My Hero Academia: Ruby and Emerald

Chapter 16: Younger Bakugou Katsuki POV

Katsuki knew he shouldn’t let it get to him, but he was stuck thinking about Himiko-nee all day. Did he really talk about Deku so much? Sure, Katsuma-nii had been insisting on having conversations and wouldn’t shut up about him treating Deku nicer, or whatever, but did Himiko-nee really have to come to Katsuki’s school and bug Deku with Katsuki’s face on?

And then fucking Fingers and Undercut wouldn’t let him forget about it. As if it was illegal for him to talk about Deku or something. Why the hell did they care?

And what was with the cigarettes? Didn’t they know getting caught with that shit was a fast way to get a high school application denied? Especially if the school they applied to had any sort of fucking standards!

The smell was fucking disgusting, too. Katsuki left them in the courtyard at lunch, and they didn’t talk for the rest of the day.

The real highlight of each day was the end of it, of course. Nothing could beat training under All Might, even if it was at a trash beach. Katsuki could practically feel himself becoming stronger by the day!

And then Deku showed up with some weird red marks on his arm. Perfect circles. They looked like wounds.

Katsuki grabbed Deku’s wrist to take a closer look.

They were definitely some kind of wound.

“What the hell is this, Deku?” Katsuki demanded. The dumb nerd hadn’t been hurt yesterday!

“It’s nothing! It’s nothing!” Deku insisted, trying to pull his arm from Katsuki’s grip. Good fucking luck, nerd. Katsuki was definitely stronger, even if Deku had been bulking up a bit. “Give me back my arm!”

Yagi-sensei came up beside the two of them and peered at Deku’s arm. His face went pale alarmingly fast. “My boy,” he asked, “are those cigarette burns?”

Katsuki froze.

“Cigarette burns?” he echoed.

How the hell would Deku have—wait. Wait. There were two burns, and Katsuki knew two idiots who had taken up smoking today…

… in the same courtyard Katsuki knew Deku ate in to avoid them.

But the two of them had never physically hurt Deku. Katsuki himself had made a point of not hurting the nerd physically, ever since he learned that fighting might go on his record and hurt his chances, way back in the middle of elementary school. They hadn’t hurt him with more than words since then. This was… this was too far.

“Yes,” Yagi-sensei replied, unknowingly striking the final blow against Katsuki’s loyalty to his friends. “Unfortunately, I recognize them. They’re frighteningly common in abuse cases. My boy…” he addressed Izuku, hesitating. “Is your mother…?”

“W-what?” Deku sputtered. “No, of course not!”

“It wasn’t his mom. Auntie Inko is an angel,” Katsuki agreed, barely able to focus on his words past his rage. Deku gestured towards him for emphasis.

“Well, if it wasn’t her, then who was it?” Yagi-sensei asked.

Two slimeball morons who had gone too far, and now would have to pay the price. Katsuki felt some of his rage recede as he formed a plan for what he would do about them. It did always help to have a clear course of action, after all.

“I know who it was. I’ll take care of it,” Katsuki promised, letting go of Deku’s arm. Quickly, Deku snatched it back against his chest. As if Katsuki would grab it again immediately. Dumbass.

Yagi-sensei sighed. “Well, if you insist. Either way, Midoriya-shounen, I can’t let you haul trash with an open burn.”

“But—” Deku started to protest. Yagi-sensei waved a hand through the air to cut him off.