Chapter Text
C-34
It had been a month and a half since Bakugou Katsuki disappeared, and it didn’t take a genius for Shouta to realize exactly where he had gone. It was no coincidence that the volatile blond went missing on the very same day that he proposed his plan to get Midoriya back from the other universe. How Katsuki had even known how to get to the other universe Aizawa didn’t know, but the kid was practically a genius.
With the absence of both of their Twin Stars, Class A wasn’t faring very well. Specifically the “Bakusquad” and “Dekusquad” had been deteriorating, in a perfect mirror of their behavior after their Midoriya’s death. The group’s grades were tanking once more, and Shouta could see signs of sleep deprivation on all of them. To say that he was worried would be a drastic understatement, but despite him wracking his brain, he couldn’t think of any possible solutions. Not when everybody knew the dangers of Midoriya’s universe. Shouta didn’t think he was the only one who was worrying that, by now, both of the boys were dead.
Once, Shouta had told his colleague Ms. Joke that Bakugou and Midoriya’s drive inspired their classmates to push themselves, to go beyond their limits and work harder to become the heroes they wanted to be. When Midoriya died, Bakugou’s seemingly limitless passion died along with him. Once upon a time, if someone asked Shouta if he believed in soulmates, he would have laughed in their faces and said no. The idea that there were two people, perfect matches who were destined to be together? It was laughable to think that the universe cared that much about anybody.
The Wonder Duo had changed his mind. Aizawa had watched them grow apart and then together. He’d watched them push each other, protect each other, and almost die for each other. He’d seen how close they became in the wake of the Final Battle, how they couldn’t sleep without each other by their sides. Then, the one day that Bakugou wasn’t with Midoriya…
It had broken him. It had broken all of them, but for the explosive blond… It was different. Now, Aizawa’s class was reeling from the loss of both of their stars. Without them, it was like the light in the school had gone out. Hero training was done with sluggish and half-assed gestures, and many of the teachers came to Aizawa to alert him that the class hardly paid attention during their lectures anymore. More than once, Shouta had come across his students in the halls, sequestered into corners alone, trying to hold back their tears and miserably failing.
He knew the feeling. In the six weeks since the boys had gone, he had spent many nights in bed with his husband, wide awake and unable to keep from imagining the worst. His naps were filled with images of his students, strapped to chairs and tortured, or covered in the sick purple boils that Midoriya had described the Virus leaving behind.
The only spot of hope came from a source he would never have expected; Bakugou’s parents. When Shouta had first called them to alert them that their son was missing, they had understandably been upset. Their first reaction was thinking that Katsuki had been kidnapped again, but when Aizawa had gently explained the situation, they had both fallen quiet. He would never forget what Mitsuki had told him that day.
“If my brat of a son found Izuku,” the blonde woman declared, her voice ringing clear with a surety that Shouta couldn’t imagine feeling, “Then I’m sure they’re both fine. He would never, ever risk leaving him again.”
Even all of this time later, the woman’s confidence didn’t waver. With every passing day without them, Aizawa was more and more sure that they had perished to the dangers of the other universe, but Bakugou Mitsuki was the exact opposite. She had hope.
Aizawa could really, really use some of that.
C-35
“Notice anything strange around here?” Izuku asked once they were back in the mouth of the alley. Katsuki scanned the surrounding area, noticing the same thing Izuku had.
“Plants,” he said. “There are more weeds around than usual.”
“Not just weeds,” Izuku said, walking toward the middle of the road. He knelt down, picking something up. Katsuki looked over the boy’s shoulder. It was about five inches long, and somewhat thick. It appeared to be disintegrating the longer Izuku held it, but Katsuki could still tell what it was.
“It’s a vine,” he said.
Izuku nodded. “Reminds me of Shiozaki’s. It’s disintegrating, and some of the weeds are already wilting. They don’t appear to be disappearing as easily as the other flora did. They’re more resilient to it, I suppose.” He stood up, keeping his eyes on the ground. He began walking forwards, following the line of plants. It stopped in a ten yard circle from the midpoint, but from then on, there was a small trail of dust. Like someone, possibly Kurima, was holding a bunch of the plants and leaving a trail as they disappeared.
