"My bones can be scorched from fires,

broken from betrayals,

stained with blood,

And I will still continue to fight.

(For I have nothing else left but bloodstained ideals)"

-Unknown

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Warnings: Cursing, lol. (It's Bakugo, what else do you expect?) And suicide :(

The sensation of going through Kurogiri's portal was unique and varied each time. Sometimes it felt like your body was entirely numb and cold before being disassembled like a bunch of 1s and 0s; other times it felt like you were floating around aimlessly in the vast expanse of space itself. This time it felt like going underwater: suffocating, impairing, and oddly enough, freeing. It all lasted for a second and then he was there.

Standing right before the very boy who had made his life hell. It was All Might who had added on the sprinkles and icing to the cake; the one who drove that last knife straight towards his heart. But the one who added the knives in the first place was his childhood friend. His 'Kacchan'. Deku didn't doubt that he would have been ostracized even if Bakugo wasn't here, but the fact that it was his childhood friend who picked on him the quickest, as well as the hardest... Well, that made it personal.

The space he was in-bedded into this time was directly in the two hero student's blind spot. As an added bonus, his figure was hidden by a large number of grunt villains crowding around the two students. In all honesty, it was a little disgraceful as to how fast they were taken down by students. They were kids that had most likely only seen combat once, and that was in the Entrance Exam where they had a safety blanket. In comparison, they were adults! They had fought, on average, more than a dozen battles each!

He couldn't help but let out a light yawn while wondering how the villains had survived for as long in the profession as they did.

"Well, I suppose the quirks that are given to people at birth are the only important things. Some don't even have them. This world decides the victors and the losers at birth."

A grunt villain was sent flying at him, which he lightly dodged as he watched the body fly off into the distance.

"...I guess I'll do my job now."

He took a sharp turn to his right as he furiously threw a rock at the wall. It was less resounding than he would have hoped but acceptable considering it was concrete. As planned, it served as a valid distraction. Their bodies uncontrollably turned toward the sound, and very much away from the real threat. Him.

Amateurs, the lot of them.

Seizing the moment, he rushed toward the red-headed boy. From the looks of it, the teenager could only harden arms. Or he was conserving energy because he didn't need to use the full power of his quirk. In any case, it didn't really matter. Because at this precise moment, the only thing he was hardening was his arms.

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He grabbed him by his strap armor thing, (Why does he have almost no clothing on? At least that Iida guy was wearing armor) before yeeting him out of the building entirely. He split off a little of his lightning to hover around him to continually zap him. He'd deal with him later. For now, though, he devoted his attention to the blond, angry teen in front of him.

"Kirishima! You bastard-..."

He lightly swung around the black rabbit mask in his hand, as he patiently waited for Bakugo to come back from his confusion. The main reason he threw out the other kid was to create this one-on-one situation, after all. He once again pasted on his smile as he prepared for his greatest performance yet.

"Y-You-!"

"Let's see, 'Y-You're my childhood friend who I thought was dead!', right? There's also a bit of 'W-Why are you a villain?!'"

His eyes were as wide as a saucer; you would have thought that Deku just told him that he was an alien from the moon, simply judging from the amount of white in his eyes. To top it all off, there was a faint questioning look in his eyes, something like 'How do you know that!'.

"No, I'm not reading your mind; you're just easily predictable," Seizing the moment, he stealthily grasped the knife by his waist. "Think fast."

Feeling a bit dramatic, his left hand threw the black rabbit mask high into the air, just a few feet above Bakugo's head. It did work as a distraction; how Bakugo managed to be fooled by the same trick twice was something he couldn't quite say. His appearance couldn't have been that shocking, could it? Food for thought. Regardless, he proceeded to flick the knife in his hand at the fastest speed possible.

Maybe he was lucky, or maybe it was Bakugo's intuition, but he managed to avoid the knife... mostly.

It had skimmed the right side of his neck, red blood trickling down like a stream.

"You bastard..! What the hell are you doing, Izuku!"

His brows furrowed a little in contemplation at the unfamiliar name, but he responded sarcastically out of habit.

"I didn't think your thinking capacity was that slow, but I guess you learn something new every day. Or is cursing at me the only thing you can do?"

He looked enraged for a moment before he forcefully put his temper down..?

"...I don't know what happened to you, or what happened on the rooftop that day. But, I do know that auntie... Auntie has been looking for you forever! She hasn't given up on finding you! The police were convinced... They were convinced that it was a suicide, but Auntie didn't believe in it! ...I don't believe it!"

For the first time in a long time, he felt something. Surprise being the main centerpiece. Bakugo seemed to care about the situation... It was an interesting concept. Most importantly, he felt the pain, the pain of his mother's ultimately fruitless endeavors burrow deep in his veins.

"...Normally, you would be right. I was optimistic back then, from what I remember. But yes, it was suicide. Well, a failed one."

His eyes and mouth widened in sheer disbelief.

"Don't look so surprised, Kacchan. Didn't you ever stop and think? Did you ever think that what you were doing was wrong? You'd kick me, hit me with explosions, tear up my notebooks, and mock my dreams. You personally told me to take a swan dive off the roof. All I ever wanted to be was a hero. I got enough crap about it from other people, being quirkless and all. But you... You made it your life's goal to make my life as miserable as possible."

Bakugo was shaking now.

"But you, no, you weren't enough for me to go that far. It's actually a pretty funny story. One day after school, I was attacked by the Sludge Villain. I thought I was going to die, but then All Might saved me. He was about to go away, but I had to ask him something. Could I still be a hero, despite being quirkless? And then... And then the very person who says anyone can be a hero, says no! Isn't it hilarious?"

The blond only stood stock still, glued to the ground... in mortification?

"After that, the bullying continued to intensify, and somewhere down the line, I developed depression. And then I became suicidal, and... you get the gist of it," His earpiece rang with new orders from Shigaraki, the distraction welcome to... whatever this situation had become. Not that he would admit it. "Well, seems like his timing is as bad as ever. I'll see you later, then, I suppose."

Bakugo looked like he wanted to say something, but Deku simply gazed towards the now collapsing foundation beam. It was the collapse zone for a reason, it seemed. And as he stepped into the portal, he turned his head to say one final sentence.

"I'd be careful with that if I were you."

Right before his body was entirely dragged, he heard Bakugo's voice faintly echoing in the distance.

"You scumbag! Get back here-!"