Long Time Coming

Fantasy vs Reality

"Kirishima!"

He sounded pathetic, he knew he did. Even to his own ears his voice was desperate, thick with emotion and too loud -so loud. Frantic; wild in a decidedly not angry, completely forlorn way. Bakugou raised his palm as the eternity stretched before them, his heart hammering against his ribs painfully. Kirishima's curves and softness twisted and angled; hardened and vanished into something unconquerable. Something Bakugou believed in with an innocent fervor that rivaled his admiration of All Might's once unattainable power. Still Bakugou had to try; he had to save the man who had saved him so many times in so many more ways than one. He threw the ignited ball in his hand, letting the power intensify as he added to it. An endless stream of explosions

Bigger. Bigger. It had to be more powerful. Enough to stop the missile, enough to change its trajectory, slow it down. Stop it.

Kirishima turned to him, his body changing, morphing, solidifying deeper, harder. Everything once soft in his form now gone. The brilliant light of the rocket illuminating him in jagged harsh tones that truly brought the demon to life. But Bakugou knew better. Bakugou knew- his heart clenched as Kirishima's mouth twisted wider in what could only be a grin. The realization dawned on him that he wouldn't be able to fix this outcome. He wouldn't be able to save him. Not even this once.

"Plus Ultra." Kirishima rasped, his voice scratching out of his mouth like rocks grating against one another. Their eyes meeting for only a moment but conveying so much that Bakugou desperately wished he'd been able to say before.

The missile struck, exploding upon impact - barely impeded by the blow-back of Bakugou's attack. The light was brilliant and hot, scalding even for Bakugou at a distance as he stumbled back, falling to the ground painfully. His body slack in shock; dismay. His heart too frozen to break as he watched his friend, his best friend, arms open wide, engulf the flames like something risen from the underworld.

His clothes fell away as tongues of fire licked at him, billowing around him; his body so hard and angled that it wasn't even human anymore. There was nothing recognizably mortal about the red head - not even his hair. His teeth gnashed as his foot pushed forward, his throat releasing a guttural roar that shook the Earth around them; his feet digging into the asphalt, sinking up to his calves as he pushed the consuming flames back. The people he was protecting struggled to right themselves, to run away. They were deserting him.

Bakugou couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. He moved to his knees, pulling himself forward. He needed to help. He had to help. Somebody had to- Somewhere in the back of his mind he was raging to do something but his body simply wouldn't obey. He was watching as Kirishima broke, pieces of his skin cracking and crumbling to dust in the aftermath, blowing away in the wind. Like glitter-

Bakugou frowned. Glitter? That was wrong.

That was new.

He pushed himself to standing, his frown morphing to a gaped mouthed stare as he realized what was happening. It was like a damned Pokemon evolution. Kirishima was changing, fucking levelling up right before his eyes.

The pressure and heat of the missile reacting with his quirk. Bakugou watched as Kirishima's skin took on a glass-like quality; dark tinted, glossy. The light refracted in rainbows and lights all around him. For each part that cracked or broke off another layer grew in its place; fracturing, adding more beauty to the terrible scene before him. Something hot and large swelled in his chest as the explosion faded, as Kirishima's arms lowered and his back sagged. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cuss until the white-hot emotion inside of him had been spent. He wanted to run up and touch every inch of the smooth, iridescent Red Riot standing triumphant in the aftermath.