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Bakugou wakes in an unfamiliar room, but the scent of fresh linen mixed with something floral is immediately recognizable.
Oh. Right. Best Jeanist. Or, Not-Jeanist. Ain't fuckin' sayin that stupid new name.
The mentor he'd buried is no more, yet the man and the quirk live on now outside the law.
His head aches something awful. He's still naked from his desperate attempt to get rid of anything Fiber Master could've used to bind him.
Fat lotta good that did. Tch.
Bakugou sits up on a chaise-lounge done up in black-on-black paisley, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. He can feel another presence in the room, and doesn't jump at the voice saying, "Don't do that. You'll stretch out the skin under your eyes that way. Daub if you must."
He ignores the advice and the Extra giving it. The line sounds rehearsed, like it's been memorized from a handbook or written over and over on a whiteboard.
Bakugou looks around instead. All the furniture is upholstered with rich fabrics. The not-too-modern sconces just scream Gay Mid-Life Crisis. The room is large and warm, though windowless.
Underground, then. Private. Probably a secret lair or some shit.
"Where is he?"
"The master says you're to wait here," comes the non-answer as the Extra places a tray of tea and chocolate wafers on a three-legged table by the divan without looking at Bakugou.
Bakugou's hackles rise at the way the Extra says, the master: less sensei and more lord.
"Like hell I will," Bakugou growls, standing, only to be pushed back down with a manicured hand.
His palms pop menacingly but that has little effect on the Extra. A deep chill spreads in the air around them, and everything feels quite damp all of a sudden. A perfectly horrible combination for Bakugou's quirk.
"The master says you're to wait here."
"Really? That's it? You a robot or somethin'?"
The Extra says nothing, locking the door as he leaves. His November cold lingers.
As soon as he's alone, Bakugou tries to blast the door. It's reinforced corrugated steel. His dampened explosions only serve to warp the door so that it sticks in the frame. Bakugou snarls, kicking himself mentally for such a transparent tantrum that only makes him look stupid.
He tries the walls — solid rock underneath the delicate wallpaper. He burns it all away in a fit of pettiness. The ceiling and floors are stone, too; his blasts only chip at the schist below carpet and plaster. He finds wiring that leads to a camera, which he incinerates for good measure.
Standing in the smouldering wreckage, he feels just a little better for having caused mayhem, for disturbing the carefully crafted mood of the room.
"The master says you're to eat," the Extra says when he returns. His hair is neat, features schooled and clothes pristine — a stark contrast to the ash and grime and dishabille of Bakugou's destructive mess. Still, Bakugou is the one to look proud, ignoring the tray of admittedly delicious-smelling food wheeled in on a cart.
A crackle of frost creeps over Bakugou's bare skin when he tries to blast his jailer.
Because I'm a prisoner, however fancy the prison.
The meal is untouched when the Extra returns, replacing it with a ceramic pitcher of sparkling water and a tall glass, leaving silently.
Bakugou takes the glass but doesn't drink. Instead, he starts to jump in place, working up a sweat, dragging his palms over the rim of the glass. Hardly enough to fill the damn thing, but enough to fashion a makeshift grenade.
He grabs the pitcher by the handle and smashes it. Jagged stoneware snug over his knuckles, he swings his left fist experimentally, testing the swish and heft of his new weapon. In his right hand, he's poised with his glass grenade.
Freeze this, frosty bitch.
Banking on the element of surprise, Bakugou lobs his grenade at the first sound of the door opening. Glass flies everywhere but some sort of forcefield shimmers around the entryway. A bigger, equally well-coiffed fellow with a shielding quirk accompanies the cold-handed one.
"Are you alright, Shimotsuki-kun?"
"Yes, thank you, Engo-kun."
Bakugou wipes the blood from his cheek, cut by his own shrapnel. The red smears on the back of his hand, which he drags with deliberate roughness over his naturally-perfect skin.
"The master says he'll see you when you've decided to behave civilly."
Shimotsuki doesn't have any food or drink this time, but holds a pile of neatly-folded clothes. Engo waits beside him, attentive and careful, but passive. The jagged ceramic knuckles will do no good against his forcefield. Bakugou grinds his teeth. The choice is galling. He either cooperates by doing what his captor wants, or resists and gets nowhere. Bakugou decides to swallow his pride long enough to get out of this room.
I'm choosing this. I have a choice.
Bakugou gestures for the clothes to be handed over.
