit back a chuckle at the sight of his blush. He ducked his head.

“Right, sorry. I just...” He trailed off.

“I don’t care.” Bakugou hadn’t meant the words as a comfort. They were just true. But from the way Kirishima smiled at him, Bakugou may as well have hung the sun. The sight made something twist in Bakugou’s stomach.

So yeah. All in all, he wasn’t a bad travel companion. Gods know he was leagues better than Deku. And... there was something familiar in the way he carried himself, in the way his eyes snapped to sharp movement in the brush. Bakugou had seen it in his comrades on the battlefield, had seen it on the face of a little girl found in the remains of a burned out village. He’d even seen it in the mirror some nights, when memories screamed too loud to even consider sleep. There was a comfort in being with someone who saw the world the same way as you.

He supposes that’s why he fucked up. Why he forgot Kirishima wasn’t a disciplined soldier. Why, after a week of traveling together, he had no qualms letting Kirishima take first watch. Why he let himself slip into a deep sleep instead of a light snooze.

Then again, the whys didn’t matter. It was still his fuck up.

~~~

Bakugou grunted awake when someone kicked his side. “Fuck, shitty hair, just wake me like a normal person,” he mumbled. He blinked his eyes open, and his first thought was that it was darker than it should be. The fire was low, nearly down to embers, casting the world in a hazy red undertone. Bakugou figures that’s why it took him a moment to realize Kirishima wasn’t the person standing over him.

The blade at his throat was a pretty good indicator though.

The guy was clothed in all dark colors and kept his face halfway hidden by a scarf. Basically the most stereotypical stickup outfit Bakugou’d ever seen. He opened his mouth, mainly to call this guy a fucking jackass and hopefully warn Kirishima, but the blade pressed closer to his throat. Bakugou hissed as he felt it pierce the skin.

“Ah, ah, ah,” his captor chuckled, “No yelling. Unless you want to get your friend involved?”

Bakugou looked over and was suddenly grateful for this darkness. He didn’t want this asshole to see him pale. But he couldn’t deny the flash of fear in his chest as he saw the other bandit with Kirishima in a headlock, knife at his jugular.

Goddammit Shitty Hair.

Bakugou sighed. “I’d fucking kill for a decent squire.” Kirishima squinted at him, and Bakugou was grateful neither of the bandits were facing him. Never let this idiot play poker, Bakugou noted.

“Aw... they can’t find a worthy apprentice for the great Katsuki Bakugou.”

Shit.

Today just keeps getting better and better.

“You morons know who I am.” Bakugou grinned, baring his lips to show all of his teeth, and the man above him flinched. “Good. That means you know what a mistake this is.” He cackled as he channeled the magic from the air around him. Pins and needles snaked down his arm as the glowing orange warmth of his power pooled in his hands. The ground sizzled beneath his palms.

“H-hey,” the bandit protested, and Bakugou relished in the way his voice cracked. “I think you’re forgetting the position you’re in.”

“Nah,” he scoffed, “I just know I could blast a hole through your rib cage before you could even think about slitting my throat.”

“But, could you stop my partner before he killed your squire?”

Bakugou growled. He hadn’t thought of that. The kingdom needed Kirishima. All Might needed Kirishima.

(His stomach rolled at the thought of a gash through Kirishima’s throat, blood bubbling out like a lazy fountain–)

Against his screaming instincts, Bakugou let his magic drift away.

“Wait, Bakugou–” Kirishima cut off with a grunt as his captor elbowed his stomach.

“Hey, what the hell?” Bakugou said, and the bandit standing over him rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry, we won’t kill him,” the man assured him. “After all, someone needs to tell the tale of how the Dusk Bandits slayed one of Yuuei’s legendary guards.”

Bakugou’s last thought as the sword rose above him was I can’t believe I’m gonna be killed by fucking edgy wannabes.

(I’m sorry Deku... Wish I had told you that sooner.)

Next to him was a roar and a horrible shattering. Bakugou’s eyes snapped to the right, just in time for him to roll out of the way as the man who’d been holding Kirishima launched into his partner. The two crumpled to the ground in a disarray of smashing limbs and Bakugou heard at least one wrist snap.

