Chapter Text
1
Somebody was going to die because of this.
Somebody was definitely going to die because of this.
His heart was panicking but it was as if the connection between his heart and his body had been severed. Bakugou couldn’t move a single finger and it felt like his whole body was paralyzed. Right, he was poisoned. The villains that attacked the camp injected him with something, some kind of curse’s poison to be exact. Bakugou remembered feeling the coldness seeping through his bones and even now, his brain was still sluggish.
Trapped in his own bag of flesh and skin, darkness consumed him and the silence was…unsettling.
Bakugou was not feeling fear. At least, he didn’t think he was scared. Or maybe his brain was just too busy running over countless different escape plans to have enough space to even register the fear. He was on his own in enemy territory, something that he wasn’t all that unfamiliar with so while his nerves were strung tight, he wasn’t completely consumed by fear.
He was on the ground. It was cold and hard, and felt a bit grainy like no one bothered cleaning in a long time. Bakugou was sure he’d get a rash from the dust alone. His wrists were bound together by leather and metal from what he could feel. He hated it. He hated the feeling of the leather straps around his wrists and the metal pressing against his hands, locking his fingers in place. There were chains on his legs too, chains that wrapped around his ankles so tightly that it was almost as if they were cutting off his circulation and trying to fuse with his bones.
There were no windows in this room.
He could tell because it was too dark. Even with how heavy his eyelids were, he could sense the darkness around him. Trying to make out where he was being held captive was a tediously slow process with his head still pounding like there was a war drum inside his head. His vision was hazy, blurred and disoriented with jigsaw pieces of colors mixed with some lighter patches of gray. Even if it was night outside, it was still too dark and gray for this room to have any windows.
There was blood in the air.
Just the smell of it. The metallic and aged scent clung to the air like the foul scent in public urinals that no amount of bleach could wash out. Great. Somebody was probably tortured here before him then.
A light creak of the floorboards came from above him but it didn’t sound like footsteps. The noise was from the building, a natural thing that came with age. Rotting wood creaking and groaning under the drift of winds. He heard no movement, no actual rumble of the ground that could indicate anybody was coming for him. That was probably a good thing. He still felt too drowsy and he was tied up, not exactly in the best position to fight back right now. Although he could feel the effects of the curse’s poison wearing off, he needed more time to regain his strength.
There were whispers in the dark. Tiny, quiet little noises that Bakugou knew didn’t come from his imagination. The noise of insect wings shuffling against each other, low little cricketing, and the skittling noise of multiple legs rustling against the ground. He could hear them between the cracks on the wall and from the darkest corners in the room. Curses were gathering but they were not enough to cause any actual physical harm.
He hoped that Copycat and the rest of the idiots had enough brains to make it out alright.
This was not a random attack.
The villains had to find out about their camp’s location and time, something that none of the students knew beforehand. Then they came for Bakugou specifically and some kind of curse manipulator was probably working for or with them. Even if the shitheads had no idea what they were injecting him with really was, they had to get their hands on curses from somewhere. Nomu and the poison…something was off. It didn’t add up and none of this was making sense.
A jujutsu sorcerer’s corpse was taken care of in special ways and even their ashes would be treated so no one can use them after their death. Who got access to these bodies? Were the villains using curse manipulators’ bodies? If so, who sold it to them? If they knew to come after him, then that would mean whoever this person was, they knew about his connection with Gojo and Getou. Why did they send villains to come after him during one of UA’s field trips? It didn’t make sense for anybody in the jujutsu world to want to do evil in plain sight, especially when it was a declaration of war on two special grade jujutsu sorcerers. Also, if they were planning to use him against the duo, just leaving him in a random old basement (probably?) somewhere was probably the dumbest move ever. There were no talisman, no seals of any kind or even the presence of a barrier.
He even still had the worm curse on him. It was tucked and shrunk into a small ball inside his pocket.
Why did his captors go through all this trouble just to get sloppy at the end?
Unless…the curse manipulator wasn’t part of the villains’ group. They just sold a service to the villains to aid them in capturing him but that didn’t explain where the Nomus came from.
Even as exhaustion and confusion took hold of him, millions of questions swam inside his head. Bakugou couldn’t help but feel an omniscient evil closing in. It was as if he was walking into a web that was closing in, and the more he struggled, the faster he would be strangled to death in it.
He hated it.