"He said when you behave civilly."
Squinting, biting back a growl, Bakugou glares at the two lackeys sent to fetch him like some runaway mutt held at the pound.
This is what he wants. Wants me to be nice. Fuck this. He wants civil? I'll fuckin' give him civil.
Lifting his chin and squaring his shoulders, he brushes past his captors, scoffing at the clothes with his nose in the air, naked and nonplussed.
Stunned by the audacity, Shimotsuki and Engo scramble to catch up as Bakugou walks purposefully down the hall. It's a maze of corridors, and he's not so panicked that he tries to make a run for it in this uncertain layout.
There's a clear direction to go in, though. He can feel the pull of air pressure changing, of a larger space beyond the warren of tight corners. Bakugou knows how to navigate air currents, after all. He walks like he knows where he's going, dick swinging as he strides, uncaring about who sees.
He turns a corner in the direction of cooler air, and finds himself on a wide balcony overlooking an atrium done in tasteful industrial-chic, bright with sunlight — no, that's not the sky. The dome-like ceiling shines its fake brightness in a fair enough approximation of the sun, but the day-white is too evenly luminous to be real.
Bakugou clenches his jaw at the lack of a glass pane to smash through and make his escape. Hands on the balcony rail he looks down into the atrium. Below, several people stare up at him in shock. Bakugou glares back at them.
He squints. They all look like the two Extras who've caught up to him. It's hard to tell them apart. They're all boys. Beautiful, dutiful boys, coiffed and careful, their faces charming but aloof, their only distinctions are variations in height or hair color, the turn of their nose or the shape of their lips, but otherwise indistinguishable. The same look: uniform, scrubbed of anything that might mark them outwardly as different.
The air pressure changes again, eddies of something fresher, something outside, swirl along the curved wall of the atrium. His ears pop with it, his eyes snap to the direction of the change. Someone enters through heavy doors.
There — far corner. That door leads outside.
Without a backward glance he launches himself, sudden and swift, over the balcony rail.
Shimotsuki swallows a shriek, shooting his quirk to dampen Bakugou's blasts. But Bakugou's built up too much speed and altitude. Engo throws a forcefield up at the atrium ceiling, predicting an attempt to blast upwards and outwards.
But Bakugou has already changed tack and is careening down through the air making a beeline for the far hallway, gravity and explosions giving him speed, his naked skin aerodynamic and smooth.
Quick as a spark he's closing in on the passage to freedom, shouts of alarm muffled by the sound of his explosions. He dodges a jumble of hastily thrown quirks, tastes the cool air of freedom and—
Threads wrap around his ankle and yank him backwards, disrupting his lift, sending him crashing down to the ground. A hasty, instinctive blast saves him from breaking his face on the polished concrete floor.
Bakugou is lifted up by the legs, the strands wrapping him to the knees. He jerks like a wolf caught in a snare, his hands sparking until they, too, are bound by threads strapping them with his palms to his thighs. He struggles, but is weak against the threads that bind him. He feels the eyes of the gathering crowd of boys observing him. Even the way they stare feels the same.
"Fuck are you gawpin' at?" He spits, still trying to wrestle out of his bonds. His palms spark and sputter, singeing the skin of his thighs. He flails like a fish caught on a line.
"So good of you to drop by," Hakamada Tsunagu says placidly, twisting a length of thread between his fingers that leads to Bakugou's wriggling legs.
Bakugou snarls, eyes slits of anger as he tries to free himself. It's a pathetic display, struggling upside-down against the full force of Fiber Master's undivided attention.
"Let me go, fucker!"
"And let you blab about my resurrection? Not a chance."
"You won't get away with this! They'll be looking for me! They'll find me — find you!"
"They? Who? Your friends? The ones you push aside and berate? Your family, who you avoid? The silly police with their quirkless hands tied? Perhaps you've got a little special someone then, who'll miss your scintillating company so much. Or maybe all those heroes just clamoring to get to you, tripping over themselves to let you in their little club?"
Bakugou tries to ignore the insults, but the truth of them still hurts. He spits in defiance, hocking a wet glob on the clean floor.
"You think I give a shit what you think? What anyone thinks? You think you can shame me into following you?"
"Oh but I do think you care what everyone thinks. Your deliberate distastefulness is a vanity all in itself. You think you're daring and defiant but really you're just begging for attention. You need it. You crave it, don't you? You want to be the best because then all eyes are on you. Well, how about I give you just that, hmm? A taste of fame and shame."
