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Katsuki was strong.
That wasn’t an opinion, it was just a fact of life. Even before his quirk came in Katsuki had been the strongest kid on the playground, the leader, the hero. His quirk had only proven it further, it was loud, it was powerful, it was explosive.
Just like Katsuki.
But, in the same way that Katsuki had always been strong, Deku had always been weak. When they’d been younger it hadn’t been as big of a deal, he’d sniffle, and he’d cry, but then he’d show Katsuki an idea for a piece of support equipment, or he’d suggest a new way for Katsuki to use his quirk. And sure, Katsuki would shout a bit and set off an explosion or two to let Deku know that he didn’t need his help, but Katsuki would still take the suggestion and it would usually work out.
But then Deku had stopped running up to Katsuki for any reason other than to get between him and some extra and well…
Katsuki was going to be a hero. Deku wanted to be a hero. Deku was weak, and pathetic, and cried if he stubbed his toe too hard, and he would shy away from Fingers of all people and the idea that Deku would put himself on the same level as Katsuki, Katsuki who would never run away from a fight. Katsuki, who had a quirk that everyone knew would put him in the top 10 (that katsuki knew would take him to number 1). It was insulting and it always pissed Katsuki off whenever he thought about it he–
–whatever.
Katsuki knew that he wasn’t always the nicest to Deku. Hell, he made the dork cry enough times to fill a river by now, but it wasn’t like he’d ever really hurt him. With the way that Deku always went around talking about how he wanted to be a hero he should’ve been able to handle a few bruises and scrapes, but whatever. Unlike what some of the lackeys that followed him around thought, Katsuki didn’t start the day with the intention of beating on Deku, it’s just sometimes he’d see the nerd looking so pathetic, and small and Katsuki would think ‘Maybe he finally came to his senses.’ but then he’d pull out that stupid notebook, that ‘Hero Analysis for the Future’ notebook and Katsuki would lose it.
Eventually, Deku didn’t even have to pull the notebook out for Katsuki to start seething, it was like the loser’s presence just evoked something within Katsuki that made him see red. Despite this, Katuski was definitely the one in the class who knew Deku the best. The extras in class only ever really ignored him, or a couple would pick on him now and again but Katuski wasn’t the same. Because he remembered the things that Deku wrote in that book back when they were four and he knew that Deku could’ve only gotten better since then. Deku might be quirkless and useless, but those notebooks of his? Those could be dangerous.
So obviously it caught his attention when Rhino joined their class and latched onto Deku like a fucking leech.
When she’d first showed up, shaking at the front of the classrom Katsuki’d thought that she might make a decent lackey, hell, she’d snapped back at him which showed that even if she was cowering away at first she had to have some kind of backbone. But then the next thing he knew Deku and Rhino were attached at the hip and Rhino was practically snarling at anyone that so much as looked at Deku the wrong way.
It was a jarring change from the nervous girl who’d joined their class that morning and it caught Katsuki’s attention.
So for the next few days, he decided to watch the two of them, to see if maybe the Rhino would come to her senses and leave Deku in the dust where he belonged but no. She never paid anyone else in the class any attention, she only ever had eyes for Deku in the most protective way, it was weird.
So, he’d decided to test her. He wanted to see if she’d actually do anything if people ignored her warning stares and decided to mess with Deku anyway. So he’d locked eyes with her, walked up to Deku, and poured the dork’s own cup of juice over his head. He could see the rage building in the white-haired girls eyes, but she didn’t seem to be doing anything about it so he’d decided she was probably all talk and walked back over to his seat. Before he got there though he’d heard her standing up from her seat so he’d called something back over his shoulder.
He could admit it, he hadn’t seen the chair to the face coming.
The rest of the fight was a little blurry, not because she’d hit him that hard, she wasn’t strong enough to really hurt him, no matter what the nurse said, but because he’d been so enraged that she had the nerve to hit him that everything sort of blurred into a haze of red. He’s pretty sure she’d hit him again, he doesn’t remember if he got a hit in on her (he did though, even if he didn’t remember he must’ve ) but what he does remember was the look on the girl’s face as she walked out of the room.