He hated feeling weak and powerless. He hated the fact that he couldn’t move right now and he felt like a sitting duck ready to be butchered and cooked, seasoned with grief and pain. Bakugou didn’t think he was worth targeting, not with the amount of work the criminals poured into pulling off this heist. While he had a good quirk, he was only a first year at UA and if the villains wanted to make a statement, it would have been better to kill him at the camp.
it didn’t make sense for him to be the primary kidnapping target unless it was to unnerve his boyfriends. Now that made his heart pounded so fast that he felt lightheaded even if his body remained immobile. He wasn’t scared of having to face enemies alone.
But he was afraid of other people getting hurt because of him.
His fault.
It would be his fault because he was weak and let himself get caught. He didn’t want to be saved. How could he stay by Gojo and Getou’s sides when he needed to be saved constantly? From curses and now from human villains nonetheless. His boyfriends would have no problem taking out the trash of society on their own.
If only they didn’t have to worry about Bakugou.
Him.
He was the burden.
He was the sandbag dragging them down, a weight that both older teens should do without. They would be better off if they didn’t have to worry about him constantly. The two of them were the strongest and Bakugou didn’t want to see them having to lower their heads or swallow their pride for his sake.
Bakugou needed to get out of here. Wherever here was.
Twitching his fingers, he could feel a bit of control slipping back into his muscles but it wasn’t enough. He could barely squirm half an inch to even roll over onto his back.
And he heard movement. Not his. The noise came from across the room. He saw a black mist and some tacky suit. It was the Warp Gate motherfucker.
The villain had a key in his hand.
Chains rattled and Bakugou felt himself being pulled up.
“The doctor and our guest would like to see you,” the villain said. Bakugou’s blood ran cold as he felt something being injected into his still limp body. He was screaming inside his head, imagining how he’d explode the villain and cursing silently as his vision worsened. His brain was heavy again and his strength sapped away. The coldness that usually accompanied curses didn’t wash over him. Drugs, probably normal muscles relaxants or something like a date rape drug that was meant to put him out.
He couldn’t speak and couldn’t move. His sweat exploded inside the metal box around his hands and it hurt, enough pain to force his consciousness to hang on by a thread.
Doctor? What doctor? And what guest?
He couldn’t struggle free, not when the mist was already enveloping around him. When the mist faded, the darkness had retreated slightly. This new room was brighter than the last one but still full of gloom and the full nine yards of every stereotype of what an evil lair should look like. The walls were reinforced with thick metal and the door looked like the entrance to a maximum security vault. There were bright blue lights and beeping monitors, wires and pipes along the ground and glass tanks filled with odd substances. The air smelled stale and filled with the sour scent of chemicals. Fluorescent glow of a neon light sprinkled inside the tanks filled with bubbles that pieces of organs were floating in.
Bakugou stumbled on a few pipes resting on the floor like snakes. He would have fallen over if it weren’t for the villain holding him up by his forearms. The quirk restraints on his hands banged against the wall and the sound echoed inside the creepy lair.
“Be careful there,” someone said. “The equipment is delicate.”
There was an older man sitting in a chair in front of the multiple monitors taking up an entire wall. He was short and chubby, bald but had a white mustache and thick round glasses.
“Bring him in there, our guest had been waiting.”
He pulled on a lever next to his seat and the metal behind the Warp Gate villain and Bakugou started sliding. A door was formed and Bakugou felt a cold breeze creeping up his legs. Bakugou was marched down a narrow flight of stairs and honestly, the hall was too dark for him to know where the hell they were going. It was like a maze and occasionally, he would see a bright light flash in the corner.
They had a cell down here. A holding cell, like the ones in the movies because, why wouldn’t a bunch of villains have one? Bakugou mentally scuffed at himself for letting his thoughts wander off in a situation like this. He was getting irritated but his body remained useless as the ringing in his ears started. It felt weird. He had no idea what kind of drugs they pumped him with but he felt like he was seeing doubles of everything and the ground wasn’t where it was supposed to be despite his feet telling him that there were solid floors there.
The villain shoved him into a seat and buckled him down with leather straps. The straps rubbed against his chest and pushed into his collar bones at an awkward angle, forcing him to stay put. This room was white, so white that it was almost blinding when the lights came on. Bakugou could feel the heat from the ceiling lights.
“Welcome, here is Bakugou Katsuki as we promised.”
The Warp Gate villain sounded polite and courteous, presenting Bakugou like he was showing off a new flower vase he got from the market to his neighbor.
