Age: 15 (9 months before the U.A. exam)
It had been a month since the argument in the garage.
Thirty days. Seven hundred and twenty hours.
On the surface, nothing had changed drastically. Izuku still came to my house. We still walked to school together. Toga still stole food from our plates.
But the frequency had shifted.
Before, our communication was a high-speed fiber optic line: glances, gestures, shared thoughts. Now, there was static. White noise.
"Pass the salt," I said during lunch on the school roof.
Izuku passed me the shaker without looking at me, his eyes fixed on his English vocabulary book.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
That was it. Cold courtesy. Robotic efficiency.
Izuku no longer muttered his hero theories near me. He no longer showed me his notebooks for critique. He had become... silent. And that silence was more deafening than any of my explosions.
Toga, sitting between us, chewed her sandwich with palpable tension. She looked at Izuku, then at me, like a referee in a tennis match where the ball is a bomb.
"Hey guys..." she started, playing with the hem of her skirt. "There's a festival at the shrine this weekend. We could go. They say the candy apples are good."
She waited.
Izuku closed his book softly.
"Sorry, Toga-chan. I have plans. I'm going to train at the municipal park."
"Alone?" I asked, unable to stop myself.
Izuku finally looked at me. His green eyes were calm, but there was a wall behind them. A wall I had built myself, brick by brick, with my "realism."
"Yes. I'm testing a new cardiovascular endurance routine." He stood up. "See you in class."
He left.
Toga dropped her sandwich into her lunchbox.
"You're an idiot," she said, kicking me in the ankle.
"I'm working on a solution," I growled, biting into my food with rage. "Don't bother me."
11:00 PM. Bakugou's Room.
My desk was covered in blueprints.
If Izuku's biology was the problem, engineering would be the answer. I had become obsessed. I had stopped sleeping almost entirely. My school grades remained perfect because my adult brain could handle them on autopilot, but all my mental energy was here.
Project: Atlas.
It was a partial exoskeleton. Not something as bulky as Iron Man armor, but kinetic supports for key joints: knees, elbows, and spine.
"Carbon fiber for the chassis..." I muttered, drawing a straight line with a ruler. "Assistive servomotors in the ankles for vertical jump."
If Izuku didn't have a strength Quirk, I would build him one. I would give him the ability to hit with the force of a truck and jump over buildings. He would get into U.A. He would survive. And then, maybe, he would stop looking at me like I was a stranger.
My computer monitor blinked with a news alert.
My heart skipped a beat. It did every time a notification popped up. All Might? Sludge Villain?
I clicked.
«Pro Hero Death Arms stops armed robbery in Musutafu.»
Nothing.
I rubbed my eyes, feeling the grit of sleep deprivation.
All Might wasn't appearing. One For All was still lost in the ether. And with every passing day, the probability of Izuku getting the power before the exam diminished.
"Dammit..." I whispered, burying my face in my hands.
The door opened. Toga entered. She wasn't wearing borrowed pajamas anymore; Mitsuki had bought her her own (black ones with skulls). She sat on my bed, hugging the Zuzu-Baku rabbit.
"Still at it?" she asked, pointing to the blueprints.
"I have to finish the gauntlet prototype by next month. If I want to test them before winter..."
"He doesn't want gloves, Katsuki."
I spun in my chair.
"He wants to be a hero. The gloves will allow him to be a hero. It's logic."
"It's dumb logic," she retorted, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. "He wants you to believe in him. Not fix him."
"I'm fixing him because I believe he's worth saving," I defended, feeling frustration bubble up. "If he had no value, I wouldn't bother spending my savings on titanium."
"Then tell him that. Because right now, he thinks you're building him armor because you think he's weak."
I stayed silent. She was right. Of course she was right. Toga, for all her madness, had an emotional intelligence for pain that surpassed mine.
But I couldn't tell him. I couldn't say: "I think you're the best hero in the world, but the world is shit and without a Quirk you're going to get killed." It sounded condescending.
I turned back to my blueprints.
"When I finish this... when he sees it works... he'll understand."
Toga sighed and turned off her bedside lamp.
"You're as stubborn as he is. That's why you two are a disaster apart." She settled in to sleep. "Goodnight, idiot leader."
"Goodnight, annoying vampire."
I went back to drawing. Lines, angles, hydraulic pressures.
If I couldn't fix our friendship, I would fix his offensive capability. It was the only thing I knew how to do.
Two weeks later.
Autumn had arrived. The air was cold, and the leaves on the school trees were starting to turn brown.
I was in the school workshop (I had joined the support club just to use the 3D printers). The hum of the machine was hypnotic. I was printing the casings for Izuku's knuckles.
Suddenly, a commotion in the hallway.
"It's incredible! Did you see that?"
"He took down three third-years!"
I left the workshop, wiping my hands on a rag. A group of students was clustered near the main entrance.
I shoved my way through.
"Out of my way, extras!"
In the center of the circle was Izuku.
He had a split lip and his uniform was dirty with dust. At his feet, three delinquents from another school (big guys, with physical mutation Quirks) were groaning on the ground, writhing in pain.
Izuku was standing, breathing hard, but with his fists in a guard stance.
"Don't mess with the first-years again," Izuku said. His voice didn't tremble. It was pure steel.
One of the guys tried to get up. Izuku didn't wait. He spun on his heel and delivered a low roundhouse kick that swept the guy's legs, sending him crashing back down with a thud.
It was a perfect move. Efficient. Brutal.
The students murmured, amazed. "Midoriya did that?", "The Quirkless kid?"
Izuku picked up his backpack. He looked up, and our eyes met.
I expected to see pride. Or for him to seek my approval, as he used to do. "Look, Kacchan! I won!"
But he didn't.
He looked at me with an undecipherable expression, wiped the blood from his lip with his thumb, and turned around, walking away alone toward the exit.
I felt a cold knot in my stomach.
He didn't need my exoskeleton. He didn't need my blueprints. He was evolving on his own, fueled by spite and the determination to prove me wrong.
He was becoming strong. But he was becoming strong away from me.
Toga appeared at my side, sucking on a lollipop with a sad expression.
"He's leaving, Katsuki-kun," she whispered. "The bird is leaving the nest because the nest has thorns."
I squeezed the rag in my hand until my knuckles turned white.
"Let him go," I lied, turning back toward the workshop. "If he can fight like that, then my calculations were wrong. Better for him."
I entered the workshop and slammed the door shut.
I looked at the 3D printer, which was finishing creating the perfect piece to protect someone who no longer wanted my protection.
With one strike, I knocked the piece to the floor and stomped on it, shattering the hot plastic.
"Shit."
Eight months left until U.A. And for the first time in my life, I had no idea what was going to happen.