There’d been nothing there.
It didn’t matter if she’d only gotten a one-up on him because it was a sneak attack, it didn’t matter whether or not Katsuki was really hurt (he wasn’t his concussion was minor ) because he knew that she was trying to hurt him. If she’d done it to any other extra in the class she really would’ve hurt them.
Katsuki didn’t really care about any of the extras in his class, there was a reason he never bothered to learn their names, but even if he could get a little rough with them he never really hurt them…
Or…
Not badly at least. Even he knew that beating someone over the head with a chair could really hurt, if not kill someone if you hit them hard enough.
And Rhino just… didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was taking Deku to the nurse to change his stupid uniform. He’d reasoned it out that maybe she was just fucking stupid and hadn’t realized how badly getting hit over the chair could mess someone up, but when they told their sides of the story to vice-principal What’shisface even if she hadn’t outright said it it was clear.
She’d been trying to hurt him, she felt like he deserved it.
Katusuki was no stranger to getting angry enough at someone that he wanted to pound their face in, he’d done it to Deku enough times, and he’d’ve done it to more extras if Deku didn’t always get in the way . But even then he wouldn’t hit them over the head with a chair, and he wouldn’t look at their bruises with the pure satisfaction that Rhino had on her face whenever she looked over at him.
He decided from there on out that he’d keep a much closer eye on her.
At the time he wasn’t able to do anything to test her further, he’d already gotten in enough trouble with the Hag for pouring the juice on Deku (she’d always had a soft spot for the little dweeb) so he was gonna lay low for a little while. He watched as Deku and Rhino got closer and whenever he looked over they seemed to be discussing whatever was written in those notebooks. It didn’t make sense. Why would the Rhino, someone who Katsuki could admit wasn’t completely useless, want to hang around someone like Deku. Why would Deku, the fucking poster boy for the phrase ‘Why can’t we all get along?’ hang around someone who would without hesitation beat someone with a chair. (deku was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid, he had to know how badly she could hurt someone, did he just not care?) There had to be more to it.
He was going to find out what they were up to.
Eventually, the Hag got off Katsuki’s back and things were starting to return to normal, so he knew that now was the time for him to conduct his little investigation. He waited until Rhino went to the bathroom or something and he cornered Deku. He was gonna find out what they were doing no matter what. Of course, Deku had folded pretty much immediately, all Katsuki did was set off a couple pops of his quirk in his hands and Deku was shaking like a leaf, he didn’t even have to touch the nerd.
But, Katsuki never got to ask his question, because he heard a screech like a fucking banshee and Deku’s pathetic cry of, ‘Eri, don’t!’ when he turned to see Rhino barreling towards him much like her name-sake. While Katsuki was distracted Deku had managed to squirm out of his grip and rush over to his ‘friend’ and wrap his arms around her to try and calm her down.
Katsuki ignored whatever stupid shit Deku was saying and focused on Rhino, he couldn’t help but tense. Her face, much like when she’d hit him with the chair, was completely blank, but her eyes. He could see the promise of pain that was in them and he…
Well…
Katsuki did not run away, that is not what happened because the King Explosion Murder would never run from a fight…however, he may have headed off to… record his findings.
Deku was for sure the weak link, if he wanted answers about whatever the two of them were up to, Deku was the one to go for. So after a bit of deliberation Katsuki had decided that he’d catch Deku alone. Really alone. Not just when Rhino went off to get something, or to go to the bathroom since apparently , she could be back in five fucking seconds. He’d wait until they were on opposite sides of the building and Deku’s little guard dog wouldn’t be there to save him.
He’d decided on that, and then Deku was out of school for the day.
Katsuki figured his investigation would take a pause, after all, if there was no Deku, there was no notebook, but as it turned out he’d been wrong.