When Izuku looked at Katsuki, he knew that he’d seen it too. They nodded to each other and began walking down the street, keeping their eyes on the trail of crushed vegetation and ripped-up weeds that Kurima had left. The longer they went, the sparser the weeds and overgrowth became, until there was nothing but a few stray leaves to lead them along. It was honestly a miracle that a gust of wind hadn’t blown them all away by then, but Izuku wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wasn’t even sure why Kurima had left a trail behind her- perhaps as a way to guide her back to her safe space? He supposed it didn’t really matter, so long as they found her.
Three blocks and a few wrong turns from where they had started, the trail suddenly stopped. Izuku came to a halt and gestured for Kacchan to follow him into an alley, where the two of them ducked down, out of sight of the main street. “The way I see it, there are two ways it went,” Izuku said.
Katsuki nodded, already knowing what he was thinking. “She either ran out of her little breadcrumbs, or they’re close by.” Izuku pursed his lips and glanced out of the alley, raking his eyes over the various buildings surrounding them. Any one of them could be housing the girl and her captors, or even none of them. Regardless, he and Katsuki were going to have to split up to check. The thought made him clench his fists at his sides, but the torn fabric of his gloves didn’t allow him to feel the familiar grounding pain of his fingernails digging into his skin.
The past month had seen Kacchan becoming a lot more knowledgeable in the ways of Izuku’s universe, but that didn’t mean that he was completely comfortable being separated from his friend just yet. Still, if there was even the slightest chance that Kurima was still alive and they could save her…
Izuku exhaled sharply and nodded his head, meeting Bakugou’s eyes once again. “Alright. I’ll take the left side, you take the right. Check for any signs of entry or any more plants for the whole block; if you find something, come get me first before you go in after them, okay?”
“Okay,” Katsuki agreed, standing up. Izuku followed, and the two boys separated. Izuku crossed the street and ducked into another alleyway, combing it for any signs that anybody had been there recently. Once he was done with that, he crept along the front of the building, keeping his eyes peeled.
Halfway down the block, he found exactly what he was looking for. In an alley there was a door leading into a nondescript building, with a few drops of fresh blood dotting the handle. He touched it with his glove just to make sure, and when the crimson droplets came away wet, he knew it was the right place. Part of him wanted to venture inside to scope out the area right away, but doing so would likely piss Kacchan off, considering what Izuku had just made him promise, so instead he headed back to Katsuki’s side of the street in search of him.
He found him checking out a building behind where Izuku had been and got his attention, silently waving for him to follow. The two teens sneaked back to the entrance that Izuku had found, and Katsuki spotted the blood without Izuku even having to point it out. With one last nod to each other they breached the building, opening the door slowly so as not to let it creak. The inside of the building was dark, the boarded-up windows not allowing much sunlight inside to see by. Izuku jerked his head for Katsuki to comb one side of the room, while he took the other. The two of them crept along the outskirts of the area, checking each doorway and room until they were sure that the coast was clear.
For a moment, Izuku was afraid that they had been wrong- maybe the blood was from something else entirely, and Kurima wasn’t in this building at all. Fortunately he didn’t dwell on these thoughts for long, because Katsuki was waving to get his attention further in the building. Izuku trotted over to him, finding his friend crouched in front of the last door. It was ajar, and the closer the younger got, the louder he could hear voices from within. When he peered into the darkness, it was to find a rickety wooden staircase leading down into a basement. At the bottom of the steps the faint glow of artificial light illuminated the concrete ground.
Izuku gestured for Katsuki to stay at the top of the steps, activating Float so that he could go down the stairs without the risk of creaking wood alerting the captors to their entrance. Kacchan didn’t look happy about it, but thankfully, the past month made him learn to listen to Izuku. He stayed crouched at the top while Izuku floated down to the bottom, keeping to the shadows of the stairwell. When he reached the bottom and peeked into the basement, his heart dropped to his feet.