Fiber master curls his fist. Tough threads wrap tighter, slithering around him like snakes.
"Eat shit an' die!"
"The first thing we'll reform are your manners," Fiber Master says with finality. "I'll give you a choice, Bakugou: choose well, because it's the last I'll give you. You'll learn, you'll be better, no matter what. But we can do it the hard way or the easy way. Your call."
"I'll fuckin' give you a choice, Fiber Bastard. You want me to be something I ain't, but I won't change — not for you. You can kill me or you can die trying. So fuck you."
"Only if you're a good boy," Fiber Master says mildly, extending the binding threads to cover the lower half of Bakugou's face, effectively silencing him.
Bakugou's eyes are wild as he thrashes and bucks, his yells muffled. Panic sets in as he feels the constriction around his throat and mouth, tears prickling unbidden as old terror surges, sudden, overwhelming.
"So you've chosen the hard way. I'll make a good boy out of you whether you want it or not. You'll be a perfect example, a test subject, for my methods to make people better. All of you," he says, gesturing broadly, "take note of this. Strive! Be the best you can be, whatever it takes. Button up! Cinch those belts! The world is brutal chaos, but you can be the good, the order in the world!"
Bakugou screeches behind the gag that weaves tighter around his face, spreading over his entire form like sentient liquid, striking him at the heart of his deepest fear: being absorbed. He's grown prickly, sharp and angular so that nothing could swallow him down. He's become brash, bitter and loud so that no one could stomach him enough to let him blend into a group.
Yet now, Fiber Master encases him, dulling his edges and silencing him. Outwardly, he's invisible. Wrapped from head to toe in strong, unyielding thread, like some fashion-forward cocoon. Within, he is chaos.
Blind, deaf, mute, senseless, dizzy and disoriented, Bakugou is lost in a shroud.
He doesn't know how long he's like this. Minutes, hours, days, eons. His head swims from the suffocating cloth and hanging upside-down. He knows he has to get out. He knows he wants to kill every sonofabitch in this place. He knows he needs to piss.
And piss he does. Unable to hold it any longer, his bladder thinks for him and the wet, shameful trickle down his torso gets absorbed by the fibers around him. He itches, and the clammy dampness makes him shudder with revulsion.
At some point Bakugou sleeps, or faints, weak with hunger and panic. When he wakes he's roused by light. He's lying down. He snaps to attention, but can't sit up. He's still bound, thread still tight over his mouth though his nose is free for him to breathe. Fiber Master's face comes into view, looking down from a great height, standing over Bakugou.
"You are not worthy of being a rug beneath my feet, but I will give you that honor. Let's see if you can live up to it."
Bakugou tests his bonds and tries to look around, but all he can see is the ceiling. He feels himself dragged across the floor until a desk comes into view. A mirror is affixed to the underside and Bakugou spits muffled curses when he sees himself.
He's been woven into a carpet. Patterned fibers pierce his skin all along the edge of him, his front is bare. He's still naked. Threads band over his feet and ankles. His arms are wrapped close to his body, palms beneath him facing the soft skin of his backside where his own blasts would hurt the most. More threads cross over his forehead, mouth and throat. His chest and stomach, the tops of his thighs, his hips, his flaccid penis and retreating balls are all exposed — he's a cushion for Fiber Master's feet.
Bakugou is thrown into shadow as Fiber Master takes a seat. He places his boots squarely on Bakugou's chest and thighs then turns his attention to what's on his desk.
Bakugou tries to flail but every movement pricks him with pain, as though the hairs on his legs are being pulled. It's the fibers jabbed into his skin. He swears behind his threaded muzzle, trying to kick up a ruckus, doing his level best to be the worst rug ever. Fiber Master finally presses a boot to his face, smooshing his nose with the sole so that he struggles to breathe. The other foot comes to rest too close to his dick for comfort. He wants to squirm but the itchy-prickling pain of the fibers deters him.
He squeezes his eyes shut so's not to have to see his pitiful state in the mirror. He keeps up his babble of noises, wordless and muffled, but random and distracting.
Finally Fiber Master pushes his chair back to glare down at him.
"Carpets do not make noise." His voice brooks no argument. Fiber Master plants his boots back down, one pressing on Bakugou's throat, making him choke and wheeze, the other on his crotch, threatening. Bakugou's face is red with anger and shame, nearly the same shade as the decorative weave around him.