Rhino had sought him out, asked him to meet with her in the forest and well, Katsuki wasn’t a coward. This wasn’t some sneak attack in the classroom, this was the two of them on equal footing, and Katsuki wasn’t gonna be the one to back down. He was gonna be the number one hero dammit, heroes don’t back down!
So he followed her into the forest.
He’d expected a fight, he’d even expected to maybe get a few bruises of his own in the fight because even if Rhino was weak, she was fucking crazy , but he wasn’t gonna go down. He was gonna put the little albino bitch in her place and that was that. But then she hadn’t turned around to fight, she hadn’t rolled up her sleeves or put her hair up, no. She’d bent down–
–and picked up a frog.
She killed it. She hadn’t even hesitated before she did it. There was a little crackle from her horn and what looked like gold lightning coming from it and the frog was gone, like it had never been there in the first place.
Then she’d looked Katsuki in the eye, basically said that she would do the same thing to him if he didn’t back off of Deku, and she walked away. Like it was nothing.
Katsuki stood in that forest for a long time after that, he’s pretty sure that he spent most of recess just standing there, his mind racing. A lot of the time when Katsuki got mad at people he would yell the same thing before he attacked, a guttural, harsh shout of, ‘I’ll kill you!’ but that was–that was just to scare them. He wasn’t going to–he would–he wouldn’t.
Even people she’d said. She said that she could do it to people. How did she know? She had to have done it before, right? That’s the only way she could be so certain that her… quirk(ha, no wonder she didn’t wanna share it the first day, her quirk fucking killed people ) would work on others.
Katsuki wouldn’t say he’d been scared per se, but, well… What was he supposed to do against that? The frog had been gone in less than a second, his explosions were fast, but not that fast. If she really decided to follow through on her threat, he wasn’t sure what he could do to stop her.
Eventually, though, Katsuki moved, he walked back from the forest and when the lackeys asked what happened, he muttered something about villainy and moved on. He decided it would be best for now not to… act like anything too serious had happened. He’d keep calling her Rhino so that the others wouldn’t get tipped off, but he’d try to steer clear of her, at least for now.
He figured it was a good thing that she’d decided to threaten him and not one of the other extras in the class, even if he wasn’t sure what he could do against her yet, he’d figure it out (would he? she killed people, she was a villain ) the other extras would’ve panicked. He didn’t even want to know what Deku would’ve done if–
–Oh. Deku.
It’d hit him at that moment. There was no way that Deku knew what kind of danger his little friend posed, what kind of danger he was in. If Katsuki wasn’t sure what to do against Rhino then what the hell could Deku do? If she decided to take him out it would probably happen before he even knew what was happening. The loser would probably go out with a smile on his face, trusting his friend until the very end.
That was–
No.
Katsuki might not like or care about Deku (he didn’t care, katsuki was a hero, heroes helped people) but the thought of Deku hanging around someone like that, oblivious as ever. Someone that could cause him real harm made Katsuki’s stomach twist into knots.
He didn’t think it would be too hard to fix the problem, he’d been getting Deku to do what he wanted all his life, getting him to stop hanging around Rhino should’ve been a cake-walk.
And then it wasn’t.
Deku had shouted at him. Said that Rhino was his ‘best friend’ and that Katsuki ‘wasn’t actually his friend anymore’ (which, of course they weren’t friends, that was. ha, was deku trying to hurt his feelings? well he didn’t, not at all) then he’d stormed off after asking Katsuki to leave him alone.
Katsuki had been, admittedly, a little stumped. He wasn’t sure where to go from there, sure, he could ignore what Deku said and just try to force him not to spend time with Rhino, but with the sudden, ridiculously inconvenient backbone that he’d just developed Katsuki wasn’t sure that the dweeb wouldn’t just tell Rhino about it, and that wasn’t something that Katsuki could really risk at the moment, not until he had more information, not until he at least knew what her quirk actually did (deku could probably figure it out, if they were still–whatever, that’s all he was good for anyway).
