Firecracker- A Katsuki Bakugo fan fiction

CHAPTER 4: FACELESS

I awoke to the sound of a voice, as my eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness around me. But it wasn't the same voice as the one I had heard before. This one sounded female, and whoever she was, she was playfully nudging me in an effort to wake me up.
"Katsuki! KATSUKI! Wake up! You've been out for a while now!" As my vision became clear, I took a good look at the girl in front of me. She looked pretty young, probably just a little kid, and her yellow eyes looked at me curiously. She had long red hair that trailed down her shoulders, with only a hairpin to keep the crimson strands away from her face. There was something strange about the pin. It was fairly simple, a white shade with the number nine engrained on it in black, but there was a strange aura surrounding it. I took a moment to take in my surroundings. We appeared to be in a destroyed city, and we were hiding behind a broken car.

"Who the fuck are you???" I brushed away her hand, trying to get up. But almost immediately, I sat down once again, breathing heavily.

"Jeez. Leave it to you to only make your injuries worse." She laughed, giving me a good natured grin.

I looked down and realised that I had been injured on the right side of my torso, now bandaged to avoid more bleeding. Judging by the wound, it was probably a slash from a knife.

"I guess you don't remember the first time we met."

She held out her hand to shake.

"I'm Nine. Nice to meet you."

I sighed in frustration. This fucking sucks. But she's probably my best bet at information. I sighed, and begrudgingly shook her hand.

"Bakugo."

"Oh I know. But I prefer Katsuki, so I'll just be calling you that, kay?" Nine giggled when she saw my perplexed look.

"How the fuck do you know my first name??? And more importantly, who are you?"

"I know practically everything about you. And I already told you, my name's Nine."

"Maybe I should phrase this in a way that will go through your thick skull. What are you??? And what are you doing in here???"

"I'm here to help you." She turned serious, her yellow eyes giving me a look of sympathy.

"I'm an AI created to assist you in the simulation in case things get hairy."

"Well. It seems pretty fucking hairy right now."

Suddenly, she stood up and shot a beam of light from her palm to some sort of a beast on the left, her white and black frilly dress blowing in the wind.

It looked awfully familiar.

"Is that...?"

"Yes. It's a Nomu. They're quite a lot of these around here. But don't worry. I think we're fine for now."

She kneeled down and stared at me.

"Anyway, I'm assuming you have questions."

"Yeah. What the hell's going on here?! Who was that guy?!"

Her face turned serious yet again. "I think that was a villain. I don't know who they are, but they somehow infiltrated your mind. Not to mention for some reason our communication has been cut off from the rest of the UA staff, so we're essentially stuck like this."

"Can you tell me more about this dick?" As you can see, I was pretty pissed.

"Well, for starters, they drugged you unconscious to presumably kill you before I stepped in. They slit your torso before I arrived. I can only be summoned if I sense pain, so I'm sorry about that, but your wounds aren't fatal and since I don't know what their name is....."

She shuddered. "They don't have a face so I'm calling them FACELESS."

"Really?" Jeez. That totally wasn't creepy at all. Ironically, they would be easy to spot in a crowd.

Nine nodded. "Pretty cool name right. Sounds badass."

"More like it sounds stupid."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, either way, they're a bit of a problem."
She fired yet another light beam at a Nomu that approached us.

"You've got a lot of these in your head. Thank god they're easier to take down compared to the actual real Nomu. I mean, I'm not surprised. They're probably a serious source of trauma for you."

I gritted my teeth, frustrated. "Don't make assumptions about me."

She glared at me, her yellow eyes cold and spiteful for a split second.
"Don't make me laugh. I never assume. I know everything about you."

That look of hers managed to intimidate me enough to make me shut up. Using all of my strength, I managed to summon tiny explosions in my palms, and couldn't help but grin.

I looked at Nine. She stared at me back, this time her eyes friendlier.

"I need you to get me in a standing position. I can rid of those damn things on my own with a blast. Or at least, I can hold them off long enough."

Her eyes traveled to my clenched fist, and all the way to my gauntlets.

She smiled.

"Alright."

Instead of moving me, she used her beams to somehow compress the car, thus exposing us and giving me a clear place to fire.

"Let's hope this works."

I smirked. "I thought you didn't assume."

She laughed. "You're right. I already know how this will play out."

I unclenched my fists and turned to the flaming city, flinching slightly. The whole place was in flames, and there were Nomu all around. All of those unfeeling, terrifying creatures encircled us, practically brain-dead. Those unsightly abominations were practically a killing machine.

And I was scared of them.

I was scared because they seemed invincible. I was scared because they took down someone who I thought was invincible. I was scared. I am scared. I'm scared. I'm fucking scared.

I got ready to shoot. For a split second, my eyes meant that of a Nomu. For something so robotic-like, it's eyes weren't dead. They were filled with sadness, sorrow even, as though they didn't want this. A part of me felt sympathy for those things, but I gritted my teeth and tried my best to evade those thoughts.

I put my arms together and my mouth grabbed both of the gauntlet pins in order to detonate them.

Fuck You.

An cataclysmic explosion erupted throughout the city, as rubble rained down on us. I closed my eyes, but nothing ever hit me.

"You did it." Nine said. She was cold and unfeeling again, practically emotional, her yellow eyes glowing, staring at me.

"Stage one. Passed successfully."