A Means to an End | Katsuki Bakugou x Male Reader

Chapter 18

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(M/N) threw himself into training with vengeance. Eat, live, and breathe the workouts, drills, weapons practice, lectures on tactics. A handful of them were moved into an additional class that gave him hope that he was a contender for the actual war. The soldiers simply called it the Block, but the tattoo on his arm listed it as S.S.C, short for Simulated Street Combat. Deep in 13, they had built an artificial Capitol city street. The instructor broke them into squads of eight and they attempted to carry out missions - gaining a position, destroying a target, searching a home - as if they were really fighting their way through the Capitol. The thing was rigged so that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. A false step triggered a land mine, a sniper appeared on a rooftop, guns jammed, a crying child led them into an ambush, squadron leaders - who were just voices on the programme - got hit by a mortar and they would have to figure out what to do without orders. Part of (M/N) knew it was fake and they weren't going to kill him. If he set off a landmine, he would hear the explosion and have to pretend to fall over dead. But in other ways, it felt pretty real in there - the enemy soldiers dressed in Peacekeeper uniforms, the confusion of a smoke bomb. They even used gas. Neito and (M/N) were the only ones to get their masks on in time. The rest of their squad got knocked out for ten minutes. And the supposedly harmless gas (M/N) took a few lungfuls of gave him a massive headache for the rest of the day.

Ryuko and her crew taped Neito and (M/N) on the firing range. (M/N) knew Shoto and Denki were being filmed as well. It was part of a new prop series to show the rebels preparing for the Capitol invasion. On the whole, things were going pretty well.

Then Katsuki started showing up for their morning workouts. The manacles were off, but he was still constantly accompanied by a pair of guards. After lunch, (M/N) saw him across the field, drilling with a group of beginners. (M/N) didn't know what they were thinking. If a spat with Fumikage could reduce him to arguing with himself, he had no business learning how to assemble a gun.

When (M/N) confronted Kan, he assured him that it was all for the camera. They had footage of Kyoka getting married and Neito hitting targets, but all of Panem was wondering about Katsuki. They needed to see he was fighting for the rebels, not for Nezu. And maybe if they could just get a couple of shots of the two of them, not kissing necessarily, just looking happy to be back together-

(M/N) walked away from the conversation right then. That was not going to happen.

In his rare moments of downtime, (M/N) anxiously watched the preparations for the invasions. Saw equipment and provisions readied, divisions assembled. There was much talk of the opening offensive, which would be to secure the train tunnels that fed into the Capitol.

Just a few days before the first troops were to move out, the instructor unexpectedly told Neito and (M/N) she had recommended them for the exam, and they were to report immediately. There were four parts: an obstacle course that assessed physical condition, a written tactics exam, a test of weapons proficiency, and a simulated combat situation in the Block. (M/N) didn't even have time to get nervous for the first three and do well, but there was a backlog in the Block. Some kind of technical bug they were working out. A group of them exchanged information. This much seemed true. They would go through alone. There was no predicting what situation they would be thrown into. One boy said he heard it was designed to target each individual's weaknesses.

(M/N)'s weaknesses was a door he didn't even want to try open. But he found a quiet spot and tried to assess what they might be. The length of the list depressed him. Lack of physical brute force. A bare minimum training. And somehow his standout status as the Mockingjay didn't seem to be an advantage in a situation where they were trying to get them to blend into a pack.