When the Stars Align

Chapter 14

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"You're the kid from the 'Sludge Incident'!!"

To say you were pissed off was an understatement.

All Mights teaching escapades had been revealed to the public as of last night. You figured you'd have enough time before the media found out, maybe a month or two if you were lucky, but they'd been ticked off by some inside source. Now, here they stood in front of U.A.s gates in large groups (Not even a full three days into the school year, mind you), all of them shoving mics and cameras into unsuspecting students faces for some inside scoop on the Pro.

You had always hated the Press. Their nosey demeanors, the way they twisted words to fit their narrative, and their obvious disregard of barriers. Just hearing the tail end of that question left you fuming, beyond disgusted with the fact they felt that it was okay to bring up past attacks just to confirm a story of some sort.

Thankfully, none had noticed you. The Press had already been heckling another student by the time you had arrived, so your presence went virtually unnoticed. Moving quickly, you tried to reach the schools entrance by bypassing the group altogether, remaining on its side rather than cutting in through the middle, when that question had caught your attention.

Turning to look towards the reporter who had uttered those words, you caught a shock of blonde hair, back facing the woman as he tried to stomp through their entourage. They had Bakugou surrounded, all if them shoving cameras at different angles to get a good look at his face, trying to confirm whether or not he had been the victim of the attack that had happened around eleven months ago.

You remembered the 'Sludge Incident' perfectly. Had heard about it from some other members who had been on the streets at that time- a group of middle schoolers walking home had been attacked by a Villain whose body was made out of sludge, making it harder for Heroes to get a grip on him. One of the teens had been taken as a hostage, which ended up with the Villain trying to enter their body and suffocate them in the process. The kid could have died if it wasn't for the intervention of someone in the crowd, giving them enough leg room to breathe right before All Might finally dropped in, eliminating the threat.

After all the muck had been cleaned off of them and their vitals seemed in order, the Press had identified the hostage as the one and only Katsuki Bakugou, pictures of him surfacing all over the internet as he was treated by paramedics.

It had been labeled a PR disaster in the eyes of the HPSC. Sure, All Might had arrived onto the scene on time, knocking out the big bad before anyone died, but the figurative blow had been devastating. Credible news sites posed cynical questions, wondering if Japans Number One had crippled the rest of the Hero World entirely due to how long it had taken to respond to the crisis until All Might came onto the scene last minute.

It was humiliating publicity to say the least, and Bakugous face had been on the forefront of it all.

Even after those sites had been sued due to the usage of a minors photo without written consent by his guardians (Effectively shutting down those articles even if they tried to argue their case by saying no names had made it to the final print), the damage had been done. Nobody could utter anything about that incident without involving Bakugou in turn, using him as an emphasis for their cause. You had remembered how stressed the President had become, urging your coworkers to find outlets that would help bury the story in its entirety.

It was a lot of work, hours and days of bribing and firing, but the story had already been etched into the minds of the public, everyone contributing their own views until it finally died down two months later. In the span of that time, the negative feedback had allowed for more Villains to pop up, all of them dead-set on proving what had been presented to the people-