Kurima was indeed there, tied to a chair with her wrists behind her towards the back of the room. Her head was bowed and she trembled with fear, but that wasn’t what made the anger build inside of Izuku. No, what made him immediately want to murder the three men surrounding the girl was the fact that her shirt hung in ragged strips from her shoulders, completely exposing her threadbare bra. She was bleeding from a cut directly between her small breasts, and the things that the men were saying…
“Who gets her first?” The man with a knife for a hand asked, his voice threatening and lecherous. The way he was eyeing the young girl left no room for interpretation on what he meant.
It was easy to identify the plant quirk user, given the small flowers and weeds that seemed to be growing out of his light green skin. It was the last man whose quirk was a wild card- unlike the other two, he had no identifying features to hint at what it could be, which automatically made him the most dangerous. Izuku turned back and headed back up the staircase as the three of them began to argue, each of them wanting “their turn” first for various reasons. When he made it back up to Kacchan, he must have looked absolutely murderous. Kacchan balked at the expression, going a little bit pale.
Another thing that Izuku had learned in the time that Kacchan had been here? The blond was undoubtedly afraid of him. Kacchan had never been afraid of Izuku before, but given his track record and the things that Kacchan had already seen him do, he wasn’t exactly surprised. The Midoriya of Kacchan’s universe likely would never have dreamed of becoming what Izuku had, and Izuku would know- up to a certain point, they were the same person, after all. Some small part of him liked that Katsuki knew how dangerous he was, but there wasn’t time to reflect on that now.
“She’s tied to a chair down there,” Izuku muttered, keeping his voice low to avoid detection. Hopefully, the mystery quirk user didn’t have any hearing type quirk like Jirou or Shoji, but then again if he did, he likely would have been alerted to their presence by now. That was at least one thing struck off the list. “They’re debating who ‘gets her’ first.”
The paleness left Katsuki’s face, replaced with a violent twist of his mouth and a darkly furrowed brow. Izuku watched him wipe his sweaty palms on the thighs of his dirty jeans, minimizing the risk of him blowing his quirk too early. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to use Smokescreen to fill up the basement, so they won’t be able to see us,” Izuku explained, his mind running a million miles a minute with plans and contingencies. “Once it’s full, I’ll stay by the stairs and use Black Whip to pick them off one by one. You sneak around the edge of the room and untie Kurima, then get her to hide until we’re finished.”
Katsuki’s jaw ticked like he wasn’t exactly pleased, but he also knew better than to argue. Instead, he nodded his head and readied himself for battle. Izuku activated Float once more and headed back down the stairs, with Katsuki silently tiptoeing behind him this time, testing his weight on each step before he used it to try and avoid noise. When they both got near the bottom, Izuku moved to the side so that Katsuki could see exactly where Kurima was tied before their line of sight was compromised. Once Katsuki was confident, he nodded, and Izuku began.
Smokescreen began to slowly fill the room, staying towards their feet until Izuku was ready to fill it the rest of the way. By the time the three men noticed what was happening, it was already too late.
“Hey-!” Plant guy cried, gesturing to the lavender smoke around them. Izuku let off more of his quirk, quickly filling the rest of the room before any of them could pick out the source. Katsuki leaped off of the stairs and stayed to the edges of the room, disappearing in the mist, out of Izuku’s sight. They would need to get this done fast if they wanted to avoid Kurima getting hurt in the crossfire.
Katsuki kept his back to the wall as he went around the edges of the room, keeping his eyes fixed on the mist in front of him for any signs that the assailants were coming toward him. Thankfully they were plenty distracted with trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from, giving him ample time to get around them. He wasn’t happy that his part in the fight was more defensive than offensive, but he had also seen the look in Izuku’s eyes when he’d gotten back to the top of the stairs. If the three stooges wanted to live, then hopefully they wouldn’t put up too much of a fight.
As Katsuki reached the corner of the basement and turned to head along the next wall, he hard a sharp, cut-off scream from one of the fuckers. Deku had undoubtedly taken one of them down, although which one was anyone’s guess. He moved faster, picturing what little of the basement he had seen in his mind. He knew there was a stack of crates towards the back of the room, directly behind where the girl had been imprisoned, and the last thing he needed was to run into them and make noise.
