Cherry Bomb

Let Me Watch What You Become

Bakugo

Asuga collapsed like a load of bricks. And she wasn't moving.

"ASUGA HAS BEEN IMMOBILIZED!!! BAKUGO IS THE WINNER!!!!"

My eyes darted to her thermos. I leaped over the borderline. Once I retrieved it, I went back over the line to Asuga.

She's in one piece, I thought with relief. But I've seen corpses that looked better. With my good arm, I pulled her up so her head rested on my knee. Then I pressed two fingers to her throat, feeling for a pulse.

I breathed in sharply at the sight of her. Parts of her clothes fused to her skin. Her eyebrows were singed off. Her face was flushed red with fever. Under my fingers, her skin was hot as fire. If she's dead, I have to leave her and join Deku. That was the worst-case scenario. The idea of leaving her made me sick. But I had to join the others. I'd be surprised if the League isn't already here. She and I aren't in any condition to fight. If the villains find us like this, we're in deep crap.

But hope flooded me. I felt a pulse under my fingers. Which meant a change in plans. First priority in a crisis: search and rescue. I opened the nozzle on her support item and splashed some water on her face, but it turned to steam and evaporated. Come on, Asuga. You have to wake up! Adrenaline spiked in my blood with every second that ticked by.

Asuga's eyes fluttered open.

I gasped. "Asuga!"

With a trembling hand, she reached up and fumbled for the thermos.

I put the nozzle up to her mouth. She placed her hand on my wrist for support as she drank it down slowly.

I opened my mouth to ask, can you walk? But Asuga was barely able to keep her eyes open. Her pulse against my wrist was faint and slow.

After a few minutes, the water drops hitting her skin stopped turning into steam. She struggled to sit upright.

I didn't waste any time. "Get up." I grabbed her by the shirt and hurled her across my shoulders. "On your feet."

Asuga tried, but her attempts to grip anything with her fingers felt like butterfly wings. Her strength was gone.

I jumped out of the way when a drone came crashing down to the ground. It shattered into thousands of metal shards.

"What the hell?!"

Then there were dozens of them. Drones. Cameras. Recording Devices. All falling from the sky, charred and broken. Someone's taking them out so the world can't know we're being attacked, I realized. Those bastards! I watched, stunned as a few of them disintegrated completely before they even touched the ground.

I've seen something like this before...

My blood ran cold. My joints locked up with fear.

"EVERYONE PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST EMERGENCY EXIT!!!!"

"Leave me," Asuga whispered.

I grabbed her shirt collar and pulled. "Didn't you hear?! We have to GO!" We're sitting ducks in here.

She winced. "I'm just gonna slow you down."

With my good arm, I scooped her up and got back to my feet. "Nothing slows me down," I snapped at her. "I SAID, ON YOUR FEET!"

Asuga gasped, surprised. Then gingerly started lowering her feet down. She almost fell over. I held out my arm for her. She grabbed it to steady herself.