Chapter Text
The metallic tang of copper roused Katsuki Bakugou from his nightmares. The terror of falling, plummeting toward cold asphalt, arms outstretched in a fruitless desperation plagued his psyche. Nausea hit him, acid burning in the back of his throat as the memory rallied to him.
He'd been too late to save her.
The human body wasn't meant to take an impact like that, as invincible as they thought themselves. At the end of it all, her skin acted as little more than a blood-filled balloon, bursting at the seams. Katsuki swallowed, trying and failing to wrest the image from his mind.
The harder Katsuki tried, the louder the ringing in his ears became, drums likely shot from the concussive force of his explosions. Instinctively flexing his palms, he expected blisters to rub beneath his gloves. Instead, the sharp sting of a zip tie cut into his wrists, the serrated plastic binding his arms behind his back. His shoulders ached, telling him that he'd likely been positioned like that for hours. Using every bit of training he'd received for situations like this, he tried to establish some sense of situational awareness, coming up short
Katsuki had been downtown, above the city skyline. Buildings had swayed in the wake of his force, bystanders fleeing as battles raged. The lucky idiots bold enough to confront him had been hospitalized. The unlucky ones… well, there were certain taboo's UA never taught. Nothing could stop him. Nothing would have stopped him… if it hadn't been for her.
"Look who's awake." A deep baritone voice drawled, the unmistakable scent of cigarette smoke consuming Katsuki's senses. "Gotta say, I'm surprised."
Katsuki forced one eye open, the other swollen shut. His head pounded, neon light blinding him as he made out blurry shapes through his concussion. All instinct told him he was in danger, that whoever the bastard was blowing menthol smoke into his face was not there to help him. Channeling his energy to his palms, he tried to use his Quirk to break free, a low rumble of a laugh coming from the man just out of the light's reach. "Thought you were smarter than that. Didn't really think we'd let you keep your Quirk now, did you?"
Katsuki tugged again, realizing the zip ties binding his wrist together had to be suppressing his abilities. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, heart hammering like drums over top of the fading tinnitus. His nerves screamed, telling him to flee. Yet the part of his soul that had died alongside her wanted vengeance.
Inwardly, Katsuki made a decision: whoever this bastard was, he was going to die.
"Fuck you," he hoarsed out, his throat raw. His voice sounded wet, his breathing labored. Shifting, he realized he was on his knees, a stabbing feeling from his right side telling him he had likely broken a rib or two.
The cherry of the cigarette before him glowed brightly as the man took another drag, smoke haloing him in the eerie purple and blue light of the neon signs behind him. Katsuki's eyes darted around, taking in the ramen shops and ATMs. He was still in Tokyo, though he couldn't place a prefecture. "Jackass right up to the end, aren't you?" Teeth illuminated, the shadowy figure stepping forward. Dead lilac eyes flashed as realization hit Katsuki, a twisted smile spreading and curling across the man's face. "Miss me?" Hitoshi Shinsou asked, taking a final draw of his cigarette before flicking it at Katsuki's face.
"You're—"
"Dead? 'Fraid not. Not for lack of you trying," Shinsou sneered, reaching to pull up his shirt. Dark scars and poor stitches littered his core, Katsuki's handiwork having clearly infected and festered. "Pretty, isn't it?"
Despite the pain, Katsuki managed to smirk. "Should have aimed for the head."
Shinsou laughed, his too-perfect teeth nearly splitting his face in two. "Probably. But you always had a bad habit of underestimating your enemies." He paused. "Except Deku, of course."
"Don't you fucking talk about him!" Katuski snapped, lunging. His body flew forward, face smacking against the wet concrete. He coughed through his groan, spitting out blood.
"Touchy, touchy," Shinsou tisked, feet rooted, unflinching. "It's been what, a year now? Thought you'd surely be over it by now."
"I will fucking kill you!"
Shinsou walked around to face him, crouching down to get in his line of sight. Tilting his head, lavender hair fell, catching the glow of the alley they were in. "How does that feel? Childhood friend turned rival turned… well, you know how his story ended. You were there, after all. Killed the hero and got the girl. Guess turnabout is fair play."
Katsuki kicked, contorting his body to hit something, anything. This time Shinsou jumped back, cat-like reflexes landing him near a rusted dumpster. The pain of his ribs had proven a distraction from the gash in his thigh, Katsuki craning his neck to spot the debris lodged in his muscle. As badly as he would like to strangle the asshole watching him from his perched position, he knew he had to get out of there. His body was running on little more than adrenaline, blood loss slowed by the chunks of asphalt.
His head swam, the sensation disorienting as he tried to recall how he had gotten there. He'd been falling, reaching, trying to save her. The last thing he'd remembered was the look on her face as she fell, dark hair whipping around her like a preemptive veil to her own funeral. He could still see the helplessness in her eyes, the Quirk erasing bullet intended for him lodged in her shoulder. Already pushed to his limits, he forced his body to go harder, racing against her guideless freefall toward the city streets below.