When he got back to class Rhino sent him the most vicious glare yet, but Katsuki didn’t falter and he met her stare head on. He wanted to let her know that she hadn’t won, that he’d figure out what she wanted with Deku and he’d stop her. It was his first mission as a hero, save the quirkless damsel and don’t die in the process.
For the rest of the day he’d essentially eavesdropped on the pair, listening to them plan for whatever stupid science project they were doing, it wouldn’t compare to Katsuki’s, that’s for sure. (could they use nitroglycerin in their project? no, they could not.) he’d been about to dismiss their conversation as generally unimportant when he’d heard them start to make plans for the weekend.
At Rhino’s house.
Katsuki had tried to send a warning glare at both of them, tried to get Deku to look over at him, if the dork would just turn around he could stop it. He’d stopped him from going to stuff before, field trips, conventions, it would just take one look. But Deku didn’t look back at him, and Rhino sure as hell didn’t either.
Fine.
He didn’t want to give up on this, but he figured that there wasn’t anything that he could do and besides if the Rhino was gonna try anything with Deku she wouldn’t do it the first time he went over to her house. That would be suspicious as fuck and whatever she was planning would get shut down. He had time.
Deku was in pain.
It was clear with the way the nerd moved when he gave his stupid presentation on the effects of water erosion or whatever. It was clear with his smiles that were just a touch too bright as he looked around the room. It was clear from the way that every so often he’d turn his body just a little too fast and he’d wince and rub at his stomach.
Katsuki didn’t know for sure what had happened, but from the way that Rhino kept staring at him, her expression dripping with guilt Katsuki had a pretty good idea of whose fault it was.
Katsuki wasn’t exactly sure what to do about it though, he didn’t have any proof. He decided that he’d at least monitor the situation for now, he’d leave Deku alone and at least try to get the extras to back off of him. He was already dealing with whatever Rhino was doing, Katsuki figured that he could get a little break from the others pushing him around and Katsuki putting him in his place.
Deku might be a useless loser, but he didn’t deserve to be the target of a budding (or established?) villain.
Deku was getting worse.
He was stumbling around like some sort of walking zombie, he wasn’t even bothering with the fake smiles anymore, it looked like he was putting all of his energy into not passing out. Any movement, quick or slow, was enough to have him wincing. He’d grown paler by a few shades. His fucking eyebags had eyebags and it was… weird.
It was weird seeing Deku who always had endless energy and smiles for everyone look so… exhausted all the time.
The extras were confused at first about why Katsuki, who hated Deku the most, suddenly wanted them to leave Deku alone. They seemed to get it now. Katsuki watched as the stares that everyone sent at Deku changed from mocking, to confusion, to worry. (the class, worrying about deku) Fingers and Wings had both asked Katsuki if he knew what was going on with Deku and he’d snapped at them that he was ‘Figuring it out!’.
(they hadn’t called him deku that time though, they’d called him midoriya)
The teachers, whom Katsuki hadn’t noticed until now had always been a little harder on Deku, lightened up. They said that ‘He didn’t have to worry about it.’ when he freaked out over forgetting an assignment. When one of the extras in class pointed out that Deku had fallen asleep at his desk they didn’t slam a book by his head, they shook their head quietly and said that it was okay because ‘It seemed like he needed the sleep.’, and the class would nod their heads instead of whining about unfairness as they would’ve in the past. The gym teacher took one look at the dork and practically forced him to sit out. He hadn’t participated in the past three weeks. Katsuki couldn’t find it in himself to complain.
(they were worried, sure. but not worried enough to fucking tell someone that something was wrong, did they even call his mom? what the fuck was his mom even doing? )
But none of that really mattered(it didn’t, deku could get as bad as possible, it wouldn’t matter when katsuki saved him in the end). What mattered to Katsuki was the shift in Deku’s villainous little friend.
