Chapter 13: You Can't Change Your Nature.
“………….”
Bakugo slowly lifted his swollen eyelids again and stared at the ceiling.
It was an unfamiliar ceiling.
“Ah, Kacchan’s awake?”
The fact that Deku, the one person he hated most, was sitting beside him didn’t matter.
Only one thing mattered.
“So that makes two now.”
The back of his head throbbed like crazy, and so did the words he had heard right before he blacked out.
Two.
He had lost twice.
No, the first time he could at least make the excuse that it had been a surprise attack. But the second time, he had charged in head-on, illegally used his Quirk, and still lost before he could even react.
“...Shit.”
His lip was split, so his words came out slurred, and Bakugo only got more irritated at the sight of himself lying on the floor.
And what irritated him even more than that was...
That damned gaze.
Those blue eyes looking down on him like he was nothing.
“Damn it all!!”
Ignoring the pounding in his head, Bakugo staggered to his feet and stumbled outside again.
It had definitely been daylight when he first woke up, but now it was pitch-black night.
“Where are you!!! You bastard!!!!”
Babababang!
Without caring that his skull felt like it was splitting, Bakugo detonated explosions from both hands and roared, ready to challenge Hakuji again.
…….
But there was no response at all, and no sign of anyone outside the cabin.
“...Kacchan?”
“Huh!?”
But instead of Hakuji, Midoriya called out from behind him, and Bakugo whipped around with a vicious glare.
“Hakuji-kun said Kacchan still hadn’t woken up, so he went training... I don’t think he’ll hear you.”
“......”
How far was that bastard planning to trample on his pride?
“Hey!!! Take me to that bastard right now!!”
“Eek! J-just let go of me first!!”
Bakugo immediately grabbed Midoriya by the collar again and shouted with terrifying eyes.
“If you keep going straight that way, there’s a waterfall. He usually trains there!”
“Then say that sooner!!”
“I was going to tell you...”
Bakugo, eyes wild, shook Midoriya by the neck and then strode off in the direction he had been pointed toward.
But there was a problem.
“W-wait, Kacchan!!! Come to think of it, there’s still a trap on that path!!!”
Click!
The moment Bakugo stepped onto the mountain path, Midoriya realized something and hurriedly tried to stop him, but by then his foot had already brushed against a tiny, invisible fishing line.
“Huh?”
What Bakugo, who had stomped forward without even looking properly ahead, ran into was...
“Eh?”
The rings of a huge log, the kind you’d only expect to see used for striking a temple bell.
“Kacchaaaan!!!”
Crack!!!
With his head smashed straight into the log, Bakugo thought,
What the hell is this place?
“...So he did wake up, but then he stepped on a trap and got his head smashed into a log?”
“Yeah... I tried to stop him, but it was already too late.”
“......”
A little while later, Hakuji returned after finishing his light training and let out a sigh at the sight of Bakugo, a clear ring pattern stamped onto his face.
“Didn’t they say this kid was exceptional?”
“He is... exceptional! Yeah! Exceptional! He’ll be exceptional! His personality’s got some problems, though...”
With a slight hesitation, Midoriya defended him as best he could while placing ice on Bakugo’s unconscious face.
Tap tap
“If his brain got shaken this badly, he won’t wake up until tomorrow lunchtime. Good thing tomorrow’s the weekend.”
“...Phew...”
When Hakuji tapped Bakugo’s swollen forehead and said that, Midoriya let out a relieved breath.
He wasn’t just relieved because Bakugo had been knocked out. If Bakugo got even one unauthorized absence on his record, he might really turn into a Villain.
“Are you staying over too?”
“Ah, yeah. I’ll impose on you a little. ...I think I’ll be needed if I want to calm Kacchan down even a little tomorrow... He wasn’t like this back then...”
Midoriya muttered the last part softly.
While helping Hakuji take out the bedding, Midoriya looked at the unconscious Bakugo and thought.
“So. Why did this guy end up with a personality like this?”
“......That’s because...”
Bakugo’s personality hadn’t always been this much of a mess.
Before his Quirk manifested, he used to hang around with the weakest kid, Midoriya, and play with him.
“Kacchan! Why do you always play with Midoriya? He’s always the extra!”
The reason the smartest kid kept hanging around the clumsiest one was simple.
“Huh? I’m only letting him tag along because he’s weak! I’m smart!”
He had really just been helping Midoriya out of pure goodwill.
It was something he did with a child’s heart, but it still meant that the Bakugo of that time had genuine kindness and consideration in him.
Midoriya admired that Bakugo.
He admired the friend who was the smartest, who could do anything, and who always included him in their games.