In the second he'd screwed his eyes shut, he felt himself ripped from his trajectory, consciousness leaving him before he could mourn the woman he'd done all of it for. Everything had gone sideways. She wasn't supposed to be there. She wasn't supposed to die. "Ochako," he said, his voice just above a whisper as he gasped for air.
Shinsou's brows furrowed, the amused look on his face disappearing as rage swallowed his features. He leapt, pinning Katsuki onto his back, his fist making contact with his jaw. "You don't get to say her name!" Katsuki used all of his momentum, cracking the man's nose with his forehead. "Fuck!" Shinsou roared, clutching his face.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Katsuki forced himself to roll, tossing the man off him. Fight or flight kicking in, he used his good leg to kick Shinsou away, his booted heel landing square in his sternum. Shinsou gasped, eyes wide as the impact knocked all air out of him. Hobbling over toward the rusted dumpster Katsuki found a jagged edge of the thick steel, turning to slide his wrists over it. Sawing back and forth with fierce precision, he tried to cut through the zip ties as Shinsou pulled himself back up onto his feet.
The man's capture device wrapped around Katsuki's ankles, pulling him off balance. The abrupt motion jerked the plastic through the metal, Katsuki's arms free of their hold. Pinpricks lit up in his shoulders and traps, his full range of flexibility restored in time to brace his head from hitting the ground.
"Time to die, asshole!" Katsuki snarled, feeling his power come back to him. Shinsou pulled at the capture device, attempting to drag Katsuki along. Instead, he was met with an earth-shattering blast, the neon lights illuminating the alley simultaneously bursting to cast them both in darkness. The capture device singed and snapped loose, allowing Katsuki to haul himself to his feet.
The bastard had been right about one thing: he had underestimated him.
It wasn't a mistake he'd make again.
A flash of metal caught what little bit of light came from above them, the alley a dark spot in the cityscape. Ducking, Katsuki avoided the blade, letting an explosion loose where he thought Shinsou might have been. "Slippery shit," he snarled, unable to pinpoint where he'd disappeared to. "I'm going to enjoy killing you."
Katsuki could feel the power building within him; his own limits exceeded over and over again following their graduation from UA. He was a man unhinged with nothing left to lose. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he pushed back images of Ochako's body, hearing sirens in the background, the sounds of the city nearly drowning out the near-silent breathing to his left. Swinging, Katsuki let loose with a Stun Grenade, illuminating the brick walls of the alley. Shinsou moved, his shadow faster than the fiery orange sphere of light Katsuki had created.
"Fight me, you bastard!"
"Why would I do that?" Shinsou's voice came from the shadows, muffled by a voice modulator.
Katsuki smirked, building up enough heat in his palm to cauterize the wound in his thigh. He knew better than to answer Shinsou's question. The fact the freak hadn't used his Quirk on him earlier showed him just how shortsighted he was. Keeping his lips sealed, he let loose with a series of explosions in an attempt to pinpoint the elusive bastard.
It had become a cat and mouse game, Katsuki the wounded prey caught in the trap that was the alleyway. The capture device forced him to stay light on his feet, the knife causing him to dive and bend, the pain in his ribs long forgotten on his mission to murder the man he'd already killed once.
His vision turned red, letting his rage flow through blast after blast, windows of the abandoned buildings shattering. He was going to kill Shinsou. He was going to kill him for her . She'd been all he had left. And now…
"Die!" Katsuki roared, finally grabbing hold of the man, launching him through the factory's weakened walls. Brick erupted, a shower of dust and debris encapsulating the other man. Knowing his limits, Katsuki marched over the broken wall, wanting the pure pleasure of choking the man lifeless.
His list had been long. The fact that the freak managed to make it twice irritated him to no end. Countless heroes had fallen before him, and countless more would follow. He'd need to make an example of this one. Show the world that he wasn't to be fucked with.
"That all you got?" Shinsou coughed, struggling to pull himself to his feet.
Sirens drew nearer, his explosions no doubt drawing attention. Katsuki rolled his neck, cracking out the joints as sweat poured off his body.
"The great DynaMight," Shinsou seethed through his pain. "Reduced to this. Everyone he touches dies," he spat the word, red-stained spittle staining his chin. "What's your count now? One hundred? Two hundred? We're gonna get you."
Katsuki planted his boot in the man's chest. "I said, die, you bastard!" Katsuki brought his hands together, gauntlets long lost above the Tokyo cityscape, forming his hands to blast an AP shot at the ever-smiling asshole beneath him. Heat concentrated in his raw palms, all of his rage focused on Shinsou's face.
"Katsuki! No!"
His head turned a second too late, knocked off balance by a black and pink blur of fury. His shot missed, blasting up and through the skylights of the industrial building. Powder fine glass rained down on him as he was sent flying into the closest wall, the woman he thought dead shielding his body from the lightning of a Quirk cutting through the air around them.
"We have to move!" He couldn't hear her words so much as he read her lips, what she was asking of him making no sense. Katsuki simply blinked, staring up into the bloodied face of the woman he had failed to save. In the distance, he could hear shouting, knew that the people he'd once considered peers were pouring onto the scene.
