The lost continent

The End

Bakugou rarely stutters. Maybe when Kirishima tells him something sweet. Maybe when he’s too angry to form a proper sentence. Maybe when he’s really, really, drunk. But even if the most intense of situations, he has a sharp tongue and sharp wit. He doesn’t waste time and he knows exactly what he wants to say.

But now, with a single eye embedded in a rock face, even Bakugou is stunned into an “Um,” and Kirishima has enough time to only dart his eyes towards Bakugou’s face before his very being reverberates with a voice.

Kirishima was chilled before. Now he simply feels incorporeal. His mind feels so sensitive and unguarded, he wants to close his hands around the whole of his head, but at the same time can’t bring himself to do so.

“You are not Yagi.” the voice says. The eye? Kirishima can’t look away.

“I’m not.” leave it to Bakugou to recover first.

“You are not Midoriya.” the voice says.

“I’m not.”

“How did you find me?” Kirishima feels the hold over him shift. He’s not scared, but his body feels petrified, and his gaze goes slowly, as though moving too fast would shatter the feeling he’s suspended in.

“Toshinori Yagi,” Bakugou starts. “He was my... mentor. He died. He left his treasure to Midoriya, my… my friend. But he died, too. He didn’t give the treasure to anyone. It was too quick.”

The eye considers him.

“I… I took the clues from Midoriya. And gathered the lost ones.” Bakugou finishes with a nod of his head.

“You did not inherit them.”

“I did not.”

“What makes you worthy, then?”

Kirishima sees Bakugou’s shocked expression. He opens his mouth to speak but decides better. Kirishima can see his brow pinch together in thought.

“I…” Bakugou looks at the ground, then juts his chin towards the eye, confident. “Nothing. I’m probably not worthy. If I were, Might would’ve picked me. But he didn’t, and I found you all the same, in the end.”

The eye squints up, and then the ground begins to shake.

Mina’s grip resumes its strength on his arm. Kirishima widens his stance against the quake, watching wide-eyed as the wall before them rises higher and higher and higher, pebbles clicking together and swelling around his feet.

Fear spikes through his veins as a face appears before him- one he’s only seen in books and chapters about the end times. His vision pulses with his heartbeat.

The snaking head shakes, bits of rock flicking off. Light starts to stream around them. Kirishima crouches down to keep his balance as the world falls away around him.

He shuts his eyes tight and waits for the end, Mina shrieking in his ear. Maybe he's screaming, too. He can't tell.

After a lifetime of tensing, Kirishima realizes he can only hear ringing in his ears. He slowly removes his hands from his head, and he hears a seagull cry above him. The unmistakable sound of the ocean rushes into his consciousness, and he opens his eyes to the salty, fresh sea.

The cavern fell away.

Or rather, it unwinded. Kirishima looks around at the little islands dotting the water, unable to deny his sight but unable to believe it, either. He feels his knees go weak again when he sees the old face of the sea beast staring down at them.

“Yagi told me about you. He said there could be a chance you would show up.”

“How does he know you anyway?” Kirishima worries at the tone of Bakugou’s voice, addressing this being, likely older than the very earth they knew. Or, didn't know. “And how do you know me?”