Heroes and Villains

Training log updated.

Take a breath. The next test is already starting.

✦

Concrete dust turned the stairwell gray.

For one stupid second, my brain tried to put the scene back where canon said it belonged. Bakugo in the front hall. Loud warning. Straight charge. Predictable angle with a terrifying amount of heat behind it.

Instead, the upper stairwell wall blew inward before we reached the second floor.

He had gone above us.

My fault.

"Move!"

Uraraka moved.

No freeze. No scream. She dropped low, rolled toward the inner wall, and pulled her elbows in as a blast chewed through the doorway where her head had been. Heat slapped my cheek hard enough to make my eyes water.

Bakugo stepped through the broken frame with both gauntlets hanging heavy at his sides. Smoke curled from his palms. The grin on his face was too sharp to be fun.

"You always watch the obvious path," he said.

My mouth tasted like plaster.

"And you always announce yourself."

"Used to."

Short answer. Controlled breath. Angry, yes. Blind, no.

The Ledger stuttered in the corner of my vision.

[Canon Pattern Broken]

[Predictive error: route invalid]

[Primary risk: overconfidence]

"A little late," I muttered.

Bakugo's eyes narrowed.

"Talking to yourself again?"

Uraraka glanced at me.

Damn it.

"Habit," I said.

"Liar."

Then he moved.

People who only saw explosions missed the footwork. Bakugo did not just launch himself with blasts. He bullied space. One palm behind him, one angled low, heel scraping concrete, shoulders loose enough to change direction after the burst had already started. The gauntlets were heavy, but he made the weight part of the threat.

He came for my left side.

Not my face. Not the dramatic shot. My leg.

The bad one.

I stepped back without power and hated how slow I was. His knee clipped my thigh and nearly folded me. Pain shot up into my hip.

"Midoriya!"

"Keep moving!"

I caught Bakugo's wrist before the follow-up blast, twisted with his momentum, and shoved his arm toward the ceiling. The explosion cracked overhead. Dust rained down in gritty sheets. My shoulder screamed.

"You don't get to tell her where to go," Bakugo snapped.

"She has ears."

"She has you in the way."

He drove forward again.

The below 1% rule was supposed to feel like a controlled flicker. In practice it felt like trying to light a match in a rainstorm while someone punched the table. I pushed a sliver of One For All through my calf, just enough to slide outside his reach.

Too much distance.

My heel skidded on loose concrete.

Bakugo saw it. Of course he saw it. His grin sharpened.

"There."

He feinted high and kicked low.

I took the kick on my shin because the alternative was a gauntlet blast in the ribs. The impact numbed my leg. So much for the clean little rule Recovery Girl had made me repeat until I wanted to eat the clipboard.

No taking hits.

I had failed it thirty seconds in.

Uraraka grabbed a chunk of broken concrete and slapped five fingers against it.

"I can get over him," she said.

"Second floor," I managed. "Weapon room ceiling should be thinner near the service hall."

She did not ask if I was sure. She looked up, measured the angle, and shook her head.

"No. He'll just blast through you."

Bakugo's gaze cut to her.

"You think I forgot you, Round Face?"

He raised his left hand.

I moved before thought caught up. Not a punch. A shoulder check at his centerline, powered by a microburst so small it barely counted as bravery and still felt like tearing a stitch open.

We hit the wall together.

Air left my lungs. His blast went wide, scorching the stair rail instead of Uraraka.

For half a second we were close enough that I could see sweat bead under the edge of his mask.

"You got one," I said.

His eyes flared.

"What?"

"You made me react."

Wrong thing to say. Maybe the only thing that would keep his attention on me.

With Bakugo, those overlapped too often.

He shoved me back with raw strength and detonated both palms low. Dust jumped between us, hiding his next step. Old Bakugo would have charged through.

This one waited.

Half a beat. Just enough to make me dodge early if I trusted memory too much.

I did not move.

His mouth tightened.

Uraraka moved instead. She kicked off the wall, floated the concrete chunk ahead of her, and used it like a drifting shield as she slipped past us toward the stairs.

Bakugo cursed and turned. I grabbed his gauntlet strap.

Bad idea. Terrible idea. Useful for exactly one second.

He spun back and slammed his elbow into my ribs.

The hallway folded down to pain and heat. My grip held anyway.

"Let go."

"Busy."

"Deku."

There was a warning in the name. History, too. The ugly little belief that if he said it hard enough, some old part of me would obey.

That part existed.

I felt it.

I did not let it drive.

He brought his palm up toward my face. The Ledger snapped red across my vision.

[Emotional Output Spike]

[Retaliatory output risk: escalating]

[Teacher attention: likely]

Not advice. Not a solution. Just a siren with vocabulary.

For one hot second, I wanted to hit him.

There was nothing strategic or heroic in it. I wanted to take every time Izuku had flinched, every burned notebook, every laugh in Aldera's halls, every little practiced humiliation, and put it behind one clean shot.

One For All answered the want.

Green light crawled over my right arm.

Bakugo saw it. His face changed.

Recognition, maybe. Something too sharp to be fear and too quiet to be anger. Proof.

I killed the output before it reached my fist.

Stopping hurt worse than starting. My knees nearly gave. Bakugo's palm hovered inches from my face.

"Why," he hissed, "do you keep holding back?"

Because I could hurt him now.

Because part of me wanted the chance.

Because that want had his voice and mine tangled together, and if I let it choose for me, the exercise was already lost.

I headbutted him.

Not hard enough to break anything. Hard enough to make him swear and stumble back.

"Objective exercise," I said, dizzy.

"Bullshit."

"Probably."

Then I ran after Uraraka.

Bakugo followed immediately. The building speakers crackled with All Might's public voice.