“What the hell–” Bakugou turned to face the new threat, instinctively reaching for the sword already taken off him by the bandit. His jaw dropped as he beheld the creature before him.

He was enormous. Red leathery wings stretched over the camp in a ten foot wingspan. Foot long horns, so dark they were nearly invisible against the night sky, arched over his head. Scales ran down the sides of his neck and arms, coating his hands. They stretched into long hooked claws at the ends of his fingers. In the light of the dying fire, they glittered like blood. His teeth were fangs, not his canines, his teeth, every single one of them. He roared again, so loud Bakugou couldn’t help but cover his ears. His jaw unhinged a little too far, revealing serrated molars all the way to the corner of his jaw. And his eyes... they glowed yellow with reflected moonlight, slitted pupils paper thin with rage.

Bakugou’s breath left his lungs.

Kirishima was breathtaking.

And a dragon, apparently.

“Actually, you know what?” one of the men behind Bakugou squeaked. “Fuck this. That guy’s a dragon.” He heard scrambling and clanking as they scampered away into the woods.

Normally Bakugou would have chased after them, made them pay for daring to think they could best him, but he had more pressing things to deal with. Given the way Kirishima ducked his head, his rage read on his face. The fierce posture from before was long gone. He nervously fiddled with his own tail. His massive wingspan curled in close around his body, as if to make him smaller. His pupils dilated back to normal, and he looked like a kicked puppy.

“Look,” Kirishima muttered, “I know this looks bad, but–”

“You went easy on me!” Bakugou snarled.

“What?”

Bakugou readied himself into a fighting stance. “Fight me! Right now!”

“No! I could hurt you!”

“Please, you think my magic can’t take yours? I’m the best sorcerer in the all the-“

“It’s not my magic!”

Kirishima’s chest heaved. He hunched over, curling in his chest. He clamped his claws closed.

“It’s a curse,” he whispered, barely audible above the forest ambiance. “I... I’m a monster.”

Bakugou really couldn’t help it.

He snorted.

“No, you’re fucking not.”

“I am,” Kirishima insisted, nearly pouting.

“Look, I know monsters,” Bakugou said, and looked Kirishima up and down. “You ain’t it. Just ‘cuz you grow scales when you harness your magic, doesn’t mean-”

“It’s a curse.”

“You keep saying that,” Bakugou huffed, “but that doesn’t mean anything! Besides, who would–” He managed to stop himself before saying curse you, but he still considered it a fair point. He doubted Kirishima could go through a village and leave without charming every damn inhabitant.

“It’s a punishment,” Kirishima continued. He stared down at his hands and fiddled with his claws. “Years ago, one of the members of the Riot royal family killed a dragon for sport. Little did they know, the dragon was a young mother, and her babies were left to starve. The goddess Ryukuku was angered by this needless bloodshed, and cursed my bloodline. Once a generation, a Kirishima is born with a monstrous form, hideous to all those who look upon it.” He plucked a scale from his arm with a wince and offered it to Bakugou. “With crimson scales, red as blood, to remind us of our violent folly.”

Bakugou took the scale. It was heavier than he expected, and surprisingly warm. The dimming firelight shone through it, and cloaked his hand in red light. Hideous my ass, he thought.

“So... you can take me back to the tower now.” Kirishima said this with a completely straight face, like he was speaking some known truth into the universe.

“Heh?” Bakugou scoffed.

“I can’t become king, you have no reason to continue with me.”

“How does having badass dragon powers make you a worse king? If anything, it means you're destined for it or some shit!”

“Every Kirishima who ever was born with the affliction was sent away!” Kirishima barked back at him. There was a growl rattling in his chest as he stood and stalked toward Bakugou. “My family would have preferred their extinction to a Cursed taking the throne!”

“So you just wanna get rid of the curse?” Bakugou asked, “Fuck, why didn’t you say that?”

All at once, Kirishima’s eyes rounded into inquisitive pupils, and his tail flicked with interest. “You... You can do that?” He asked, quietly, as though speaking too loud would destroy its possibility.

“Psh, ‘course not.” Bakugou snorted, “But I know a witch who can.”

