The walk from the infirmary to the Heights Alliance dorms was longer than Katsuki remembered. Every step sent a dull, throbbing echo through his core, a reminder of the hole that shouldn't have been there.
He was alive, which was a feat of biology that even the doctors couldn't fully explain. Recovery Girl had grumbled about it being a "miracle of the constitution," but Katsuki knew better. His body had spent years adapting to the recoil of concentrated nitroglycerin explosions, his subcutaneous tissues were denser, his cardiovascular system reinforced to handle sudden, violent spikes in pressure. When the bullet had torn through his abdomen, his own internal pressure-dampening reflexes had kicked in, constricting the surrounding vessels instantly to prevent a total hemorrhagic collapse. His body had treated the impact like a backfire from his own palms, brutal, but survivable.
Yet, survival felt like a middle finger from the universe.
I was the one shot, he thought, his jaw aching from how hard he was grinding his teeth. The "Strongest." The "King." Reduced to a target in the dirt while the nerd stood there watching.
His mind flashed back to the hospital room, three days prior. The air had smelled of antiseptic and his mother's sharp, suffocating perfume. Mitsuki Bakugo hadn't been crying, at least, not in a way that looked like grief. She had been pacing the small room, biting her nails until the cuticles bled, her eyes wild and angry.
"Look at you," she had hissed, her voice a jagged blade. "The big hero. I told you your arrogance would get you killed, didn't I? I'm the only one who stayed here through the night! Your father was a wreck, but I'm the only one who knows you're too stubborn to actually die. You're pathetic, Katsuki. Making me look like the mother of a loser."
She had reached out to shove his shoulder, a habitual gesture, before stopping herself, her hand trembling in the air. "You're lucky I'm the only one who truly cares enough to be mad at you. Everyone else? They're just waiting for you to fail so they can stop being afraid of you."
Katsuki had turned his face to the wall then, the silence of the hospital room louder than any explosion.
But it wasn't his mother's voice that haunted him. It was the last thing he saw before the world went black.
He remembered the grass. He remembered the cold. And then, he remembered the eyes.
Izuku Midoriya had been standing over him. Those bright, emerald eyes, Katsuki had seen them every day for over a decade, but in that moment, they looked different. He had felt himself getting lost in that green, the light of the stadium sun catching the flecks of gold in Midoriya's irises.
In his delirium, Katsuki hadn't seen fear. He hadn't seen the desperate, sobbing "Deku" he had grown up with.
He saw glee.
He saw a terrifying, quiet relief. In that split second, Katsuki was certain he had seen the nerd's lips twitch toward a smile. Midoriya looked like a man who had finally seen a nuisance removed from his path. He looked like a king finally standing over a jester who had stopped being funny. He was glad, Katsuki thought, the delusion taking root like a parasite in his brain. He looked down at me and he felt superior. He felt like the 'winner' and I was just the dustweed he promised I'd be.
Katsuki stopped in the middle of the path, his breath hitching. His vision blurred with a hot, stinging rage.
"Yeah, right," he whispered, his voice a jagged rasp.
He reached out, his hand slamming against the concrete wall of a nearby equipment shed. He didn't ignite an explosion but the heat from his palms intensified until thick, acrid grey smoke began to curl from beneath his fingers. The concrete hissed, the paint blistering under the sheer temperature of his resentment.
The nerd was acting different. He was standing taller. He gave himself the hero name 'Champion' for some reason.
"You think you're looking down at me?" Katsuki snarled to the empty air, his knuckles whitening against the smouldering wall. "You think because I bled once, I'm done?"
He pulled his hand back, leaving a scorched, black palm print on the shed. He straightened his posture, ignoring the agonizing pull of the stitches in his gut.
"I'll prove it to all of you," he whispered, his crimson eyes narrowing until they were nothing but slits of lethal intent. "I'll prove who gets to stand at the top of the hill. And when I get there, Deku... I'm going to make sure you never look at me like that again."
He turned and walked toward the dorms, the smell of burnt sugar and smoke trailing behind him like a funeral shroud.
___
The morning sun in Kanagawa didn't just shine, it seemed to polish the streets whenever Kenji Hoshino walked them.
Kenji, in his late thirties with a thick mane of dirty blond hair swept back into a neat, professional style, looked every bit the neighbourhood golden boy. He was dressed in a crisp, cream-colored linen shirt and tailored navy trousers, civilian clothes that nonetheless felt like a uniform in their perfection. As he moved down the bustling promenade toward his favourite deli, he was a one-man parade.
"Good morning, Mrs. Tahashi Those lilies are looking vibrant today, almost as radiant as you!" he chirped, offering a polite half-bow.
"Oh, Kenji-kun! Always such a charmer," the elderly florist giggled, pressing a hand to her cheek.
He didn't just walk, he glided, his posture so straight it suggested a spine made of tempered steel. He hummed a light, melodic tune, a lullaby his mother used to sing while she brushed his hair. To the world, it was the song of a happy man. To Kenji, it was the sound of Order.
