Warrior ⎸ Katsuki Bakugou x fem!reader ⎸ Mulan AU

❀ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴇɪɢʜᴛ: ʀᴇᴛʀᴇᴀᴛ

When you wake up, you're in Chiyo's home - in the same bed you found your father in all those months ago.

Your head feels like cotton, even blinking makes the world around you dizzying. Everything hurts, so much you feel nothing, pain so intense it's numb.

The last thing you remember was being burned alive. You mentally laugh at your predicament, feeling so out of it that you couldn't bring yourself to physically do so. Why couldn't you die?

Immediately, everything rushes back to you, but yet the answers brought forth bring too many questions for you to process.

Was your family okay? Where's Ejiro? Seriously, how are you not dead?

Just then, the door opens revealing your family rushing to your side, each with looks of either worry or relief on their faces. You smile weakly, but it lacks warmth. You're too exhausted to show any form of genuinity.

Eri takes your hand, sniffling softly, your heart breaking as you can do nothing but watch as your younger sister cries, in too much pain to really do anything. Hitoshi and your father stand there in silence comforting the young girl.

Entering right behind them is Ejiro, who bursts in, with tears streaming down his face.

"Cactus, you idiot." he scolds, but you know he doesn't mean it, choking on his own tears, enveloping you in his arms. You don't realize you were crying until the rough pads of his fingers swipe across your face, callused skin felt scarily soft in comparison to your own charred flesh.

"I missed you, Y/N." he says, you want to respond, but your vocal chords were too damaged to create any noise. Your heart throbs, and more tears slip from your eyes. You were so glad Ejiro's okay, but damn your head hurts, your body hurts, your heart hurts, it hurts to function at this point.

Chiyo enters the room, shooing Ejiro and your family out, insisting that you need rest. You made a mental note to thank her later. You loved your family and Ejiro, but right now, you just wanted space to process everything.

When they leave, you cry. Your life... it was gone, with these darn burns that covered your body, muscles weak and unusable- would you never be able to walk, run, fight anymore? The thought only makes you cry harder, heart aching from everything that's happened, wishing that maybe, just maybe in another life, you could be happy.

Maybe Bakugou would like you, maybe you never went to war and you could've happily with your father and siblings - you could've been Maid of Honor at Ochako and Izuku's wedding, or judgmentally sit on the couch with your father and brother as Eri brings home her first boyfriend.

You just wanted a chance to enjoy the mundane things in live, realizing with a sinking heart that you would never be able to - the chance gone before it was even presented to you.

Sleep overtook you soon enough, thanks to the sedatives Chiyo gave you, and you drifted off, finding solace in your subconscious.

Why me?

***

It's the dead of night when you wake again, with a pounding headache- a noise from somewhere in the room startling you awake.

In the moonlight, you see two carmine eyes staring back at you. Immediately you think of Bakugou, body tensing up before you catch a glimpse of silver hair, realizing it's your younger sister.

She steps up to you, tears forming in her eyes again as she takes in your state, your skin black and pink at the same time- even a small gust on wind is enough to make you wince.

"Hey Cattus." she whispers, the old nickname turned new name startles you- given how much work you had put in to forget the name entirely, along with the memories that went with it.