PUPPET // KATSUKI BAKUGO [1]

Chapter 70 // An End and A Beginning

You awakened to darkness. Your limbs ached, and your body felt heavy. You looked around, but the movement shifted the piles of rubble that glued your body to the floor.

You panted, winced, and cried out as you arched your back and tucked your knees under your body to help yourself sit up.

The cement that once subdued you tumbled off your body, allowing you to properly sit up and leaving you with dirt coated skin and tattered clothes.

'How did I get here?' you thought to yourself. 'What happened? The last thing I remember is Chisaki yelling...something.'

You squeezed your eyes shut and rubbed your temple in an attempt to remember something, anything, but it was no use.

'I gotta find someone. Where're the guys I was with?' you mentally questioned as you looked around. 'Bakugo, Shinso, Aizawa. Where are they?'

You looked around in search for your previous companions, but all you saw was rubble, chunks of cement. However, with the help from the bright sky hovering above you, you managed to catch sight of a piece of fabric.

It was tattered, but you could make out the colors: orange and black. They were the same colors of the costume belonging to a  familiar face.

'Bakugo,' you thought shortly.

You jumped to your feet, halting when a sharp pain jolted throughout your entire body, but you forced yourself to ignore it as you dragged yourself over to the fabric poking out from between two ginormous pieces of fallen cement.

You used the little strength you had to push the pieces of rubble trapped the fabric out of the way, so you could dig further down into the pile.

You pushed, pulled, dug, and shoved as you searched for Bakugo. Some part of you hoped you didn't find him crushed beneath hundreds of pounds of cement, but another part hoped you did find him. If you didn't find him now, when would you?

Eventually, you saw a patch of dirty blond hair, and you immediately began to be more careful with your digging.

You gently removed the remaining chunks of cement and soon revealed the wounded boy that laid beneath them.

Bakugo laid limp with his skin coated in layers of dirt and a tattered costume like you. However, the only difference was that he didn't seem like he would be moving any time soon.

Blood trickled out of his mouth and down his chin. Patches of the red liquid littered his body. His chest was unmoving. His shoulders didn't heave. You moved your hand in front of his nose, and you felt no air, no sign of breathing.

Katsuki Bakugo was dead.

Your chest ached, or maybe it was your heart. You find yourself unable to shed a tear, but you felt a sort of agony deep down inside that refused to let you believe the fact that he was gone.

"No," was all you could mutter, "no, no, no, no, no."

You maneuvered your arms beneath Bakugo's armpits and dragged him out of the crater he laid in. You laid him on top of the layers of rubble that covered the once tiled floor and leaned down to press your ear to his chest.

Nothing. He didn't have a heartbeat, and you couldn't bring one back, but someone else could.

'Eri,' you thought, remembering the girl was somewhere in the vicinity.

You jumped to your feet and brushed off your clothes before stretching your aching limbs and relieving your muscles of any tension they held. Then, you leaned down, lifted Bakugo onto your shoulders with a pained grunt, and proceeded to search for an exit.