"Ch-Cheeks?" His voice betrayed him, trying to reason the impossibility upon him. He had watched her fall. Watched her body— "Impossible." Katsuki shook his head, willing the sight of her away. It had to be a trick, an illusion of some sort intended to spike his anxiety. His pulse raced, his breathing erratic and labored. He needed to hit something, kill something…
Ice encapsulated them, Ochako's panicked eyes glancing around them with unnerved apprehension. She reached up, tentatively touching his face to let her thumb caress his bruised cheek. "Katsuki, please." Her voice was barely a whisper over the sound around them, the cocoon of ice slowly tightening like a vice. "You can't fight them all," she tried to reason with him.
Katsuki's lip pulled into a violent sneer. "Watch me."
"Kat—"
He roared, a twisted form of hope wanting to buy into the delusion before him. "No! I saw you fucking die!" he cried out, his voice swallowed by her lips. Ochako's mouth was on his, fingers digging into either side of his head as she proved her realness. He could taste the sharp bite of sticky copper on her tongue, her breath filling his lungs with honeyed orange blossom, a scent uniquely her own that he knew no Quirk could replicate.
Katsuki pulled from her. "How?" he questioned, crimson eyes taking her in. Ochako, his Ochako, was alive. Life danced behind sienna eyes, the promise of a future buried in their depths. She was flesh and bone, sweat and blood, and alive.
She went to speak, ice pushing them together. "We have to go."
His palms itched, small pops of his Quirk reigniting the fire within. "I'll fucking level this city first," he growled.
"Please," she begged.
Katsuki's palms burned through his gloves, the flame of the fabric easily ignored. "They can't stop me," he barked. "No one can stop me. No one can stop us."
"I know, baby," she said, chastely kissing him in a vain attempt to calm his shot nerves. "But not today. There's too many—"
"I will fucking kill everyone for you," he spat, his nose against hers as he swore an oath to her.
Ochako wrapped herself around him, stroking the back of his head, sweat slicking his short hair. Fingers massaged into the knots of his neck, soothing demons within. "Please? I can't," she choked out a sob. "I can't do this. Not here."
Katsuki exhaled, tension visibly rolling off of him. "Hold on," he said, his forearm wrapped around the small of her back to pull her tight. Ice exploded around them, his palms directed to break them free of the frozen prison. With his gravity negated, the two easily slipped free of the glacier intended to catch them.
Fire shot up, licking his boots as they shot through the shattered skylights of the crumbling factory. Lighting narrowly avoided them, a flash of blond hair catching in the corner of his eyes. A lifetime ago, Katsuki would have been proud of the hero giving them chase, but that was then. The world had been a different place when Deku was keeping the peace for mankind.
Without him, it all descended to chaos.
Ingenium had been the first to try to stop him. Hot off the heels of Deku's death, the "hero" hunted him. With his supreme self-righteous sense of justice, he'd been determined to bring Katsuki in to confess his crimes, daring to accuse him of murder. Katsuki had kept his cool right up to the point that Ochako's name slipped from his mouth.
Tapeface had been next, following him from Deku's funeral to the abandoned hotel he and Ochako had been staying in. They'd ditched their phones and credit cards the night everything went south, making them nearly impossible to track; Sero had always been smarter than Katsuki had given him credit for. The Taping Hero had tried to empathize with them, tried to convince them to turn themselves in. Ochako's benevolence was the only reason he'd escaped with no more than two broken arms, elbows ground to infinitesimal dust that no recovery Quirk could heal.
Throughout it all, Ochako stood by Katsuki's side, helping him cope with the fact that he'd gone from being the number three hero to the number one villain. It had been what the media labeled him, accusing him of Deku's death and Ochako's abduction.
She assured him time and time again she was there because she loved him, because Deku would have wanted it, because… because it hadn't been his fault. It wasn't his fault… it had been an accident…
Every kill, every time a "hero" tried to outsmart or outmaneuver them, Ochako was there, convincing him to hold out hope that eventually they'd see this was the new world order. Without One For All, without Deku, it was kill or be killed.
He held Ochako tighter, memories flashing as he finally recalled the start of the night before the alley. Crimson eyes, not unlike his own, went dim as pooled blood ran from warm to cold. The rest of the world could be damned, but that spark of hope Ochako kept lit died as the one person he thought surely would see reason died in his arms.
It was the sobering clarity Katsuki needed, holding his best friend's lifeless body. They hadn't met on the battlefield, hadn't looked each other in the eye since the night of Deku's accident. And for good reason.
"We could have helped you," his former friend had cried. "We could have saved you."
"I don't need saving."
"I don't want to do this."
"But I do."
"Just give us Ochako and—" Those had been Eijirou Kirishima's last words.
Katsuki felt little more than annoyance dealing the killing blow, pissed the "hero" thought he could take her away. He hadn't been the first to try to take Ochako away, and he wouldn't be the last.
Tearing across the Tokyo skyline, he made a vow to protect her at all costs. If that meant being a villain, then so be it.