The Emperor's Dragon II

The Broken Future

It was safe to say that things were not going to plan for Bakugo.

From before the time his quirk had come in, he'd known he was destined for greatness. When his quirk had manifested, and been so powerful, that had simply confirmed his knowledge. More importantly, it had shown the world his destiny. All through elementary and middle school, his teachers had seen it too. They praised his marks, even through their shitty teaching, and they'd praised his quirk.

While they were little more than a footnote in his history, they would bask in his reflected glory. The fact that he'd come from such a shitty background would just confirm to the world that he really had been destined to be the Number One Hero, greater even than All Might.

Bakugo wasn't a fool. He wasn't like the others in his classes, who all said they wanted to be heroes, but actually did nothing to work towards that supposed goal. Katsuki knew he was destined to be the Number One Hero, but he knew he had to work on it. That's why he'd trained as much as possible.

There had been setbacks. UA was one. He'd placed first at the entrance exam and had, naively, he could admit, assumed he'd be number one in class. It had been a bit of a shock to discover that there were others with some skills enrolled with him.

The explosive teen had thought about it for a bit and then he'd come to a rather profound realisation. For once, he was actually in a class with those who could challenge him. He was actually in a class with those who said they wanted to be heroes, and who, like him, had actually done something about it. The fact that he wasn't the best immediately, was simply a factor of his past. He'd excelled in Elementary and Middle Schools, but it hadn't been hard to excel when there was no one to push you further. And so, he hadn't pushed himself as hard as he could.

Which meant that now, he wasn't at the top.

That would change. Katsuki resolved to train harder. He'd be the top of the class because now he had a new benchmark. And since his other classmates weren't absolute losers, he could at least rely on them to have some skill. Less than him, but some skill.

And, Bakugo realised, you couldn't be Number One, unless there were other numbers to show how great you were. And the other numbers would defer to him.

Things had been going well. He was slowly pulling away from the rest of the class. Some of them had tried to be all soft, and friendly but he didn't need that. They'd be his subordinates in the future, but there was no need to pick out those who would be favoured yet. He'd rebuffed their advances. Let them come to him again, once they really knew that they'd never stand on his level. Then he'd lead them.

Things had been progressing as he'd predicted.

Right up until he ran into Mitei Chui. Izuku Midoriya or whatever he was calling himself.

Then everything had gone off the rails.

People had tried to tell him the loss of his quirk was only temporary. Katsuki had tried to tell himself that too.

But he wasn't a fool. As time went on, he could see the way the hero's attitudes changed towards him and the others. They were not so subtly encouraged to look at other courses. The weaklings had done just that, moving into Management, or General Studies, which was just full of hero wannabe's who'd failed to make the grade.

He wasn't moving. He was going to be a hero.

And even if the heroes didn't believe it, he would get his quirk back.

The encouragement to move into another course wasn't the worst of it though. The absolute worst was that everyone treated him as if he was fragile! Classmates who'd once come at him with everything they had during spars now held back. When they thought he couldn't hear or wasn't watching he heard them whispering, and he caught their pitying gazes.