My Hero Academia: Ruby and Emerald

Chapter 1: Older Bakugou Katsuki POV

A holdout camp north of where UA was currently stationed had sent out an SOS. That was what had started it—that was what had led to what Katsuki was looking at now.

So. An SOS that Katsuki and Deku had rushed out to answer. A typical scene upon arrival. Collapsed building, air full of concrete smoke, ground littered with debris both annoying and dangerous. Panicking civilians who were still, for some godforsaken reason, refusing to pack up and move into a designated safe zone. Deku trying to both reassure them and strongarm them into coming to UA.

Eight years of officially being considered a Pro Hero. Three years at UA before that, doing a lot of Pro-level work even without all the proper qualifications. And it still managed to annoy Katsuki every fuckin’ time that some damn civilian was an idiot. Even though it really shouldn’t be a surprise at this point.

It probably didn’t help that they were living in a Japan that was largely controlled by All for One, which automatically meant everything was twice as annoying as it needed to be.

Anyway. Standard situation. Controlled explosions to break down bigger debris and control the collapse so it didn’t unexpectedly crush anyone if a stray pebble moved an inch. Deku on more direct evac duty. Shouto inbound, slow as shit because his fuckin’ father needed to “have a chat” with him. A basic summary of how everything in their lives went: Deku helping people, Katsuki controlling the situation, Shouto nipping at their heels.

A villain disrupting shit at the worst possible time.

She was barely recognizable, was the thing. Katsuki only vaguely recalled seeing her face on the ever-growing updated list of new League members. It wasn’t his fault that he had trouble remembering all the goddamn new recruits that popped up like fleas on a terrier—every time they had a meeting to review the week’s additions Deku looked like someone had kicked his fuckin’ puppy. Obviously Katsuki had to give that his full attention. The villains would always be there, but it was his job as Deku’s idiot fiance to make sure the nerd was okay.

So it came as no surprise that when Katsuki jumped in to fight, he was relying on Deku’s knowledge.

“Her name is Vanish!” Deku shouted, launching forwards with a combination of Float and Blackwhip to scoop up all the civilians that were too close to the fight. “She has a five-point-touch quirk that makes anything she touches disappear!”

“Like Shigaraki?” Katsuki hollered back, jumping backwards to avoid a swipe of splayed fingers.

“No, instantly vanish! Like, poof, gone!”

“Like faster Shigaraki,” Katsuki muttered to himself. Deku apparently had finished rescuing the last of the civilians from the rubble, because he dropped in on the other side of Vanish, eyes squinted in a way that Katsuki knew meant he was coming up with a strategy.

Katsuki let off a larger-than-average blast from both palms. Like most villains without fire-based quirks, she reacted to the explosion by leaping backwards as fast as she could.

Right into Deku’s waiting net of Blackwhip.

Ha. Victory. It always tasted so sweet, even against third-rate D-listers like this chick.

Blackwhip had pinned her hands to the outside of each thigh. Even restrained, she held one finger on each hand carefully aloft, in the manner usually adopted by people with five-point-touch quirks. Katsuki took his quirk-suppressant cuffs out of his utility belt, and approached carefully.

“Good work, Kacchan!” Deku beamed at him. As always, it made the victory seem even better.

“Heh. You know it, nerd. Good work,” Katsuki replied. It had been good work. Good, simple strategy. Fast evacuation.

They maneuvered carefully as Deku used Blackwhip to separate and hold Vanish’s hands in a mockery of the handcuffs that Katsuki was about to attach around her wrists. Deku had to stand in front of Vanish so he could see what he was doing, and Katsuki was pressed close to be in range of her hands. Katsuki reached out to cuff her, Deku loosened Blackwhip to lets the cuffs go on—

Vanish lunged—

Katsuki lunged forwards in response, intent on getting her in cuffs, but he was lunging into thin air. He heard Deku shout out in alarm beside him.

The first thing Katsuki noticed was that the air, inexplicably, was clear. No kicked-up dust from the building collapse, no smoke from the resulting electrical fires, nothing. Second, he was standing on grass.

Third. He was looking into a mirror. Familiar red eyes were staring up at him, wide with an emotion he didn’t recognize on himself. Probably because his reflection didn’t look right. It was… too chubby-cheeked. Too short.

It was, he realized with mounting horror, not a reflection. It was him, standing there in a black gakuran. Eyes wide, cheeks betraying his youth. Shorter than he was now by a full forty centimeters. There was only one possible reaction.

“What the fuck,” Katsuki said, at the same time as his younger self. Their voices, one post-puberty and one just starting, harmonized. Katsuki recoiled at the same time his younger self did.

He grimaced. “This in-synch shit needs to cut out now,” Katsuki demanded of the universe. Since his younger self did not echo his words as he said them, he supposed that for once, the universe obliged.

“Are you… me?” asked the tentative voice of a much younger Deku. It snapped Katsuki out of where he had been stuck staring at his own younger self, but now he was entrapped by the sight next to him.

In a mirror of how Katsuki and Baby Katsuki were, Deku and Baby Deku were also standing and staring at each other like idiots. The difference was that, seemingly unlike how Katsuki and Baby Katsuki had clocked each other as each other immediately, Baby Deku was having some trouble getting with the program.

Katsuki supposed it could be excused. Deku had his mouthguard up to filter out the concrete dust, and it blocked out the bottom half of his face. But still. He was still recognizably Deku.

“Yeah, I’m… you,” Deku answered, seemingly so bewildered and caught off-guard that he couldn’t even mumble about this weird fuckin’ situation.

“I’m really a hero in the future?” Baby Deku asked, tearing up. That was about when Katsuki remembered that, oh, yeah, Baby Katsuki here was a horrible person. His gaze snapped back to his younger self just in time to see how his eyes narrowed and lips lifted in a sneer.

Deku snapped his head over to look at both of them, and spoke before Baby Katsuki could.

“Kacchan, if you attack him, I will put you on the ground before you can blink,” he threatened, voice ice-cold. Katsuki pulled a sneer of his own and reluctantly took a step back. Baby Katsuki’s own sneer faltered as he registered Deku’s tone of voice, and then failed to register which Kacchan he was talking to.

Chump.

Katsuki didn’t really have room to talk, seeing as he had also backed down, but at least he had several memories of Deku being dangerous and scary as fuck in battle, which this Katsuki did not have.

So that was where Katsuki found himself. Holding back from attacking his younger self, for fear of angering his fiance, after responding to what should have been a fairly routine SOS call.

He wondered what he did to deserve this.

To be continued...