There was someone standing in front of the door. Bakugou couldn’t see them clearly. Given the height, it might have been a man but he couldn’t be sure. All he could tell through the haze of his messed up vision and piece together in his drug induced state was that this person had stitched across their forehead. Like Frankenstein.
Bakugou was sure that he had never met this person in his life before.
He didn’t sense any malice from the stranger either. It was like there was just a random extra standing in front of him, someone that disappeared in a crowd and wasn’t memorable in any way. But the smell of death was strong in the air. He wasn’t sure if the misty bastard of a villain smelled it but he almost gagged from the pungent smell of a dead rotting fish that had been left in the freezer for too long, slowly defrosting under the sun as maggots crawled along its bones.
The stranger smelled like death, of aged flesh and expired preservatives.
Who are you? The words didn’t make it out of his mouth. His mouth went slack as he couldn’t control his muscles at all. Drool dripped down his chin as the muscles relaxant worked its evil deeper into him.
Humiliating.
He wasn’t a toddler that didn’t know better. The indignation made him want to punch a wall, or bash his kidnappers’ faces in, preferable the latter. But with his hands bound and the drugs still running rampant in his system, he couldn’t do anything.
He was powerless.
“It is indeed him,” the stranger sighed. It sounded like a man with a deep rough voice. There was a black metal briefcase in his hand. “Here is the curse’s poison as promised from my end. Careful, it is more concentrated than the previous samples.”
“Doctor?” the Warp Gate misty bastard turned towards the corner of the room where there was a speaker attached.
“Yes, bring it in.”
There was a childish and feverish glee in the old man’s voice that was coming through the comms filled with static. The criminal in the room waved his hand and suddenly, the doctor sounded like he received a fucking Christmas gift.
Bakugou could hear them talking, conversing in this oddly pleasant and friendly manner. The noises in his head were getting worse. One second it was the cricketing of low level curses and the next it was the doctor praising the poison in his sinister mad scientist manner. It made his head hurt and he suspected the drugs might have some hallucinogen properties because he was seeing light that obviously shouldn’t be there. Gold ones, like sparks of ember were on his exposed skin and his heart was racing, pumping like he was in the process of running a marathon.
A hand lifted his chin. The man’s face was still a blur of colors and shadows.
“Strange, I don’t sense any cursed energy from you,” he muttered but instead of questioning Bakugou, it sounded more like he was talking to himself. “What do they see in you?”
This was the fucker.
This was the fucking curse manipulator that had been working with the villains.
The crusty garbage with the whole modified humans bullshit and the poison used to capture him…they all came from this bastard and the doctor. Bakugou felt like he touched the tip of an iceberg for a greater kind of evil that was a whole ten fold of vile beyond his imagination. Jujutsu and quirks couldn’t coexist in one body but they did in Nomus.
They were creating an army of monsters.
But that plan of chaos wasn’t what really got to him at the moment.
“What do they see in you?”
A simple question.
One that Bakugou didn’t have an answer for.
He remembered the stares and whispers that followed him after the sports festival. No, maybe it was even before that, back from after the sludge villain incident. People were already asking why the villain picked him as a target of harassment then. Maybe he invited it upon himself for not being like the rest. Maybe if he had looked less like a violent prick then he wouldn’t be targeted by people looking for a fight. The text messages calling him all those foul names and his mother’s angry voice seemed to merge into one. Selfish, cooked dumpsterfuck of dog shit personality, mean and deplorable with nothing good to offer to society…he was a liar and reckless and irresponsible…everybody had an opinion about him.
They said he was trouble.
They said he was too high maintenance.
They said he was too stubborn to see his own faults.
Hopeless. Demanding. Pushy. And this face wasn’t all that great either. It was just a layer of skin that happened to be pieced together in a pleasant manner. There were better ones out there. Prettier faces that were accompanied by glowing personalities. Prettier faces that could give the strongest jujutsu sorcerers of the century blood descendants. Normal, loving relationships that didn’t involve explosions or screaming fits.
Bakugou didn’t know what Gojo and Getou saw in him either.
Their relationship started as a joke and it still felt like one sometimes. What did they like about him? That he was their maid and nanny for the kids? That he was a nice whore in bed and always chasing after them? Easy, no brainer, stupid little bitch who believed in everything they said.
