This wasn't just a training exercise. It wasn't a rivalry anymore. As Izuku Midoriya lay amidst the jagged remains of a brick wall, the taste of copper flooding his mouth and the smell of pulverized mortar filling his lungs, something within him finally snapped.
For years, he had been a dam.
He had moved to Tokyo with his mother, leaving the scorched earth of Musutafu behind, thinking that a change in zip code could erase the scars on his psyche.
He had refused therapy, convinced that he could manage the darkness on his own. He had bottled up the suicide-baiting, the scorched notebooks, and the years of being told his existence was a mistake. Even after inheriting One For All, even with the cold, parasitic presence of Yoshi Abara whispering apathetic rot into his ear, Izuku had told himself he was fine.
But the dam had breached the moment he saw his mother through the glass of the ICU. Seeing her, the only person who had ever truly loved him, hooked up to a machine that hissed and clicked like a countdown to his own annihilation, had changed him. The light in his eyes hadn't just dimmed, it had been replaced by a predatory emerald glow.
A thought played in his head that turned incredibly morbid with a terrifying clarity: If I let Katsuki win today, I'm dying... The boy I was is already gone, and I won't let him take what's left.
I need to breathe, Izuku thought, his fingers digging into the debris. I need to be the one who stands. I need him to see me, not as a ghost, not as a roach, but as the thing that breaks him.
Izuku blitzed.
The explosion hadn't even fully dissipated before a streak of jagged, oily-green lightning tore through the smoke. He was moving at 10%, pushing the limit of his ligaments. He appeared in front of Bakugo like a vengeful spirit, his fist aimed directly at that arrogant jaw. Bakugo's eyes widened, his instincts barely allowing him to blast himself upward in a frantic, uncoordinated surge.
Izuku's punch met air, but he didn't stop. He pivoted, his boots grinding into the asphalt.
"Die!" Bakugo screamed from the air, but he didn't fire a blast at Izuku. Instead, he snapped his fingers.
The ground beneath Izuku's feet erupted. It wasn't a standard explosion, it was a chain reaction of orange sparks.
"New trick, Deku!" Bakugo laughed, hovering ten feet up, his face contorted in a manic grin. "Sweat-trap! I've been leaking nitroglycerin into the cracks of the pavement. I don't even need to touch you to blow you to hell!"
The blast sent Izuku reeling, the heat searing the front of his hero suit. But as the smoke cleared, Bakugo's smile faltered. Izuku was gone.
Bakugo spun in mid-air, his palms popping. "Where are you, you damn roach!?"
He looked left, catching a glimpse of a shadow moving against the grey façade of a standing office building. Before he could react, Izuku was upon him. He hadn't run, he had used the momentum of the explosion to launch himself into a wall-run, looping around Bakugo's blind spot.
Izuku's boot connected with Bakugo's ribs with the sound of a falling tree. The "Survivor" was sent screaming through the air, crashing through the third-story window of a neighbouring building. The glass shattered like diamonds in the dim light.
Izuku didn't give him a second to breathe. He leapt through the shattered window, landing in a crouch amidst broken office desks and flickering fluorescent lights. Bakugo was scrambling to his feet, coughing up a spray of crimson.
"I'm going to make you feel it," Izuku hissed, his voice distorted, sounding almost like Yoshi's. "I'm going to make you feel like the one on the losing foot. I'm going to make you feel like you don't belong."
Izuku lunged. A brutal gut-punch doubled Bakugo over, followed by a rising knee that sent him through the ceiling, past the fourth floor, and into the mechanical room on the roof.
"You called me a roach?" Izuku's voice echoed up through the hole he had just made. "Look at you, Katsuki. Scrambling in the dark. 'In a space you don't belong.'"
Bakugo growled, a sound of pure, feral hatred. He flipped in the air, righting himself as he hit the roof. He didn't wait. He cupped his hands together, creating a massive, concentrated sphere of heat. "HOWITZER IMPACT!"
The explosion shook the entire block. The roof gave way, and Izuku was slammed backward by the sheer mass of the thermal wave. He felt the ache in his stomach, a deep, visceral pain that made him spit out a glob of dark blood. He went flying out the side of the building, his body skipping across the roof of a smaller warehouse like a stone over water.
Bakugo landed on the edge of the warehouse, his silhouette framed by the smoke of his own destruction. "Fraud!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "I'm going to expose you! You think you're a hero? You're a mistake! You're a glitch! You don't belong in this school!"
Izuku rolled, his vision swimming. He saw a loose hunk of masonry, a heavy, jagged rock the size of a basketball. As he rolled, he snatched it up, using the momentum to fling it with OFA-enhanced strength.
Bakugo spun over the rock with a graceful, explosive pirouette, but Izuku was already moving. Bakugo began firing his palms like a Gatling gun, "A-P Shot: Auto-Fire!"
Small, piercing blasts rained down around Izuku, kicking up dust and concrete. Izuku turned and ran, leaping off the roof into the narrow alleyway between buildings.
Think. I need a plan. I need to ground him.
As he fell, his eyes caught the thick, black telephone cables strung between the buildings, in Ground Omega.
