Erring From The Path Of Heroism (UT x BNHA Crossover Rewrite)

Chapter 1 - First Step (Dirt Trails)

I know, very slow updates, but hey! Inspiration strikes at the strangest of almost midnights.

"Bye Kills! Thanks for dropping me off today." Izuku hummed as he stepped through his portal, shoes scraping softly on the concrete beneath. A stark contrast to click of tile or the quiet thud of wood, but something he'd have to adjust to when returning to the Surface.

"Have fun in Hero School." Killer grinned brightly with a joyful little lilt to his voice. "Don't forget, stab the strongest one in the classroom to establish dominance~" The skeleton hummed cheerily, waving his knife in a goodbye.

A flurry of shifting shadows was all the glitch child saw as he turned his back on the portal to start walking, and he heard the start of a; "Killer do not tell my Hero child to-" But Nightmare cut off as the portal sealed shut, and Izuku stepped out of the little alleyway he had warped to to get to UA when taking his exam.

Something was different this time. Sure, he had entered the grounds before, but stepping into the main building, messenger bag slung over his shoulder and the strap clasped in both pale, scarred hands, was so entirely disconnected from the nervous walk into the testing grounds that it felt like another school, even.

This was...really it. He was going to be a hero. He had erred so far from that path in his time outside his little universe, but now he was back and felt more like a hero than ever.

Determination.

Izuku took a deep breath in, and started walking down the halls. He didn't bring the map he received as part of the acceptance letter, but the glitch was relatively sure he knew where he was going. The 1-A classroom, which hopefully wouldn't be too far from the entrance.

He lived with Sans variants after all. Even though Error had nearly endless energy, and Nightmare and Cross were both technically Swap Sanses, the Murder Time Trio had certainly spent enough time to corrupt the not-monster into laziness.

The halls were surprisingly empty for a first day of school. Huh. He supposed he was a little early, then, and made a mental note to keep waking up that early to avoid the morning rush of full school corridors.

As Izuku found his classroom, with red letters printed on the door thrice his height, a voice rang out behind him. "Oh, Joku, it's you!" He turned, and it was Uraraka.

"Hey Uraraka!" He greeted in return, pushing the door open to see-

Kacchan.

Katsuki was here.

And a blue haired-boy, sitting diligently in his seat, eyes forward. But that wasn't what he was focused on.

"Kacchan?" He blurted on instinct, staring at the blond boy, who flinched, and jumped up to stare at him in shock.

"...Izuku?" Izuku turned away, he couldn't deal with this yet. Not when his raw-edged wounds had never healed, just left to bleed until he was numb to it. Not when seeing (Kacchan? Katsuki? Bakugo?) the one who drove him to the Mountain again had torn that weeping ache open further.

Izuku waved his hand as if dismissing the other. "...Not right now." He sighed, turning away to sit in his seat. "Later, if we must." The human seemed almost stunned at his words. Maybe it was at how much he'd changed and grown from that terrified and desperate eleven year old, pleading for belief about his Magic.

(If he really wanted to know, there was a little black spot buried so deep under the bright shining Determination of his SOUL. If he truly was that desperate little boy, he would've reached for the small power it gave him, would have felt the emotions that rippled across his f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶?̶ ̶t̶o̶r̶m̶e̶n̶t̶o̶r̶?̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶y̶?̶ ̶e̶n̶e̶m̶y̶?̶  former acquaintance's mind, could have dug and torn and felt in any way for any last hint of regret or malice. But he did not wish to do that. The little seedling in his SOUL would never grow beyond that hint, his parents had worked hard to ensure that, and he would not sour their efforts just to feel at a now-stranger's emotions towards him.)

A slight glimpse of colour-that-was-not broke the Guardian out of his thoughts as a distinctly red aura started drifting through the bottom of the door. In his quiet musings, it seemed the rest of the class had filtered in, half of them still standing and talking to each other. But that wasn't what drew his focus.

Every Aura manifested differently. Most came in sights, some weighed on him in feeling, others were quiet sounds that were irritating until they faded into background noise, a rare few were scents that quivered in the air, and even less were tastes. Sometimes an Aura would manifest in more than one sense.

This was one of the occasions. This Aura was red, glinting light, that shifted whenever Izuku moved his head, and it pressed down on him, as if a weighted blanket had been draped over his shoulders.

Auras were good for feeling powers, not personalities. But over the four years he had been taught to wield his own, and his Sight, the Destroyer had learned to trust in the subtle twists and whispers of Aura to tell him, in rather broad and occasionally inaccurate terms, just who and what he was dealing with.

He tilted his head calmly and watched the light shift into more fractals, like squinting at a lightbulb, and a cotton-soft smile pulled at his lips, fuzzy around the edges.

This would be interesting.

~~~

Katsuki felt like he had seen a ghost. Because he had.

Izuku Midoriya was dead, he had been sure of it. It had been his fault. For four painful years his heart had ached, mind whirled with all the regret.

He had been the one to-

The one-

The one to...

He couldn't even think it.

His hands trembled and he clenched them tight, stuffing them into his pockets where the rapidly beading sweat on his hands soaked into the already nitro-glycerine damp fabric. Izuku was declared missing a staggering two weeks after he disappeared, and the trail had ran cold fast. For months all that Katsuki could think of were regrets, half written apologies drafted on tear stained paper, most ending up singed or scorched or torn or crumpled, because they never seemed good enough. Not after what he'd said, what he'd done.

Izuku even had a quirk, not that it mattered. Strings that dripped from his eyes, that little eight year old Katsuki had laughed at uncaring and disbelieving, unable to see through his own arrogance and ego-

Katsuki's chest spasmed uncomfortably as he slouched further back in his chair, desperately trying to ignore the dead boy in the seat behind him.

(His therapist was not going to believe this, something distant within him laughed hysterically, smothered under an emerald green gaze.)

~~~~~~

(1106 Words)