~~~

The further they went into the swamp, the more skepticism Bakugou could feel radiating off of Kirishima.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

“The ‘best damn witch you’ve ever met’ lives out here?”

“Do you think I’d be out here otherwise?” Bakugou spat, fighting to pull his boot out of the muck. “They live just passed those trees. You can see the cabin if you look close enough.”

“Wait, they? Who–”

“BAKUGOU!”

“Oh fuck,” Bakugou muttered as the wind swirled through the trees and a pink blur shot from the door of the cabin. Kirishima began to growl, but Bakugou was flat on his back before his claws could even unsheath. A woman in a pink dress and matching witch’s hat was perched on his chest. She poked at him with her staff.

“Why did you wait so long to visit, asshole!” She shrieked.

“Because you always attack me, fucking shit!” Bakugou spat back. Kirishima’s eyes darted between the two of them. His pupils were slitted. Bakugou knew he was scanning with a predator’s eye for any sign of threat. He sighed.

“Ki–” Bakugou fumbled on the name but corrected himself, “Eijirou, this is Round Face, the witch I told you about.”

With a flourish, she floated off of him to stand in front of Kirishima. All the annoyance had left her face, only a brilliant smile remaining. She offered him a hand.

“He forgot to mention his best friend. I’m Ochako Uraraka!”

“Not my friend,” Bakugou grumbled and ducked with practiced timing as Uraraka swung her staff at his head. Kirishima was staring at him like he’d lost his mind. Bakugou rolled his eyes. “Come on Shitty Hair,” he grumbled, and grabbed Kirishima’s wrist. “Let’s go.” He began dragging him toward the house. The hold was awkward, so Bakugou slid his hand down, interlinking his fingers with Kirishima’s. Uraraka coughed, and when Bakugou looked at her, she smirked. He raised an eyebrow. She slowly looked down at their hands, then looked back up at him. Her smirk grew, and she made a kissy face. His cheeks flushed (with rage) and he had to actively fight to keep his explosions beneath his skin. He was about to scream about how it wasn’t like that, when a croaky voice called out from the door.

“Hello Bakugou, ribbit.”

Tsu looked exactly like Bakugou remembered, a tiny nixie woman with bulbous eyes and clammy skin patterned like a bullfrog. Her long hair was interwoven with blooming lily pads, and even from here, Bakugou could tell her dress was damp.

“Frog,” he grunted.

“Bakugou!” Kirishima gasped. He smacked Bakugou’s arm but Bakugou was more focused on the space where Kirishima’s hand used to be. His palm felt cold.

“Ribbit, that’s actually pretty nice for Bakugou,” Tsu informed him. “I’m Tsuyu Asui but you can call me Tsu. All my friends do.”

“Fr-friends?” Kirishima sputtered.

“As soon as I know your name.”

“Oh! I’m Eijirou! It’s nice to meet you! You have a very manly house!”

Tsu tilted her head at that, but thankfully didn’t ask.

“Thank you,” she replied graciously, and guided him inside.

“I can’t believe you fell in love with a himbo,” Uraraka muttered once they were out of earshot.

“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed back and stomped inside.

He could hear her cackling behind him.

The inside was messy as usual. The front door entered straight into Uraraka’s workshop. A cauldron was bubbling in the center of the room, bright stains from potion spills gathered at its base. Wall to wall, the shelves were filled with potion ingredients, everything from basic herbs to shit Bakugou was just hoping wasn’t alive. The air smelled like sour sugar and buzzed with magical potential. It made Bakugou’s nose itch.