If he’d thought she was protective before, now she was straight up possessive, constantly doing whatever she could to protect Deku from whatever she perceived as a threat. Did someone bump into him in the hallway? They’d get a bruising grip on their arm and instruction to “Watch where you’re going.”, ignoring Deku’s attempts at platitude. Did someone have the gall to try to speak with Deku? She’d basically snarl at them before putting herself firmly in between the dweeb and whoever tried to interact with him. Did someone fucking look at him for too long? Now Deku was frantically trying to talk her down from going over and confronting whichever extra was bold enough to have eyes.
However, despite all of that the biggest shift that Katsuki could see in Rhino was the way that she’d look at Deku. Gone were the looks of awe and amazement, they were replaced by looks of sadness and regret, and occasionally when Deku moved in a way that caused his wince of pain to turn into a whimper an expression of pure guilt would come over her face like she knew that whatever pain Deku was in was all her doing.
Like she had the right to feel guilty when it was all her fault.
That expression was the one that led Katsuki to decide that he couldn’t just watch what was going on anymore. Sure, heroes had their investigation phases, but when it got serious they always had to intervene. And right now, even if Deku was a total dork, he just–
The kid looked like he was dying, okay? What the hell kind of hero would just let that happen if they knew what the cause was? If they could stop it. (could he stop it? the frog was gone in half a second)
So he went over to the little tree that they always sat at, Rhino looked like he was fretting over Deku like she always did so he cleared her throat.
Her head snapped up, a snarl already on her face, which only grew stronger when she realized who was trying to get their attention, “What do you want Bakugou?”
Katsuki frowned and went to snap back when he looked down at Deku, the kid was fucking out of it, his eyes were half-lidded and–
–Katsuki needed to fix this now.
“I need to talk to you.”
Her lip curled, her hot anger turning cool, “Good for you. I don’t care.”
“Are you fucking–” Katsuki paused, taking a deep breath, “It’s important.”
She stared at him, clearly about to turn the offer down so Katsuki gave her the most pointed look he could, before glancing down at Deku. The amount of rage that came over her face could rival Katsuki’s own on his worst days. Honestly, even when he was pissed the fuck off he was pretty sure he’d never glared at anyone in quite the same way that Rhino was glaring at him. But he held his stare, even as she abruptly stood up, giving Deku a soft look and saying softly, “We’ll just be over in the forest, if anyone bothers you call for me and I’ll handle it.” Before marching off without looking back. Deku gave a little nod before slumping against the tree.
It was fucking creepy.
She was talking to Deku like he was a toddler and it was–it was just–
It was exactly how he would expect a villain like her to talk to someone like Deku, especially when he was as weak as he was at the moment.
He followed her into the woods, and soon enough they’d reached the clearing they were at the last time they’d…talked. But this time when she turned to look at him she wasn’t holding up a frog, she just looked fucking rabid.
“What do you want with Izuku!?”
And that was enough to shove any and all weariness out the window, what did he want with Deku!? “Oh, that is rich coming from you.”
She blinked, clearly a bit caught off guard, “Excuse me?”
“Asking me what I want with Deku, like you aren’t the reason he looks like he’s fucking dying all the time.” If Katsuki didn’t know any better he’d’ve thought that she’d gotten punched in the stomach with the way the breath seemed to rush out of her. But honestly, that didn’t matter, because he was pissed, “You walk around acting like you’re so fucking great, protecting Deku from everyone, like he doesn’t come back after every weekend looking worse and worse. Did you think I wouldn’t put it together? After you told me what you could do, huh!? Did you think I’m that fucking stupid!?” This confrontation might’ve been getting away from Katsuki a bit. “Following Deku around all sweet, like you aren’t fucking killing him. At least when I hurt him I don’t pretend that I–”
“ –No! ”
Katsuki paused, he’d gotten so invested in calling this bitch out that he hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was doing, but he was now.
And Katsuki froze.