He spends three days as a rug, shouting behind his gag into the silent, dark office when Fiber Master leaves for the night.
Each day he's quieter, if only from screaming himself hoarse.
Bakugou's face is tacky with tears, his dick sore and chafed from being stepped on, muscles sore and body itchy with piss and carpet fibers. He's exhausted and hungry. All the while, he tries to avoid the sight of himself in the mirror above him, but he can't turn his head. He can only try and avert his eyes.
Someone else comes in to bring Fiber Master his afternoon tea. Fiber Master pushes back his chair and to Bakugou's abject horror, someone else ducks under the desk. He can't see clearly who it is, but a carefully-combed head of blond hair brushes over the mirror, and two denim-clad knees jab hard into Bakugou's chest and thighs. This new Extra settles into place, ignoring Bakugou's wheezing and fresh cursing.
Then the Extra leans forward to unzip Fiber Master's fly, and pulls out his dick.
Bakugou is shocked into silence as the Extra nestles between Fiber Master's thighs then proceeds to swallow down his cock and just stay there, whimpering every once in a while.
The hours tick by in silence as Bakugou struggles to breathe with the weight of this human cockwarmer kneeling on him. Confused, aghast, he can't think of a thing to say anyway.
Urgent squirming heralds the end of the cockwarming shift, as Fiber Master grabs a fistful of hair and starts to thrust his hips. Slick squelching sounds and needy whines crowd the space under the desk. Bakugou's body hurts from the constant pressure of knees on him, and is numb everywhere else. A groan reverberates above. The squirming stops.
"Good boy. You may finish. Use the rug if you must. It's filthy already, so have it cleaned afterwards. Lesson learned?"
"Yes, Master. Yes! It won't happen again. Thank you! Thank you, Master!"
The heavy boots leave and the Extra turns in place, yanking down his pants to free his aching little prick.
His eyes are blue, is all Bakugou can think as the Extra kneels either side of Bakugou's ribs and proceeds to rut against his naked chest like a dog humping the carpet. He whines like a dog, too, eyes rolling in his head, tongue lolling. All it takes is a few desperate thrusts between Bakugou's sweating pecs to jizz, spattering Bakugou's horrified face.
Bakugou the Rug is dragged from the room by Jizzing Dog Boy and brought to The Cleaner's.
There, he's clipped from the fibers, their sharp little ends tweezed out. Too weak and exhausted to resist, he's doused in cleaning oil, wiped down and slathered up again until every inch of him is gleaming and smooth. His ass is pumped full of liquid then drained, again and again. A tube slips into his throat and Bakugou feels thick glop pumped directly into his stomach, settling like cement.
Bakugou can barely whisper anymore, but he tries. He tries to let everyone know that he's gonna kill them all, that he's gonna make them pay, that he doesn't want this, that they have to let him go, that he doesn't deserve this. His tears and gurgles go unheeded.
Scoured inside and out, Bakugou smells chloroform, and the world goes dark again.
It's humming that wakes him next. Quiet, tuneless, almost absent-minded but as Bakugou's brain cracks through the shell of unconsciousness he hears a rhythm in it, a purpose.
"Blerrrghhhh," he says, prying open his eyes next.
He sees his hands are once again bound, curled into fists encased in Kevlar threads down to the wrists. He's otherwise naked. Knowledge floods back into him, and his heart hammers as he tests the limits of his restraints; his quirk responds but does nothing but heat up inside the airless cage of his fingers.
"The perfect medium; an empty loom," Fiber Master says.
Bakugou feels his body jerk as he's hoisted up by the wrists until he's standing on the tips of his toes. Fiber Master approaches him and runs a long finger over the taut lines of Bakugou's abdomen. He tries to recoil from the touch, but with no purchase against the ground, he can only flail.
He dangles there, like meat in an abattoir hung for the butcher to drain, like a thing and not a person.
"Flesh is the most difficult of fibers to manipulate," Fiber Master says as though he's instructing a class — there's no one else there. "But, if you convince the mind to cooperate, the body becomes the most rewarding medium to sculpt."
Bakugou manages a snarl. "You—"
"I prefer to work in silence." Fiber Master's voice is needle-sharp as he grabs Bakugou's chin to wrest his gaze forward. "Iron does not speak. Marble does not swear. Yarn does not make noise."
"Why don't you just fuckin' gag me with your stupid threads again, fucker?"