Bakugou didn’t particularly enjoy crossdressing but he did it for his boyfriends. Skin and bones painted and decorated, all of it was just a bag of flesh that anybody could replace. No amount of cosmetics or dainty dresses could change the fact that he was just playing pretend and a prop for a fantasy either.
And he remembered how Getou tried to kill him. Bakugou wasn’t one of them. He had the sight but no talent in jujutsu, which made him essentially the same as a monkey. He remembered how Gojo sometimes looked so far away that no matter how tight Bakugou tried to hug him, he was still the demigod of the Gojo clan and not his Satoru.
Bakugou told himself that they loved him but in reality, he didn’t know what Gojo and Getou saw in him either.
Stop it. He couldn’t fall for these kinds of tricks. They hadn’t even done anything remotely horrible like assaulting him yet, if he let himself feel down just from a simple question, he was done for. This was just an usual interrogation tactic. They made the prisoner doubt themselves, doubt the bonds they shared with their allies and then chip away at their confidence in everything they believed in.
Bakugou wouldn’t fall for it.
He was loved.
He was loved. Otherwise, his mother would be right and he hated it when she was right. She could throw other mean insults at him and strip him of a lot of things but he didn’t want her to be right about this, he didn’t want her to be right about the people he cared for so deeply didn’t really love him.
Because…if even those who ventured the world under the shadows couldn’t accept him, then where else was he supposed to go?
“You delayed my plans but no matter, after this everything would go back on the right track,” the stranger with the stitches said and released him. “Funny how life turns out. The thing they loved together would ultimately be the one to drive them apart. It might even work out better than what I originally had planned. It hurts a lot more to lose it all after they had a taste of happiness, doesn’t it?”
Bakugou didn’t understand what he was talking about. He could see gold lights dancing on the man’s body and it made his head dizzier. The whisks of gold seemed to be slithering along the man’s arms and weaving into the space between them. He felt it vibrating in the atmosphere, pulling and tugging until it tied a small hoop around his wrist. His vision was still fuzzy, like everything he was seeing was placed under layers of colorful disorienting glass.
“I’m done here.”
The man was walking away, tilting his head towards the speaker as if he was nodding goodbye.
“If your Master’s prodigy failed to recruit him, keep his physical appearance relatively unaltered during your experiments please,” the curse manipulator said, voice oddly sweet and polite that it made Bakugou want to vomit. “I will have good use for it later.”
Before he could think too deep, Bakugou’s world turned black again.
2
Bakugou couldn’t tell the time.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been but they moved him again. The walls trapping him in were no longer composed of metal and the ground was now made of wood instead of stones. There were bricks and pipes, and some kind of foamy stuff that unfinished ceilings usually were made of. He could hear more noises coming from beyond the wooden door too. Human traffic, people whispering in low murmurs and occasionally a giggle. Bakugou smelled alcohol too, not very strong but the scent lingered in the air.
Hands came in once.
The villain really needed a better stylist. Who the fuck did evil in pajamas while covered from head to toe in hands? Bakugou was pretty sure there were better masks out there and he also didn’t want to know how often Shigaraki washed his hair. It looked like a raccoon nest and honestly, the older male looked like shit. He looked like the type of loser who had nothing better to do than being stuck at home and played video games until he dropped.
And there was a shadow behind him. Bakugou didn’t think it was a curse, or at least, it wasn’t a curse that would immediately try to kill them. It was dark and heavy though, hanging over the villain’s head like it was fighting the urge to swallow him whole.
It looked like it was crying too. Desperate yet strangled wails escaped it as misty hands made of shadows clawed at the young man’s neck. His skin turned red and flaked off as he scratched the irritated spot.
Shigaraki asked Bakugou if he would be willing to join them.
Join them.
In their little crusade of bringing down society’s pillar of peace, help them fight the injustice that was this oppressive hero society.
Bakugou told him to eat turd and die.
Then he was left alone while tied to an uncomfortable chair, locked and sealed in a room with nothing but some peeling wallpaper and dripping pipes.
It must be his third or fourth hour of isolation in this new place but he couldn’t really be sure. His muscles felt stiff from being forced into the same position for too long but at least his vision was back to normal. Still, his head didn’t feel right. It was too hot in this room and small explosions sparked between his palms, forced silent by the restraints on him.
He had too much time to himself.