Izuku reached out, his gloved hand catching a cable. He didn't just hold on, he wrapped it around his arm and used 8% to swing himself in a wide, violent arc. As Bakugo dove into the alley after him, palms lit for the kill, Izuku kicked off the opposite wall.
He used the cable like a giant, urban whip. He didn't hit Bakugo, he tangled him. The black wires snared Bakugo's leading arm, jerking his aim wide.
"What the...!?"
Izuku pulled. The cable went taut, and Bakugo was slammed face-first into a brick wall. Izuku used the recoil to fly toward him, his fist pulled back for a finishing blow.
But Bakugo was a combat genius. Even snared, even bleeding, he moved. He fired a small, concentrated blast from his free hand, using the recoil to shift his body just enough. He caught Izuku's strike with his forearm, the impact vibrating through both their bones.
Bakugo laughed, a jagged, terrifying sound. "You're a better fighter? Please. You're a fanboy with a bullshit quirk."
Bakugo grabbed Izuku's collar, his strength fuelled by pure adrenaline. He threw Izuku over his knee with a sickening crack, then brought his left hand down, palming Izuku's face.
"Close your eyes, Deku."
BOOM.
The point-blank explosion sent Izuku through an already blown-out hole in the warehouse wall. He tumbled through the darkness of the interior, his mask torn, his forehead bleeding.
Bakugo stood at the hole, his shadow stretching across the floor. he raised his right hand, positioning the massive grenade gauntlet through the gap. He began to pull the pin.
"I told you," Bakugo whispered. "Now let's see if you can survive this."
Flash.
Izuku didn't wait for the blast. He blitzed upward, his body a blur of green sparks. He collided with Bakugo's arm just as the trigger clicked. The explosion went off, but it was directed upward, taking out the corner of the warehouse roof instead of Izuku's chest.
Bakugo snarled, swinging a raw, un-augmented punch. He didn't have time to build the sweat for a blast. Izuku saw the opening. He didn't dodge. He took the punch to the cheek, using the proximity to reach out and grab the latch on Bakugo's right gauntlet.
With a scream of effort, Izuku ripped the heavy metal casing off Bakugo's arm. The sheer force tore the straps, bruising Bakugo's forearm.
Izuku kicked him back, stumbling as he held the heavy, sweat-filled weapon. He didn't care about the blowback. He didn't care if his arm shattered.
"Eat this!" Izuku roared.
He aimed the stolen gauntlet at the base of the building where Bakugo was standing and pulled the cord.
The explosion was catastrophic. The entire front of the warehouse collapsed in a roar of fire and falling masonry. Izuku was thrown back by the recoil, his right arm dangling limply, the sleeve of his costume incinerated.
He stood in the middle of the street, gasping for air, watching the dust settle.
"Is that it?" Izuku whispered. "Is that all you..."
"Not even close."
Bakugo emerged from the rubble below. He was shredded. His mask was gone, his chest was covered in scrapes, and he was down to one gauntlet. But his smile... his smile was the most terrifying thing Izuku had ever seen. It was the smile of a man who had found his purpose in destruction.
Bakugo levelled his remaining gauntlet. His left hand gripped the trigger.
"You want to talk about your mom, Deku?" Bakugo's voice was hauntingly calm over the crackle of the fires. "I'm going to send you on a trip to see her. Maybe you can share a room."
Izuku's heart stopped. The world went silent. Yoshi's laughter sounding like crashing glass roaring in his head.
"You... you bastard..."
Bakugo pulled the pin.
The blast was a wall of white heat. Izuku didn't move. He couldn't. The sheer cruelty of the words had paralyzed him. He felt the heat lick his skin, and he screamed, a raw, broken sound that was swallowed by the roar of the explosion.
His vision flashed white. Then black.
He felt the world tilt. Suddenly, he wasn't flying away, he was being dragged down.
Bakugo had used the smoke of the blast to close the gap. He had wrapped his legs around Izuku's torso in a mid-air grapple, his hands locking Izuku's legs.
"Going down!" Bakugo screamed.
He ignited his palms, not to blast away, but to spin. He turned them into a human tornado, a centrifugal nightmare of heat and velocity. They plummeted toward the concrete from forty feet up, spinning so fast the world became a smear of grey and orange.
I need... I need...
Izuku tensed his entire body, the green lightning of OFA screaming as he tried to break the hold. He managed to kick one leg free, spinning in the air to blunt the impact, but Bakugo wouldn't let go.
They hit the concrete together.
The sound was like a bomb. Izuku felt his ribs give way, his breath departing him in a violent surge. He spun across the ground, his body limp, his mind flickering like a dying candle.
He looked up, his vision tunnelling. Bakugo was standing over him, his remaining gauntlet smoking, his face a mask of shadow and light.
"Stay in the dirt," Bakugo whispered.
He raised both hands, what was left of his sweat pooling in his palms for one final, massive detonation.
BOOM.
The world went black. Izuku Midoriya didn't feel the ground anymore. He didn't feel the pain. He only felt the cold, quiet darkness of the shed, and the silent hiss of a ventilator that had finally, mercifully, stopped.