K.BAKUGO X READER (Cover art by me)
In a life where I'd be safe in one moment and on the brink of death in another, I realized that he was the only force that could ground me. Of all the people in the world. My volatile co-worker. My menacing rival...
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part seventeen
━━━━ ⟡ ━━━━
We relive the past through our memories. But like old photographs which lose their color and grow weathered and torn, the events of our own history are imperfect, abstract conceptions of not what we saw, but how we saw it and how we felt in that time long ago.
I thought I'd never have to live that horrible nightmare in vivid colors so many times...
Yet, here I was, back at the start of the fall, watching myself come to terms with the reality of my dreams, looking down at Dr. Yao's bleeding, lifeless body. This was the woven truth of my choices. Somewhere, there had to be a faulty stitch. A wrong choice which kept leading my partner to this fate.
If stalling Bakugo wasn't enough to prevent the inevitable, maybe switching up the conflict would be. I watched their fight play out countless times. The blonde-idiot always led with a right hook. Apparently, he'd picked up that habit in high school. And sure, it did its job, but after a quirk recovery, his fleshy opponent wouldn't let him fight back, nor take a breath without drawing blood.
Bakugo was quick. He could always find his footing, but at the end of the day, his attacks were his greatest strength. And his opponent wouldn't give him the chance to utilize a blast big enough to stop him in his tracks until the brutal end of their fight.
The trick was finding the right time for me to interfere. The physical pain was too much to make more than one change. I'd only get one shot.
...I psyched myself out again. It's like trying to will yourself to hold your palm against a scorching stove top, or to place your foot into the embers of a fire. Forcefully accepting that pain does a number to your psyche. But the thought of losing him dragged me down into inescapable despair – the kind that buries into your mind, and makes you do reckless things. It gave me the strength to bite the bullet.
As the villain bent to pick up the metal scrap, I sliced his Achilles. Razors ran up my arm, leeching the life out of me as the force of some invisible debt collector took another payment for interfering with time. Thank God that idiot couldn't see me. I know he would've bitten my ear off knowing the pain I'd put myself through for him.
Yelping and crying is instinctual when your body is burning. Doing so with a relieved smile isn't as natural, but it felt right. Because the villain had tripped, dropping the scrap, giving my partner the opening he needed. His blast echoed through the trees. Their grisly fight came to an early conclusion.
Now, as he searched across the battlefield, his stupid dumbass-of-a partner was still sheltered behind the snowmobile, watching Lynx dash into the line of fire.