"Because I don't want to silence you. I want you to be silent. Because you are a lump of clay. Not a stupid boy I have to gag. You are what I say you are. If you wish for a gag, you must ask for it nicely."
"You'll wish you killed me instead," Bakugou vows, pulling himself up with the strength of his arms, kicking.
"Perhaps."
In an eye-blink dark threads wind tight over Bakugou, stilling him — a second skin that encases him once again, only this time his head is left uncovered. He hangs there like a net full of fish pulled from the sea — wriggling within but held still with its own weight. Fiber Master approaches, and Bakugou masks his terror with more curses, spitting and snarling despite feeling so weak while his heart thunders, his eyes widen, wild.
From his breast pocket Fiber Master withdraws a comb, and he grips Bakugou's unwilling jaw with one long-fingered hand while he combs the unruly mess. Bakugou struggles uselessly, his quirk-woven suit holding him perfectly still, squeezing him tighter with each act of defiance, so hard he struggles to breathe. The threads relent only when Bakugou holds his head still.
They carry on like this for a time, with Fiber Master grooming and arranging Bakugou's hair. He smooths it, sweeps it back, oils it to a shine. Bakugou focuses on breathing, on conserving energy, on a way to escape.
"Perfect," Fiber Master declares. "Well, the hair at least. Still so much more to do," he tuts.
"You think changing my hair's gonna change what I think? Who I am?"
Bakugou's question goes ignored as Fiber Master lowers Bakugou to stand on his feet and arranges his limbs to his liking, the threads tightening and loosening at his command. He dictates the way Bakugou's body moves, like a marionette with strings pulled taut, poised to dance as the Master pleases.
"The great sculptor Michelangelo said he did not create The David, but that he merely chipped away the excess marble around the perfect form already within the block. I can see within this formless lump such perfection, such beauty that would inspire awe in those who look upon it. To make from this tangle of string a tapestry, a testament to the order and good that I can weave in the world… yes, a fitting task."
Fiber Master speaks more to himself than to his living, struggling clay, frowning and clicking his tongue.
His threads hoist Bakugou up again, this time forcing his legs to bend, tying ankles to thighs. His fists are pressed knuckles-to-knuckles, elbows outward and pushing against his knees, his arms forcing his legs to stay spread. He's held in place by binding thread that wraps over his waist and chest, up to his neck. Ropes twist out over his sternum and his knees to hold him up off the ground.
Bakugou begins to panic again.
Certain threads slither away leaving his groin and pelvis exposed.
"Wh-what…"
"To weave I must have pliant thread. This mess of knots and snarls won't do at all. All is wound too tightly. I must untangle it, loosen it."
Bakugou looks between his spread thighs to see Fiber Master dip his long fingers into a pot of something and smear it along his exposed skin at the cleft of his ass cheeks. He shouts in alarm, muscles clenching, unable to flinch away. A slippery finger enters him, breaching his body and petting at the tight tension within.
Trained to withstand pain, he's tortured instead by pleasure.
He swears revenge, threatens death, jaw clenched tight as his sphincter as he tries to resist. A second finger pushes in despite his efforts, working him open with slick sinuous twists.
Fiber Master searches with his fingers until — "Ah! Fff...shit!" — and his eyes shine with triumph as Bakugou's curses grow breathy with each press on his prostate.
"No… no… not… oh fuck… "
Bakugou grits his teeth and turns his face away from the evidence of his body's betrayal — his cock standing hard between his bound thighs, his ass clenching around wet fingers that stroke and strum his hidden strings, like an instrument being played. Another hand wraps around his traitor cock, stroking and squeezing. Bakugou tries hard not to make a sound as the ceaseless sensation finally forces an orgasm out of him.
At the moment of climax, the threads around Bakugou relent, and he's held still by only the tension of his back arching and muscles seizing, tangling the release of his orgasm with the relief of his bindings.
Shaking, vibrating with the force of it all, Bakugou pants and squeezes his eyes shut, overwhelmed.
Then, just as his muscles relax and Bakugou tastes a bit of freedom to move, the threads tighten once again, snapping him back into his shape of bondage, a cage of a second skin.
Fiber Master repeats the process, ignoring the pained cries from overstimulation. But quickly that delicious tension is back. He smiles to himself as he feels the body in his hands respond to his commands just as thread would — a rub here, a stroke there, and lo the muscles twitch and tremble, the breaths burst high and hard.
"Again," comes the command, with voice and fingers and quirk.