"Team Heroes are advancing! Team Villains, protect the weapon!"

He sounded cheerful. He also sounded strained. He had seen the spike. Aizawa had probably seen it too. I did not have time to hate that.

Second floor.

Uraraka waited behind a half-broken support pillar with two floating chunks of concrete and a grin that looked nervous but alive.

"Your leg?" she asked.

"Mad at me."

"Specific."

"Still attached."

"Barely counts."

She pointed up.

"Ceiling over the weapon room is thinner here. Iida is below, guarding the door. He is very committed."

"How committed?"

Below us, Iida's voice echoed through the floor.

"Hero Team! Your advance has been noted! As villains, we shall defend this weapon with full strategic seriousness!"

Uraraka mouthed, Full strategic seriousness?

I nodded.

"He means it."

Bakugo hit the stairwell door behind us hard enough to dent metal.

"Deku!"

No more time.

"We do not use you as a target," Uraraka said before I could open my mouth.

"I was going to say door."

"You were going to say target with manners."

She crouched, pressed a palm to the floor, then pulled back before activating her Quirk.

"The hallway already cracked when he missed. If he blasts down, we can open the ceiling. But I choose the release. Not you."

Her call was better than my idea. Worse for my ego. Better for staying alive.

"You choose it," I said.

"And you stop making him angrier just because it works."

The door buckled.

"I can try."

"Try harder."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do not ma'am me during property damage."

She sent the floating chunks toward the ceiling seam and moved sideways, not behind me. Beside the opening she wanted. Her route, her timing.

The stairwell door exploded inward.

Bakugo walked through smoke with a cut on his cheek and a smile that did not reach his eyes.

"Found you."

I stepped into the open hall. My leg shook once. I made it stop.

"Took you long enough."

He launched with no warning blast and no insult, just speed.

I dodged left with a microburst at my ankle. His gauntlet clipped the wall where my chest had been. Concrete cracked. Uraraka flinched at the sound, then kept working.

Bakugo noticed.

He cut toward her.

I threw myself into his path. This time he expected it. His hand snapped down, caught my forearm, and yanked.

My bad shoulder lit up. The sound stayed behind my teeth.

"There," he said.

Then he drove his knee toward my ribs.

I twisted, took it on the side, and hooked my foot behind his ankle.

No power. Just angle and a prayer with terrible form.

He stumbled one step.

One.

Uraraka used it. She slapped both hands against a cracked ceiling panel, then pointed at the broken frame instead of the panel itself.

"Not yet," she said. "Angle him down."

Bakugo looked up. Then at me.

Understanding hit his face a fraction before rage.

"You two using me?"

"Team exercise," I said.

"I'll kill you."

"You keep saying that in school."

His answer was an explosion.

I ducked under the edge of it, felt heat chew across my hood, and drove two fingers into the release latch on his gauntlet.

Not enough to remove it.

Enough to jam the angle.

He jerked back. The blast went down.

Into the floor.

The ceiling panel above the weapon room cracked open beneath Uraraka's floating debris. Below, Iida shouted.

"What was that impact?"

Uraraka looked through the gap.

"Hi!"

Then she dropped.

Not because I told her to. Not because the plan said so. Because she saw the opening she had made and took it.

Bakugo tried to follow.

I grabbed him around the waist.

He was stronger than me in a real fight. Better trained for close violence. Less afraid of hurting me than I was of hurting him.

I had position, desperation, and one stupid second.

One For All flickered through my legs.

Two percent.

Too much.

Pain stabbed up both shins. I held anyway.

Bakugo twisted in my grip, palm coming back toward my face.

"You had a Quirk," he snarled. "You had it and you lied."

The accusation under the fight. The thing he needed because the alternative meant Deku had changed without asking his permission.

"I didn't."

"Liar!"

His palm sparked. I saw the angle.

Too close.

Too much.

I let go and dropped flat.

The blast passed over me and blew out the rest of the ceiling.

For one bright, terrible second, I saw Uraraka below, spinning toward the weapon room while Iida launched himself across the floor. She was not going to reach it first.

Not alone.

The Ledger flashed red.

[Objective window unstable]

[Impact tolerance exceeded]

[No airborne recovery]

Bakugo lunged after the hole.

I kicked off the floor.

Three percent. Less than a second. The world snapped sideways.

Pain tore through my calf so sharply it turned breath into static. I slammed shoulder-first into Bakugo, not to hurt him, but to change his path.

He hit the wall beside the hole.

I hit the floor on the other side and saw white at the edges.

All Might's voice boomed through the speakers.

"Young Midoriya!"

Too worried. Too personal.

Everyone heard it.

Bakugo heard it too. His eyes locked onto mine. The fight had stopped being about the exercise.

Maybe it never had been.

Below us, Uraraka shouted, "Iida!"

Metal slammed. The weapon room door blew open from the inside.

I dragged air into my lungs and pushed up on one shaking arm.

Bakugo stood over me, breathing hard, smoke curling from both palms.

"What the hell are you?" he asked.

The Ledger answered silently.

[Emotional volatility: critical]

[Canon relationship drift: active]

Still useless.

Still accurate.

I looked past him, down through the broken floor. Uraraka was still moving. So was Iida. Let them decide the match. Let the objective matter more than the bruise.

I smiled, because apparently pain made me stupid.

"A distraction," I said.

Bakugo's face twisted.

Then the floor beneath us shifted.

Uraraka had not just floated the debris.

She had touched the cracked section under us while we were busy trying to turn old damage into new damage. The broken slab, the door remains, loose concrete, dust, and the piece of hallway under Bakugo's boots all forgot their weight at once.

For once, Bakugo had no clever answer.

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