Bakugou went over the short interaction he had with the curse manipulator inside his head. He couldn’t tell where the villains were holding him since not a single place had anything distinctive enough for him to make out a location with an address. However, he could tell there was something not right going on between the villains and the curse manipulator. It didn’t feel like they were on the same team, at least, not fully. They were partners in crime and he suspected that the curse manipulator was supplying the Doctor with materials for “research”. Nomu was their product.
An army of monsters that could use both quirks and jujutsu…Bakugou didn’t think their plans stopped at defeating All Might.
Also, the man’s words made him anxious.
“Everything would go back on the right track.”
“It hurts a lot more to lose it all after they had a taste of happiness, doesn’t it?”
What was the “right track”? Bakugou felt like he was trying to look through a fog. The answer was slipping through the cracks of his fingers and he felt as if he couldn’t figure it out then there would be no going back. Something horrible and terrifying would play out and he wouldn’t be able to stop it.
The curse manipulator knew about Gojo and Getou. He wanted to hurt them but it didn’t feel like it was a desire motivated by vengeance or hatred…his voice had been too calculating and too certain.
He said Bakugou delayed his plans.
What did Bakugou interfere with?
He went to school normally, hung out with the jujutsu sorcerers, and he went on dates with his boyfriends. Everything was normal. He would bet his head that the man wasn’t referring to him dating the duo and not letting the two procreate with some girl either. What did he interfere with? He couldn’t think of anything. He might have gone out with Gojo on a mission a few times but the jujutsu sorcerer would have taken care of the mission by himself. The same could be said for Getou…no, wait. They failed one. The village where the twins came from.
The villagers were massacred.
Getou tried to kill him.
If he wasn’t there, would it have been any different?
No. It might just turn out even worse.
Bakugou suddenly couldn’t breathe. It was the sludge villain all over again. He could feel the mud and tar sliding into his throat, filling his lungs. His chest was tight as his brain raced, trying to connect the dots.
His thoughts were interrupted when Scarred Face came in to feed him water.
The young man with burn scars all over him shoved half a bottle of water down Bakugou’s throat and immediately backed away like he was anticipating for the blond to bite. Water dripped down Bakugou’s chin, soaking the front of his shirt and some even dripped onto his pants.
“Hey, Spinner!” the villain yelled towards the outside of the door. “The kid’s burning up, you want to go ask Shigaraki if we should feed him any medicine?”
A fever.
Great.
Just what he needed right now.
That explained why his body felt heavier than it should be and why his vision was funky earlier.
“You’re awfully quiet. I had 500 yen bet on you’d be more of a firecracker.”
He was talking to Bakugou. It was pretty useless information. Bakugou also didn’t want to know why he was only worth 500 yen in the villain’s eyes. They went through a hell lot of trouble just to get him, he had to be worth a heck lot more than that. But the burnt asshole was right about one thing–Bakugou wasn’t himself right now. He wasn’t sure what it was, maybe the drug the villains filled him with, maybe it was his sickness, or maybe he had just been tied up for too long but his body didn’t want to move. Hell, he barely wanted to speak. It was as if someone had turned a button off inside of him and he…just stopped functioning.
He should be fighting.
But instead, he was listening.
There were many voices around here. Voices from the secluded corners and from between the cracks of the pipes. He could hear the sobbing and wailing, the obsessed questions being repeated like a broken record, and the stories the shadows told.
“Maybe I just don’t want to talk to ugly ass bitches like you.” Or the thing behind you. Bakugou could see the…he supposed it was a burnt human. Or perhaps multiple humans. It had skin that looked fried and it was scattering soot with every movement. A few patches of hair were on its head but it had three different eyes that split down to where its throat should be. It had its hands around the villain’s throat.
Of course, the villain didn’t feel a thing.
Bakugou felt his chair being kicked and it wobbled, his hands were pressed at a bad angle inside the metal as it got pulled on, causing him to have to hide a wince. A slap came down hard across his cheek, sending his head to turn to the side.
“Careful,” the villain hissed. “Shigaraki doesn’t want you dead but he never said anything about not stinging or roughing you up a little. You know, all this would be a hell lot easier if you just agreed to Shigaraki’s terms. Just say yes and you’d be out of this chair and plopped down on the sofa.”
“Should I be thankful?” Bakugou lifted a sneer. “You people are the ones who kidnapped me. If it weren’t for you, I’d be home in my own damn bed.”
The villain opened his mouth to make some kind of remark but the door creaked behind him. Someone much taller was standing there and Bakugou frowned. Another curse. This place seemed to be crawling with them. The curse wrapped around the newcomer like a snake and its face was covered by glossy red lips.