Like a knitted scarf teased apart one knot at a time, Bakugou is slowly unraveled, the fiber of his being passed through deft fingers, unshaped and re-wound into a tight ball of thread with which a master may weave.
"Again."
Somewhere in the process, Bakugou's fighting turns to pleading. For what, he does not know — for more? For it to stop? For death? For orgasm? His body begins to crave the twinned release of loosened bindings and losing control.
Again.
Perhaps he sleeps, perhaps he dreams of his limbs stretched out, his body cleaned. What feels like an ocean of lube is poured into his ass, and a plug slides in, to stopper it like he's a bottle, a vessel.
Days pass in a blur, Bakugou fed by tube and cleaned for each day anew. In the silent hours, he is wrapped tight, left in darkness unmoving, hands always bound.
Perhaps he screams, perhaps he cries.
Fiber Master returns each day to this quiet room where his rough diamond sits waiting to be polished, facets cut and shaped into a thing of orderly beauty, cold and quiet and bright. With each day that passes, Bakugou's hope dwindles, his mind locked within the prison of his body, his body no longer at his own command. His hands, no longer weapons but stumps.
Sometimes Fiber Master speaks as he breaks Bakugou down with his dexterous fingers and sinister threads.
He laments the state of the world, his disdain for the hypocritical heroes, his disappointment in the PLF for not having done their job of dismantling the establishment. He extols the young men in his care, in whom he sees himself, the seeds of a more orderly and presentable society. He sighs that he missed the earlier chance to secure his young protégé Bakugou's trust and turn him to his righteous cause before his demise. He praises Bakugou for joining him instead of becoming part of a corrupt system.
Sometimes Bakugou listens, through the dissociative walls of his mind into which he has retreated.
He ponders the fact that no hero or friend has come to find him, that he lacks the strength to break free of Fiber Master's grip. He wonders why his flesh obeys not his own command but another's. He tries to remember why he wanted to be a hero, and is afraid that his reasons are the very thing Fiber Master warns against. At some point he thinks it might be better to tell Fiber Master that he'll do as he's been asked and do good in the world.
Perhaps he says it aloud.
When his thread prison finally relents and his sweat-damp skin pebbles in the cool air, Bakugou doesn't understand at first. He doesn't have the strength of mind or body to move. He feels disoriented when his back meets a hard surface. A very distant part of him registers that the fingers are gone and in their place something longer, thicker, harder, pulsing and thrusting. His unbound limbs hang limp, head lolling, eyes blank as Fiber Master fucks him. He's a knitted doll, boneless and mute; his body slips like thread between the fingers of Fiber Master's will.
Fiber Master's hands roam the planes of Bakugou's unresisting body, like a potter working clay, folding and kneading and pounding and pulling until it becomes the shape of his intent, prying wide the center, making a space to be filled.
A vessel.
And filled he is, as Fiber Master cums deep in his guts, long lancing thrusts, stuffing him.
Debauched, debased, deconstructed, Bakugou lays there loose as uncoiled string, formless, limp.
Fiber Master fetches a pedestal carved like a Greek column and places Bakugou upon it, chuckling at his own joke. Stuck through the middle of the stone is a thick steel rod topped with a long, tapering silicone stopper. The rod juts at an angle, tilting like a finger outstretched to launch an army skyward. Bakugou is hoisted up by his wrists again — those explosive hands still the only danger, the only part still encased in Kevlar thread.
Up, up, up he's pulled, then lowered down until silicone presses up against his loose hole, slipping in past the slick slip of fresh cum and warm lube. Down, down, down he slides, until he's impaled to the guts, stretched impossibly wide by the bulbous base of the shaft, the flat disc of the stopper nestled up flush against pale flesh.
His weight is held up by his arms above him, and for the first time in an age his heart races. He tenses, trying to bear himself up with his own strength against the press of gravity that would pull him down onto this pole, the angle tilting his body forward. His feet can't touch the ground. He feels like a bug pinned in a display case, pierced through the belly before his wings even stopped fluttering.
"Back straight. Hold still," Fiber Master commands.
Bakugou feels the push of the huge thing in his gut pressed against his prostate. He stays still out of necessity.
The threads at his wrists slacken. Bakugou's eyes widen with new fear as the responsibility of balance falls on him. His arms are shaky as he throws them outward for balance, uncertain of this new range of movement. His back straightens, his legs tense as his feet scrabble for purchase on the smooth rod beneath him, his slouch disappears when fear of being impaled keeps him upright.