“I’m going to make tea for our nice guest and Bakugou, ribbit,” Tsu said, placing a kiss on Uraraka’s cheek.

“Oi! I can be nice!”

“Do you want anything, Ochako?” Tsu continued talking as though no interruption had happened.

“Tea with extra honey please!”

“Don’t ignore me,” Bakugou bristled. Tsu left the room without a single glance in his direction. “Pink cheeks, I hope you’re ready to be a widow!”

“He likes that she stands up to him,” Uraraka faux-whispered, and Bakugou could hear Kirishima giggling, like the absolute fucking traitor he was.

“Shut up! We have a real problem to deal with!” Kirishima’s laughter faded with his harsh reminder and Bakugou felt like an asshole. What else is new? “Eijirou has a curse he needs to get rid of.”

Uraraka’s eyes narrowed. “Really? But he seems perfectly fine.”

Bakugou glanced at Kirishima, who sighed.

“It’s... Probably easier to show you? Let me just...” Kirishima moved to the center of the room, somewhere his wings and tail wouldn’t knock over any of the shelves. He transformed, and it wasn’t any less breathtaking now than it was the first. Uraraka gasped in awe and clapped her hands together.

“Incredible!” She said, eyes sparkling with the reflection of Kirishima’s scales. “I’ve never seen a spell like it!”

Kirishima’s tail drooped. “You haven’t?”

“Don’t look so glum!” She chided. “That just means I get to be the one to create a solution. I just need these...” She pulled approximately a dozen bottles off the shelves, then trotted over to Kirishima. “And a scale from you!”

“You are not ripping out one of my scales!” Kirishima hissed. His wings puffed up behind him, and Bakugou could hear him growling. “It hurts!”

“Okay, okay,” Uraraka acquiesced, “If you say so– Oh my goodness, is Bakugou smiling?” Kirishima’s head snapped towards Bakugou as Uraraka plucked a scale from Kirishima’s arm. He yelped, and turned to glare at her, but she had nimbly run back to her cauldron.

“Sorry,” she chirped, not sounding sorry at all, “But I need it for the spell.” As she opened a spell book on the table near the cauldron, the jars began levitating around, circling in a calculated, chaotic orbit, bouncing in time with her humming. Kirishima gaped at her, mouth so wide, Bakugou could easily glimpse his serrated teeth. He chuckled and reached over and shut Kirishima’s mouth.

“Save it for when she actually does something impressive,” he chuckled.

Uraraka made a little indignant huff, but didn’t argue. She knew as well as he did that this display was far from any sort of difficulty for her. As jars unscrewed, and pinches of herbs delicately stirred themselves into the brew, it changed colors. First red, then green, then brown, then, with one last shower of sparks from Uraraka herself, a serene clear, like that of untouched cave water. If Bakugou hadn’t seen the process himself, he would have thought the cauldron empty. The smell changed too, the sour-sugar smell fading into something more like rain.

“This is just a basic divination brew, useful for identifying types of magic,” Uraraka informed them. She held up the crimson scale she stole. “It’ll hopefully tell me what kind of curse was placed on you, and then we can go from there!”

She dropped the scale in with a plop. It dissolved with the ease of a snowflake. Bakugou braced himself for a loud bang or some kind of horrid fog but nothing happened. The potion maintained its perfect clarity.

For the first time that day, Uraraka frowned. “That’s... that’s impossible.

“What does it mean?” Kirishima asked, voice serrated with anxiety.

“That’s the thing, it doesn’t mean anything!” Uraraka frantically flipped through the spellbook, searching for anything she could have missed. “According to this, there’s no curse on you at all!”

“Dragon shifters tend to be resistant to most magic,” Tsu chimed in as she walked in from the kitchen. She was carrying a tray with four steaming mugs on it. “Perhaps whatever’s wrong with you isn’t a curse at all, ribbit.”