Rhino didn’t–she didn’t even look fucking human. She was panting like a dog, and her eyes, he’d never seen someone with eyes like that. He should’ve seen it coming honestly, she’d pretty much threatened to kill him before, so of course, she’d look at him like she wanted him dead.
Her horn was glowing.
“Izuku is not dying! Don’t you dare–don’t you ever !” She started forward and Katsuki scrambled back.
The grass under her feet was–it was disappearing.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know me! You sure as hell don’t know Izuku! All you’ve ever done is put him down and now–now you’re trying to say that I’m hurting him! I would never! I won’t ever hurt him again, I’d rather die.”
Gold lightning was crackling in the air and Katsuki.
Katsuki was scared.
“I–I’m not, I didn’t–”
“Izuku won’t die, he won’t, and you think I’d–”
She was shrieking, tears streaming down her face as her chest heaved, she’d started to sob and Katsuki didn’t know what to do. They weren’t that far into the forest were they? Someone would know right?
A shudder seemed to go through her and she fell to the ground, her face was contorted with pain and she clutched at her hair, Katsuki kept backing up.
He was so scared.
She’d stopped screaming and had taken to muttering to herself (muttering, just like–)
“Eri!”
Katsuki’s eyes snapped up, Deku was stumbling into the clearing, panic written all over his face, his eyes trained on the sobbing girl he was approaching her fast .
Katsuki moved to stop him, “No, don’t–”
Deku reached out slowly, cautious of the clear evidence of her quirk going off around her. But soon Deku’s stupid stupid need to help won out and he went to touch her shoulder “I heard you yelling and wanted to make sure that–”
The moment his hand made contact he stumbled back.
There was–
Oh god.
The blood it–
It was everywhere .
There was blood pouring out of his mouth, soaking through his uniform, and his eyes. His big, green, stupid eyes that were always filled with tears, or smiling, or pleading, they were–
They were gone.
The green-haired boy made a small gurgling sound and collapsed to the floor. And that was what seemed to snap Rhino out of whatever trance had taken over her as her face filled with horror.
She surged forward, pressing her glowing hand against him as she fucking, she fucking did something. She was using her fucking quirk oh god he was dying Izuku was dying.
Katsuki didn’t even realized he’d moved until he was throwing the–the villain back off of Izuku and collapsing to his side. He’d read that you were supposed to put pressure on wounds if they were bad, and he was trying to find where the blood was coming from but he couldn’t find the fucking wound.
The blood had stopped pouring out of his mouth, and Katsuki didn’t know how to put pressure on fucking eye sockets but they were–
–back? His eyes were back?
That didn’t make any sense, they were gone his eyes were gone the blood was still there, all over his face, dripping from his sockets like tears but the eyes were back how were they back?
Katuski sat there for a long time, trying to figure out what to do, trying to put pressure on wounds that didn’t exist. He didn’t know what to do, and Izuku wouldn’t wake up.
Eventually, someone pulled him away from Izuku, ( he was breathing so he was alive, right? right!?) and giving quiet reassurances.
“Hey, they’re okay, alright? Eri’s quirk is Rewind, whatever made Midoriya bleed like that was undone, he’s okay, they’re both okay.”
A lot of things happened simultaneously very slowly and very quickly.
Izuku and the villain were loaded into an ambulance, someone put some kind of blanket on him, he was sitting in the back of an ambulance, his parents showed up, he talked to some policeman or something about what’d happened, they didn’t say it but Katsuki could tell he didn’t believe them when he said that the villain(or, eri as he’d called her in the interview) was the one that hurt Izuku, his parents took him home, and told him he could take a few days off, they told him that Izuku would be okay, that the paramedics said that he was fine and they were just keeping him for observation.
And the next week when he came back to school the villain was sitting at her usual desk. Izuku was not. And when Katsuki asked her where the hell Izuku was, the girl just ran out of the room crying.
Katsuki didn’t know what to do.