His body makes tiny corrections for balance, but each minuscule movement sends sensation zinging up through his prostate. His cock fills out and Fiber Master twitches a finger that sends thread looping around his balls and shaft, cutting him off from orgasm.
"You are what I say you are. You are a model for perfection, an example of beauty, a beacon of good. You are all these things within, and I have brought them out."
Bakugou can't nod, can't respond, for fear of moving too much.
Threads slip up the pole and snag one of his ankles, binding his foot to the steel with one knee bent. It gives him purchase, something to balance with.
"You see, with my help how much easier it is to be upright? To be strong and firm and steady?"
More threads wrap around him, Fiber Master flicking his fingers to guide the warp and the weft of each weave in the order of his making.
The threads tighten, tugging Bakugou this way and that until he's posed like a sculpture of some ancient god. Arms pulled back gracefully, one leg outstretched along the pole, the other bent, as though he'd just leaped from the top of some mountain. A grotesque approximation of movement when he's held so still, of flight though he's pinned in place. His head is tilted back, face to the ceiling, his chest proud, his spine ramrod straight. His cock is hard as the steel rod in his guts, tied off and red with base need.
Held up in the air by steel and silicone and string, Bakugou's eyes water and his mouth is dry from panting. It takes every ounce of concentration not to scream, not to plead or beg or cry.
The doors open, and in files the bevy of boys obeying the call of their master. Bakugou wonders whether they all endured this same torture. Their wide eyes, full of awe and fear, suggest that he is unique in this level of training.
"Behold, a symbol for you. A Symbol of Good. Of obedience and restraint. Of order! Do you see? His beauty, his strength, his poise? Aspire! Yearn and work hard and you, too, may achieve such brilliance! Let him inspire you to greatness!"
Bakugou feels his skin heat with the gathered eyes on him, feels a shame he'd thought long gone for his exposed immodesty, for the wet dripping between his legs and the helpless twitching of every muscle as he tries not to come undone. His mind reels as he realizes that this stoicism, this silence and resolve, are precisely what Fiber Master had wished.
And yet, he cannot let himself break. Not out of obedience but pride.
Seeing the uncertainty on the nameless faces of his audience, he bristles, the spiky, spiny thing that no wax or oil or polishing can smooth away. He pushes at the order imposed upon his body.
Fiber Master's warnings echo in his head: the world is chaos, cruelty and hypocrisy are chaos. Order is good. You can be good.
No!
I am not chaos, I am choice! If this is good then, hell, I'll be bad.
His heart swells in his chest as he resolves anew to endure and escape, even as his mind fogs over with pleasure-pain and dizziness.
He doesn't know how long he's left up there, a statue of flesh and fiber. He clutches at his resolve as he's finally taken down.
Fiber Master himself unwinds the bindings, pulls Bakugou off his impaling spike and his pedestal of perfection. He rubs soothing oil into the strained limbs and red welts left by too-tight threads. He undoes the loops around the purpling cock and heavy balls, stroking Bakugou gently to completion, holding him as he trembles through the pain of orgasm, moaning, "Master, please…".
Bakugou is limp in his arms, so still and quiet, so pliant.
Fiber Master unwinds the threads over his hands and rubs the curled knuckles that have stiffened into claws.
Bakugou's eyes flutter open and he looks into the face of Hakamada Tsunagu.
"Master," he whispers.
Blue eyes flick down to meet red ones, a sculpted brow lifts.
"Master…"
Fiber Master leans closer, straining to hear what his greatest creation has to say. Creaking fingers reach toward his face slowly, tenderly, and Bakugou's eyes flutter so prettily.
Perhaps if Hakamada Tsunagu had not been so great a teacher, had not shown his protégé the truth about appearances and order and good, he might have lived.
Bakugou's expression turns from exhausted devotion to heated fury like flint striking steel, the spark catching in the dry rasp of his throat and the sweat of his palm pressed to his (tor)mentor's face.
"Die," he grits as he blasts him to ashes.
No speed of the Fiber Master's quirk, no arm thrown up as a last defense, can shield him from the pent-up rage and stored-up sweat that Bakugou Katsuki now unleashes.
As he bursts forth, naked and blazing, arms graceful behind him, chest proud, head up, burning everything in his wake, he is full of resolve.
I'm not a hero, I'm not a villain. I'm myself.