He pushed open the door to The Anchor Deli. The bell chimed, and a chorus of greetings erupted.
"The usual, Kenji?" the owner, a burly man with flour on his apron, asked with a wide grin.
"Please, Hiro-san. And a little extra of that spicy mustard? Mother always said a little heat keeps the mind sharp," Kenji replied, his pale blue eyes twinkling with a warmth that never quite reached the pupils.
He stood at the counter, chatting about the local fishing reports and the weather, radiating a sense of safety that made the patrons feel as if nothing bad could ever happen as long as he was in the room. When he took his wrapped sub, he left a generous tip and a wink for the cashier.
Back at his agency office, a space of blinding whites and cerulean blues, Kenji sat behind his mahogany desk. The room was silent, save for the hum of the air purifier. Before he even touched the bag, he pulled a pristine, starched white cloth bib from his drawer and tied it meticulously around his neck. Mother hated stains. A stain was a failure. A stain meant you were dirty, and the dirty were meant to be purged.
He was just lifting the sandwich when a soft knock disturbed the air.
"Enter," Kenji said, his voice instantly shifting into a professional, welcoming baritone.
A short, round man with a mutant quirk that gave him the soft, fuzzy features of a teddy bear shuffled in. This was Kuma-san, Kenji's long-suffering and deeply loyal assistant.
"Sir," Kuma-san squeaked, holding a manila folder. "The information you requested from the Seaside Serenity archive has been retrieved. My apologies for the delay."
Kenji set the sub down. His hands were perfectly still. "Thank you, Kuma-san. You're a marvel."
Kuma-san lingered, his small bear ears twitching with anxiety. "Sir... if I may... I still don't understand why we're looking into old files from the institute. And regarding the internships, we have several requests from UA this year. Given the... well, the 'trouble' they've been attracting, perhaps we should decline? For your safety, sir."
Kenji smiled. It was the smile of a saint. "Oh, Kuma-san. Don't be so fearful. It isn't fair to shy away when those poor children are going through such a trial. If the 'New-Port Hero' turns his back on the youth when things get difficult, what kind of hero is he? We shall review the UA candidates with an open heart."
Reassured by the sheer "goodness" of his boss, the assistant bowed and scurried out.
Left alone, Kenji's smile didn't drop, it simply became static. He opened the folder.
The first page showed a photograph of a man who looked like a stiff breeze could shatter him. A skeletal, sickly man with deep-set eyes and a mop of messy blond hair. The name below read: Toshinori Yagi.
Kenji blinked. Toshinori Yagi? The notes described him as a lowly assistant to All Might, a "paper-pusher" and "logistics coordinator." Kenji let out a soft, dismissive huff. A forgettable name for a forgettable man. He scanned the request, seeing that this Yagi had been the one digging into old records.
Then, his eyes hit the next line.
RE: ABARA, YOSHI.
Kenji's heart didn't skip a beat, it gave a sharp, agonizing throb, a phantom pain that travelled from his chest to his throat. Abara.
In his mind's eye, he saw a woman with dark knotted hair and eyes that had seen too much. Hana. He remembered the way her neck had felt under his fingers.
A look of genuine, profound sadness clouded his face. He touched the edge of the paper as if it were a tombstone. "Poor, tragic Hana," he whispered. "And poor, delusional Yoshi. Why must the world be so messy?"
He read further. This man, Yagi, had been asking about Yoshi's psych ward records. He saw that the director of Seaside Serenity had handed over the fake brain scans Kenji had meticulously fabricated months ago, the ones that 'proved' Yoshi was suffering from a quirk-induced schizophrenic break.
Kenji sighed, a sound of gentle disappointment. "The director was far too helpful," he murmured to himself. "I told her to be discreet. If she's this loose with information for a simple assistant, she's a blindspot. Mother always said, 'Kenji, a loose stitch ruins the whole garment.'"
He thought of it for a moment and realized she was an old lady, one that was due for retirement. "Yes. The director at Seaside Serenity. She's nearing retirement age, isn't she? I should have her replaced with someone who understands the importance of... privacy. We need to make sure that if this Mr. Yagi returns, he finds a much shorter paper trail."
Kenji held a lot of power in that institute, he was a main investor now, simple little checks every month weren't enough to help the people in their facilities. So he went bigger.
He had covered his tracks in a way that made him feel like a surgeon after a major surgery. He picked up the manila folder and fed it into the heavy-duty shredder beside his desk, watching the names Yagi and Abara turn into thin, meaningless strips of white confetti.
He adjusted his bib, ensuring it was still perfectly centered.
Then, he picked up his sub. He took a massive, ungraceful bite, his eyes fluttering shut as the spicy mustard hit his tongue. A small, high-pitched squeal of delight escaped his throat, a sound that was utterly childish and completely at odds with the man who had just ordered a career's destruction.
"Oh," Kenji giggled, chewing happily. "That really is a marvellous sandwich."
Underneath the bib, his heart was calm. Everything was clean.