“Dragon shifter?” Uraraka repeated.

“What the fuck you talking about, swampbreath?”

Tsu cocked her hand at them. “That’s the kind of creature Eijirou is? I could smell it from the moment you walked up. ”

“N-No, I’m a human,” Kirishima stuttered. He was paling under his scales. Tsu shook her head.

“You have wings,” She said, like they were all idiots.

“It’s– it’s a curse,” Kirishima insisted. His hands were shaking. “That’s why they sent me away, it’s a punishment!”

Tsu’s expression stayed blank but a sharpness entered her eyes, a weight to her shoulders. Bakugou was suddenly reminded of the fact that nixies are fierce predators, Tsu included. He wondered if this is what she looked like when she was mad.

Tsu set the mugs down and walked forward to Kirishima. Despite the fact she had to look up at him, he seemed so much smaller than her. Perhaps it was the way his tail curled between his legs, as if he feared the woman in front of him and what she had to say.

“Do you know how dragon shifters come about?” She asked softly. The question clearly threw Kirishima off guard, startling an answer out of him.

“No?”

“Mm,” she hummed, and took a moment to speak. The room was still with her thoughts, populated only by the crackle of the fire under the cauldron and Uraraka’s nervous breaths.

“When a dragon falls in love, dedicated, everlasting love, with a human or an elf or nixie, any humanoid creature, their magic changes them, giving them a form suited for their partner. Children of these pairings are able to manifest dragon features, a trait of the bloodline their ancestor forsook in the pursuit of love.” Tsu reached forward, hands slower than a melting glacier. She took Kirishima’s scaled hands in her own and squeezed them fiercely. “It’s not a punishment at all, Eijirou.” Her words were nearly pleading. “It’s a gift.”

“So... It’s not fixable?” Kirishima panted. His eyes were wide, sweat dripped down his brow. He looked to be moments away from bolting. At his question, Tsu’s blank expression softened. Bakugou would nearly call the look fond.

“No. Because there is nothing wrong with you.”

Kirishima ran for the door. The vials of potions and ingredients clattered with the force of his steps. He floundered with the doorknob, claws unable to get a good grip. He flung the door open and nearly tripped down the stairs. Wings sprung from his back and he took off into the sky.