“Come out, coward!” One of the men shouted, followed by the shuffling sounds of dragging feet. Katsuki squinted in the smoke, just as neon green began to glow from the other side of the room. His hair stood on end, the smell of ozone filling the dingy basement, and he knew that Full Cowling was now in play. He averted his eyes and reached the next corner. This time, instead of staying to the back wall, he stepped away from it and kept a hand on it, slowly moving forward. Twelve steps later, his foot connected with one of the boxes, and he turned his body towards the middle of the room, moving quicker now.
He found Kurima’s chair easily enough and knelt down behind her, still hardly able to see through Deku’s quirk. The girl flinched when Katsuki’s hand connected with her own bound ones, so he moved forwards until his mouth was next to her ear. “I’m going to get you out of here,” he whispered, feeling along her binds. He realized pretty quickly that they were vines, likely from that plant-fucker’s quirk. They would be easy enough for his quirk to burn through, although not without risk of burning the girl’s skin along with it.
With a sigh, he reached behind him, pulling out a knife that Deku had given him a few days into them finding each other. Using his hands to gauge where the vines ended and her skin began, he started sawing through as quickly as he dared. Another sharp scream echoed through the room, making Kurima flinch violently.
“Don’t fucking move!” Katsuki snapped at her, causing her to become still again. Something warm and wet touched his hand, and he knew that her movement had caused him to knick her. After a few seconds, the vines fell away and her hands were free. Katsuki ran his hand along the chair until he came to the front of it, kneeling down to get the ones around her ankles as well.
“ Who are you ?” The last of the men shouted, sounding utterly terrified. Katsuki smirked to himself, finally managing to get the last of the girl’s shackles off. As soon as she was free she stood up, reaching forward to cling to the first part of Katsuki that she could reach. It ended up being the front of his shirt, already ragged and torn in multiple places after their weeks of being there.
Katsuki focused on the glowing green and shadow deep in the mist of the basement, unable to make out what moves his partner pulled before one last cut-off scream signaled the end of their foes. Knowing what came next, Katsuki braced his feet and yanked Kurima closer to his body, causing her to stumble a bit with a noise of protest just before Deku’s air force flicked. The gust of wind was strong enough to nearly knock the young girl over yet again, but it did its job in clearing the basement of Smokescreen . Katsuki blinked to re-wet his eyes and took in the three unconscious bodies on the basement floor, noting the compound fracture in the arm of the guy who’d had weapons for hands, and blood pooling from the head of the unknown quirk user.
“Little much?” Katsuki snarked, pulling away from the clinging kid to check her out. “Hey, you good brat? They hurt you much?”
She wasn’t looking at him, too focused on Deku at the other end of the basement. He hadn’t yet pulled his creepy-ass mask and respirator down, so Bakugou didn’t blame her for being a little intimidated. Only when she opened her mouth did he realize why she was staring. “It’s you! With- With the multiple quirks! But I- I sent you away!” She flinched when Izuku slowly reached up to remove his hood and mouth piece, showing the hard, awkward line of his forced smile.
“Surprise?”
Katsuki rolled his eyes. “Do you think we could have this little revelation somewhere else, Deku?”
“Right. Come with us, Kurima-san. I promise, you’ll be safe.” Deku’s smile was more real this time, reminiscent of the times he’d tried to comfort civilians before his death. Kurima winced again at the use of her name, but evidently the fact that he knew it was curious enough for her to follow them out of the murder basement. She still kept her distance from Izuku, sticking close to Katsuki’s side like a scared kitten. The role reversal freaked him out a little, but when he caught Izuku’s harsh look of warning, he knew better than to shake the girl off like he wanted.
Deku led the three of them right back to the teenager’s makeshift lair, even without the trail of breadcrumbs that had finally been blown away. Kurima clearly didn’t like that they knew where her base was, grumbling as she climbed inside after Izuku. Katsuki was the last one in, blocking off the door behind himself out of habit. Of course, the thirteen year old didn’t wait another moment to begin her barrage of questions.
“How did you get back here? How do you know my name? Why did you save me?”
“Christ, one at a time, kid,” Katsuki said, holding up a hand to stop her. Deku snorted fondly, probably reminded of himself.
