Untethered: Bakugou x OC x Todoroki

Chapter 36: Curiosity Killed the Cat

The nausea that roiled within Kaida's stomach hit with such a fierceness that she was nearly crippled by the strength it took to keep from immediately spilling the contents of her stomach. Something was so severely contrastive—this time of using her quirk—than it had ever been before, and the acidic burn of bile bit the back of her throat as she fought with every fiber of strength she could muster to concentrate on the task at hand. She still had an immediate goal to complete; she needed to save Katsuki. A desperate call to protect; a burning necessity deep within, demanding that she keep from harm the one thing she was coming to realize she didn't want to exist without.

Yet, comprehending the sheer force of this wild difference in power was still nearly impossible to manage as the muscles of her arms agonizingly clenched tighter around the heated body held against her front. She didn't have the time to analyze nor the wherewithal to even notice any possible dissimilarities surrounding her because the strain from within her own body was far too great to focus on anything else. Though, as the blonde, caged in her embrace, sucked in his own shaky gasp and opened his frantic, crimson eyes, he was breathlessly at a loss for words as a sheen of wetness glazed over his vision.

What Katsuki saw and felt was something he struggled entirely to find the right words to explain; a strange tugging sensation had his body feeling incomprehensibly heavy, everything around him seemed tinged by an impossibly colorless hue—save for the faint hint of flaming blue around the edges of his periphery, much like his dream from the night before—and butterflies swirled in his stomach as if he were on a rollercoaster, the world seeming to escape his realm of understanding as everything suddenly began to move. The most bizarre sensation clouded his mind from being able to register the pain that his body was most likely in and he felt a nostalgic twinge in his chest when he chanced a wild glance at the farthest place he could see past Kaida's shoulder. A dark, pinpointed space centered behind her, now shrinking in his view, as everything zipped passed them. It almost seemed like far away stars painted the consuming blackness...nearly missing it, he'd only barely caught the glimpse from the center of his blurring sight, also noticing an odd shimmer invisibly encasing them, which he could only register if he wasn't looking directly at it.

But before he could decipher why he felt such an intriguing curiosity toward the condensing expanse and the glittering force field surrounding them, he felt a shift in gravity that dropped his stomach to his feet, the distraction from any previous physical pain almost completely fizzling out.

Hearts thrashing in their cages, the next moment found both Kaida and Katsuki gasping for air as they broke the surface of what they easily realized was a body of water, painfully coughing to expel the unexpected fluid from their protesting lungs.

When reality began to sink in, as they each attempted to catch their breath with their emotions on overdrive—not to mention the utter fatigue brought on by their physical exertion or injuries—the two blinked rapidly, gaping and panting as they peered into the other's eyes. Fathoming what had just happened left them both in silent awe. Each of their hearts thrashed and their affection for one another bloomed throughout their bodies, adrenaline fueling their adoration, and Kaida's pupils bounced back and forth between Katsuki's before landing on his dripping, parted lips.

Neither knew what move to make; Katsuki, bursting at the seams with pride at the achievement Kaida had just executed—despite the circumstances with which it took to get her there, the shock threatening to drop him—and he was beyond relieved at the sight of her safe before him, wishing for nothing more than to wholly embrace her just to make sure she was real. But...he commanded himself to give her the option to extend that invitation first before he threw himself at her. They'd obviously just been through an extremely stressful event, each of them definitely needing looked over to make sure neither required being taken to a hospital, and he didn't want to dump his sentiments on her if she wasn't feeling the same way, yet his veins sang with respect and fondness for his lover, coupled with sheer gratitude that he couldn't understand.