The lost continent

Chapter 36

Kirishima blinks. It’s light again - though not much of it, really. But there’s enough to see. He can make out Bakugou’s white shirt in the dull surroundings. He’s sitting on a rock, staring intently ahead into the vast expanse before him, both endless and abrupt.

Kirishima follows his gaze, past the black water, to beyond. It was a cave within a cave, a lake underground. Craggy scratches run across the wall, and Kirishima sees the rocks softly bulging outwards around it, not unlike those behind the waterfall.

Bakugou turns around. His face breaks into relief when he sees him, and Kiri feels the same tightness in his heart release.

“Thank god.” Bakugou says.

Kirishima can only nod. They were warned of being tested, and tested they were, though not quite in the way Kirishima expected. He had thought the challenge would be more physical than a mental test of strength.

“Are you okay?” Kirishima asks. He feels tender all over, and not in a nice way. He doesn’t want to press Bakugou about his time if he’s feeling anything like he is.

Bakugou nods. He looks hollower, somehow. Whatever he experienced took its toll.

“It was my family,” Kirishima says, unable to help himself. His heart aches again at the thought. “But I’m okay. I’ve decided where I want my future to lie.”

“Good,” Bakugou says, smiling.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Kirishima says quickly.

“I’ll tell you eventually,” Bakugou says. “I always do. Where’s Mina? She went before you, right?”

There’s a scuffle on the rocks behind them, and Sero comes from the glass, looking frightened but determined.

“How did you know that?” Kirishima grins. The smile feels odd on his face- like the sadness caked around him in the darkness was finally drying and cracking off.

“I know my crew.” Bakugou smiles back. He moves over and motions for Kirishima to sit next to him. The closer Sero gets, the more he looks alive again.

“Ah, don’t touch the water, though,” Bakugou says, nodding at where the water gently nudges the shore.

“What’s wrong with it?” Sero asks warily, his voice scratchy. He steps back a little.

Bakugou reaches down for a stone and chucks it far into the water.

Before it even hits the surface, the lake erupts with a shrieks and crashes- monstrous fish-like things all bounding for whatever broke their peace.

“What the fuck are those,” Sero says, stepping back further again.

Bakugou shrugs. “Piranha? Something like it. They’re big.”

“There’s always something.” Sero clicks his tongue. “What’s next, Captain?”

All, be tempted not,

With the shore, don’t part,

Entrance them the way they do you,

And wade to break the grotto’s heart.

“And after that?”

Bakugou looks at him. “That’s it.”

Kirishima looks out at the lake, the ripples from the strange fish coming closer until they hit the shore out of rhythm with the natural tide, their fins looking torn as they grapple against the water's flow, never leaving the wave's embrace.