But then, in childhood, Bakugo’s powerful Quirk awakened, and everyone around him began praising him far too much.
He was the best. He would become the best. He was the best suited to be a Hero.
Too much praise can sometimes become poison.
For some people it becomes motivation, but for Bakugo, the reckless praise of those around him became the poison of arrogance.
“So that’s how he ended up like that.”
“...Yeah.”
He was, quite literally, a monster created by his environment.
Even in elementary school, and even after entering middle school, there was no one who could stop Bakugo.
And to begin with, there wasn’t anyone who could.
...Not until Hakuji appeared.
“Hakuji-kun!”
Midoriya, who had somehow kept the story going this long, suddenly bowed deeply to Hakuji.
“I know it’s weird to ask a classmate for this, but... please!
Help Kacchan learn how to walk properly, even if it’s just now!
Kacchan may not look like it, but I think he’s fundamentally a good person! He’s got a strong Quirk too! Unlike me, he could become a top Hero.
But... not if he stays like this.
No matter how strong he is, if his heart stays like that, someday Kacchan’s pride is going to break him with his own hands.
So... please, Kacchan!
Beat him up!!”
Midoriya still admired Bakugo Katsuki.
“Are you okay with this? Even after all the bullying from this guy, you still want him to go straight?”
“...Because I know Kacchan was a good person to begin with. It’s fine.”
“.........Hmph.”
Hakuji, who had been listening silently to Midoriya, smiled faintly and looked at the blond back of Bakugo’s head, still lying there.
“You really are a funny guy, Izuku. Really funny. That’s why I like you even more.”
He had no sword called a Quirk, but Hakuji could only laugh as he looked at Midoriya, who kept moving forward more honestly than anyone else.
“It’s late today. Go to sleep. This guy... well, he’ll handle himself.”
“...Yeah.”
Midoriya could only bow his head, feeling that Hakuji had subtly refused his request.
But Midoriya didn’t know.
He didn’t know that Hakuji had lied to him.
He didn’t know that when Hakuji had tapped Bakugo’s forehead earlier, there had already been someone whose consciousness had returned.
And he didn’t know that Bakugo’s childhood friend had heard every single sincere word he had said up to that point.
Midoriya didn’t know.
On that dawn...
Swish...
The faint sound of someone getting up barely reached the cabin.
“.........”
The one who had risen sat for a moment, thinking deeply about something, then abruptly stood and walked out of the cabin.
Outside, the bright full moon gently touched his swollen face.
“Yo. Nice night, Bakugo Katsuki.”
And then.
Hakuji, sitting on a rock, greeted Bakugo as if he had been waiting all along.
“...You.”
“Oh? You’re not just charging at me this time?”
Unlike before, Bakugo didn’t even take a stance. He just glared at Hakuji with a look full of deep thought.
“...Screw you. If I use my Quirk any more, it’ll go on my record.”
Bakugo made an excuse so absurd even he thought it was ridiculous, then tried to walk past Hakuji.
“He’s a good one. That guy is.”
But at the words Hakuji said from beside him, Bakugo’s feet stopped again.
“.........”
“Think it over carefully, Bakugo Katsuki.
You’ve been given a chance to live a proper life.”
“...Shut up.”
“The path down without traps is over there. The bus to the city’s already stopped, but... well, walk it off while you think.”
As he said that, Hakuji tossed Bakugo a small flashlight.
Bakugo caught it and clenched it so tightly his fingers cracked.
After that, he said nothing and went down the mountain.
Bakugo descended the mountain, battered all over as Midoriya had asked.
And not by just anyone.
By Midoriya’s words.
“...Because I know Kacchan was a good person to begin with. It’s fine.”
Those words had beaten Bakugo down.
“Damn it, that Deku bastard. How dare he ask me to beat him up?”
Bakugo muttered under his breath as he walked alone along the lonely country road.
“Next time I see him, I’m executing him, you Deku bastard.”
But then...
“Those damn bastards think they know who I am...”
“[...]Who are you supposed to be?”
“[...]Some pathetic loser who got help from Deku and still got knocked out three times without doing anything?”
“[...]You already saw today who the real loser is, didn’t you?”
Bakugo felt nausea rise in his throat when someone muttered inside his own mind.
After that day, until graduation, Bakugo never once spoke to Midoriya or Hakuji.
Every time he saw those two...
“Be reborn, boy.”
“...Because I know Kacchan was a good person to begin with. It’s fine.”
He felt utterly pathetic.
TMI.
1. Midoriya accidentally unleashed Wind Release: Mouth Technique.
2. If Bakugo had charged at Hakuji one more time at the end, he would have had a full-body fracture appointment.
3. Work, ChatGPT! Work!!!
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