Without a second thought, Bakugou ran after him.

~~~

The sun had nearly set when Bakugou finally found Kirishima. He was curled up at the base of a tree, wings wrapped around his body. The only way Bakugou knew it was Kirishima and not some other flying beast was the blindingly red spikes of hair poking up. Bakugou dashed forward, sliding on his knees to Kirishima’s side.

“What the hell were you thinking! Someone could have seen you, I thought you wanted–”

“Bakugou,” Kirishima interrupted. He lifted his face and gone was any trace of the smile Bakugou had become so familiar with. His voice was level as a river stone. “Where are my people?”

“Wha-”

“The people of Riot. Where are they?”

Bakugou hummed. “The Riotans had to flee the kingdom after Shigaraki took over... most of them are refugees, living in camps on the borders of Yuuei and Endeavor. Enji’s been trying to clear most of them out though. Arrests any ‘freeloaders’ he finds.” Bakugou couldn’t help the snarl in his voice. The entire practice was despicable.

“So they’re alone, in a new place, because of something that wasn’t their fault?”

Kirishima’s red eyes gazed into Bakugou. His gaze felt endless. Goosebumps danced down Bakugou’s spine. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He nodded.

“Mm,” Kirishima murmured, “I get that.” He nodded, and Bakugou watched his dragon features retract. He stood.

“I’ll do it.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll do it,” Kirishima repeated, stronger, more sure of himself. “I’ll become king.” He set his jaw and squared his shoulders. The setting sun painted him in deep golds, igniting the reds of his hair and eyes. His ragged clothes were like gilded silks, gilting in the fading light. He was a gilded statue, a testament to the kings of old, set in the courtyard to inspire future generations. Bakugou felt his jaw drop. He was breathtaking.

And then he did something Bakugou wouldn’t have expected if the gods themselves had warned him.

Kirishima reached out his hand.

“Come with me.”

Bakugou exhaled, either as a gasp or his lungs restarting. “What?”

“I may be the prince but... I don’t know anything about running a country. I need you.”

“No, you don’t.”

The words came out sharper than he intended. He knew his face was twisted into a snarl, that sparks were shooting from his palms as if in anger, but... Bad habits were hard to break. Kirishima flinched back at the outburst. Good, better he knows now.

“I’m not a good person,” Bakugou cackled, “I’m...” He scrunched his eyes shut, unable to look at Kirishima any longer.

He knew. He knew what he was and what others saw in him.

He saw it in the disappointed look in Aizawa’s eyes after he went too far during a spar.

He felt it in the way Deku trembled when his palms exploded, even when the blasts weren’t directed at him.

He heard it from his mother, when she hissed it in his ear when he developed his magic.

“I’m a monster.”

Kirishima didn’t answer, in fact he didn’t say anything. Bakugou still didn’t open his eyes, he couldn’t bear the thought of watching Kirishima walking away. So he’ll admit he jumped a bit when he felt hands on his cheeks. The claws were gentler than he ever thought possible as they dipped under his eyes and wiped away tears Bakugou hadn’t even realized had fallen.

“Bakugou.” His voice was soft and sure as a mossy stone, “You’re not a monster.” Bakugou was certain that if he opened his eyes, Kirishima would be staring at him with gentle, trusting eyes, which was even worse than not looking at him at all.

“You, you don’t know,” Bakugou argued. His voice cracked, and it pissed him off. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“Look at me.”

Bakugou was quickly learning that he couldn’t deny Kirishima anything.

He opened his eyes. He was right, Kirishima was unguarded and beautiful. It made his stomach churn.

“Do remember when you asked why I never left the tower?” Kirishima asked, and the question caught Bakugou off guard.

“Yeah? What does that have to do with-”

“I lied,” Kirishima barrelled over his question. “I tried to leave. I wanted to, so fucking badly. For years, I did everything I could think of to try and get out but...” Kirishima claws clicked against his scales with nervous tension. “My parents... They had a sorcerer cast a spell over the tower. ‘The prince born of beast will not leave this tower, unless under the will of a good man’s power.’ They thought it was foolproof, because no good man would ever set a monster loose in the world.”

Bakugou sucked in a breath.

“I was only able to go beyond the boundaries of the spell because you pulled me past it.”

“That’s... They fucked up the spell then, I’m not–”

“People tried in the past.”

Bakugou shook his head. The world was spinning.

“A nurse who wanted to hold me captive, bandits who attempted to drag me away, a man... I don’t know what he wanted, but I bounced back the second he got me to the edge of the spell. Every person with ill-intentions who tried to take me with them, found themselves blocked by an invisible wall. So imagine my surprise when you managed to wrestle me out of my prison.” He ran a hand through Bakugou’s hair, tucking a strand behind his ear. “That’s why I agreed to go with you.”

Bakugou tried to answer, but his mouth just opened and closed twice.

“Bakugou, you told me I wasn’t a monster. I don’t think you’re one either.” The hands cupping his face tightened, as though he feared Bakugou would fall through his grasp like sand. The look on his face was akin to that of a man dying of thirst watching water be poured on the ground. Pure, earnest desperation.

“So I’ll ask you again. Will you come with me?”

Bakugou answered Kirishima by pulling him into a kiss.

Because, goddammit, he’d follow this idiot anywhere.

#kiribaku #kirishima eijirou #bakugou katsuki #bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #fantasy au #tsuchako #tsuyu asui #uraraka ochako #tw parental neglect #tw emotional neglect #everyone's parents suck #kiribaku big bang #my writing #my fanfic #my bnha fanfic

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