❝Stars Aligned❞ » Katsuki Bakugou x Fem!Reader

91

Your knees buckled beneath the weight of his words, and you collapsed onto the fractured pavement, clutching at the broken earth like it might hold you together when everything else was splintering apart. The fire around you licked higher, crackling with the same rhythm as your uneven breath.

"No..." your voice cracked, raw and small, barely audible even to yourself.

Shigaraki crouched in front of you, tilting his head like he was studying a specimen that had already failed its purpose. His fingers twitched, the faint crackle of decay humming in the air between you.

"Say it," he goaded softly, cruelly.

"Admit it. He died because of you. Because you were too weak to stop me. Too afraid to control what's inside you." You pressed your palms to your ears as if that would silence him.

As if the burning world wasn't just an extension of your own mind. But his voice seeped through every crack, threaded into your bones.

"Stop it," you whispered. "Stop—" you couldn't help but close your eyes and shake your head.

Your insanity was through the roof, you had fully lost it not knowing this was practically a nightmare, not knowing you were strapped to a metal table sedated but still, your quirk had a mind of its own.

The world around you trembled. The fires bent against a sudden wind, your nightmare trying to shift under the pressure of something that wasn't his doing.

Bakugou's voice ripped through the smoke, jagged and desperate, tearing at the seams of the hallucination. You whipped your head toward the sound, and for a fleeting second, you saw him, not lifeless, not broken on the ground, but standing. Whole. His body blazed with sweat and gunpowder as his palms glowed bright with heat.

Your heart jolted violently against your ribs. "Katsuki.."

But Shigaraki's hand clamped down on your shoulder before you could stand. The decay burned, not skin-deep but soul-deep, anchoring you to the collapsing dream. His breath brushed your ear, soft and sickening.

"He's not real. He's just the part of you that doesn't want to let go. But I'm real. I'll always be real. You can't erase me."

Your quirk responded before your thoughts caught up, lava veins igniting beneath your skin, glowing like fissures in stone. The cityscape around you warped, fire bending into spirals, the air itself shuddering with heat.

And for the first time, Shigaraki's grin faltered.

Your eyes shot open as you jolted up on the table, frantic and heavy breathing as you glanced around the lab. Everyone lied on the floor, unconscious as things were thrown in every direction. You couldn't piece together what just happened and your body didn't let you have the time to before it forced you to stand up and step barefoot out of the room.

You couldn't think, couldn't process a single thought as you roamed down a long white hallway full of metal doors. Deep down it felt as if this decay quirk was whispering to you, pointing you in the right direction and as you stood in front of one of the doors, another whisper begged you to open it.

Your eyes were dull, lifeless and empty. Your limbs ached and your quirks bloomed underneath your skin causing the glow to light up the way for you.

After rubbing your ear against your shoulder, you reached over and opened the door that was surprisingly unlocked, your gaze meeting a figure sitting on the edge of the bed almost as if they were waiting for you.

And when he peeked up, glancing at you through the hair that covered his eyes, you recognized that cruel smile that crept up on his face.

"Finally," Shigaraki drawn, standing up from the tiny thin bed.