“Before we answer your questions, how about we deal with your clothes and wounds first?” Only then did the girl seem to remember her ruined state of dress, and the small cuts Katsuki could see littering her skin. Seeing how she was outnumbered and didn’t have much of a choice, the girl agreed to let Katsuki patch up her wounds while Izuku explained their situation. Thank fuck Katsuki had actually paid attention in all of their first-aid training, because he’d had to use a lot of it since coming to this shitty-ass universe.
“So basically, you got a free ticket out of here and still chose to come back,” Kurima began, pointing at Izuku accusingly before twisting to squint at Katsuki. “And you risked your life chasing after him even though you knew how badly it sucks here? Are you both crazy ?”
“I have been called that before,” Izuku admitted with a shrug and a smile. Katsuki didn’t bother deigning that with a response, finishing putting the last bandage on the twerp. “As for the answer to your last question, it’s pretty obvious. We want to get back to Kacchan’s universe.”
“I’m sorry,” Kurima said, sliding a shirt over her head before she began recounting on her fingers. “So I sent you to a place where everyone we love is alive and thriving, except for you of course, and then you get yourself sent back here, just to find me so I can send you back there again? You really are crazy.”
“It made sense in my head at the time!” Izuku blushed.
“Are you gonna help us or not?” Katsuki asked bluntly, crossing his arms. Kurima sighed.
“You did just save my life. I suppose I would be willing to send you both back…” she eyed their backpacks. “ If you left those behind with me.”
Deku immediately got defensive, like he always did with that stupid-ass yellow backpack, but one sharp look from Katsuki made his hackles fall. The freckled hero huffed a few of his ratty curls out of his eyes, squinting at the girl. She stared back at him just as critically, although the stiff way she held herself, accompanied with tiny twitches every time it seemed like Deku might move, made it clear just how afraid of him she was. Katsuki had witnessed the reputation Deku made for himself multiple times since coming to this universe, but Jesus was it still weird to witness. People, afraid of nerdy Deku .
“We can’t,” Izuku declared suddenly, breaking Katsuki out of his thoughts.
“Deku,” he snapped, bristling. “Are you seriously going to jeopardize our ticket home for a fucking backpack ?!”
Izuku turned those deadpanned emeralds to Katsuki, the expression in them obviously reading ‘ are you an idiot?’ “Kacchan, think about where we just found her. We can’t leave her behind like this.”
“I’m right here,” the girl complained, but Bakugou ignored her in favor of considering his partner’s words. Deku was right- Kurima was a thirteen year-old girl surviving the apocalypse alone. It was pure luck that he and Izuku had managed to get to her before anything truly traumatic had occurred, and if they went with their plan then they certainly wouldn’t be there to save her next time. If they left now, it was as good as leaving her to die.
The groan/sigh that Katsuki let out with the realization of what they were about to do was truly awe-inspiring in its intensity. “ Fuck , I can’t believe we’re about to do this.”
Izuku beamed, reading Katsuki’s intentions. “Thank you, Kacchan!”
Kurima looked between them, mouth slightly open and eyes wide as saucers. “What’s going on here?” she asked cautiously.
Katsuki turned to her with his signature scowl. “We can’t leave you behind defenseless. You got two heroes-in-training right in front of you, so you’re damn well gonna learn how to fight before we go.”
“Wait-”
“It’s non-negotiable!” Deku chirped, cutting her off with a slightly-threatening grin. “We’ll protect you while you’re learning. By the end, you’ll be able to fight quirklessly, and you’ll get both of our packs.”
The girl’s mouth clicked shut, protests dying in her throat. She watched Izuku warily, apparently assessing the validity of his promise. She must have found what she was looking for on his face, because after a few tense moments of silence, she slowly nodded. “...Okay. But if either of you try anything, you’re getting your asses sent to separate dimensions!”
Izuku laughed, one of the only true laughs Katsuki had had the pleasure of hearing since arriving in this hellscape. The sound had him standing up straighter, lips quirking at the edges as warmth of his own spilled into his chest. It was moments like this that made every moment of suffering worth it. Months ago, Katsuki was sure he would never get to hear his best friend’s laugh again. Now, he would do anything to keep hearing it. Even, apparently, staying in this fucking hellscape longer than strictly necessary. God, if Aizawa-sensei ever found out, he was going to kill them.