“I f-forgive y-you…fo-orgive you…”
Every curse had a story. They were a collection of people’s negative emotions. Hatred was a curse. Fear was a curse. Pain was a curse. And Bakugou could hear them singing their chorus of agony in this tiny room.
“Shigaraki said to give him some meds for the fever. We don't want him to fry his brain.” The man had a deep voice but he spoke in a feminine manner. Bakugou watched those thick lips tutting at their states as the man moved closer. “Oh Honey, you look like hell ran you over but don’t worry, Big Sis Magne got you the good stuff!”
She showed him cold medicine but it came in a little clear ziploc bag and Bakugou suddenly wanted to doubt if those were the right kind of medicine for a fever.
A hand wrapped around his throat and forced his mouth open. Magne threw two pills into the blond’s mouth before shoving some water in. Bakugou gagged and he almost coughed the medicine back out.
“If you’re trying to kill me, you’re doing a fucking terrible job,” Bakugou coughed, feeling the pills sliding down his esophageous painfully.
“Darling, if we wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t be sitting here like this.” Magne let him go and pulled out a stool from the corner. Sitting down across from Bakugou, she gave him a long look before smiling. “Isn’t it tiring to live like you are doing now?”
“What?”
“Aren’t you tired of putting up with the same crap from people? You know what I see when I look at you, honey?” She showed him a picture of the sports festival. There was Ice Hot and Bird Head, plus the pillar of the No.1 spot with the curse word scribbled on it. “I see a kid who doesn’t like the rules being pushed upon him. I see someone who society is scared of and they will do anything to attempt to silence and suppress his nature because it didn’t fit their narrative. Don’t you think that’s unfair? You are passionate and fearless, got enough firepower to back your attitude and all you’ve ever done was try to do the right thing…yet they don’t understand you. They don’t care about you.”
“I don’t care what the extras think.”
“Maybe,” Magne mused. “But what about your parents? They’ve hurt you pretty bad, haven’t they?”
How did she–No, stop thinking.
Bakugou couldn’t let the villain’s words get to him.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know all the details but I do know enough. How many times did Mommy smack you around? Probably lost count, haven’t you? And your parents shunned and shamed you for finding love. It is unusual and people are quick to paint anything abnormal as an abhorrent abomination. Those boys look cute, you’re a very lucky fellow.”
It was disgusting to hear those words coming from the villain’s lips. It felt like Deku all over again. Only this time, those eyes in the dark were watching with malice and the intent to harm.
Next, Magne showed him a picture of Deku, one from the sports festival. Deku looked sweaty but on the verge of happy tears as he got first place in the obstacle race.
“Your friends, did any of them stand by your side when Midoriya here assaulted you? Did they listen to you or were they quick to throw you under the bus and pass the guilty verdict on you? See, isn’t this the flaw of society? You act out of line even a little bit and everybody would tear you to pieces. No one cared for your side of the tale, one wrong step and there is no going back. One wrong judgment and you are a sinner damned for hell.”
She dropped the pictures at his feet.
“They don’t like different. Change your hair, change your smile, change your attitude and finally, someone would accept you. You got to pretend to be who you’re not for them to even show you a drop of respect.”
Bakugou snarled. “That’s your goal? To show people that they are right to condemn those who are different? Pardon me if I don’t see how kidnapping and attacking minors violently will make the public sympathetic towards your cause.”
“This is just a start,” the guy who looked like he had been roasted in fire interjected. “We are going to show them that their peace is a joke and shake the foundation of this society from its core.”
Magne nodded, looking proud even. “And then we can reset the rules. Don’t you think the world we live in right now isn’t right? Who are they to judge and decide who could use their quirks and for what purpose? We are going to bring freedom to this world. The freedom to be who we are openly and the freedom to use our quirks as we pleased.”
Bakugou was pretty sure he wasn’t the biggest wack job in the room right now, even if he was the one seeing the inhuman monsters.
“Why didn’t you come after me soon if that’s all you wanted? Taking me from the school would have made an even stronger impact wouldn’t it?” he asked after careful consideration. “Hell, any bloody extra from UA’s hero class would do even. Why target me?”
The villains looked disappointed and Dabi, the burnt guy, shook his head.
“I thought he’d be smarter,” he muttered under his breath. Bakugou was offended.
Magne coughed to clear her throat. “Because you’re different, just like us. They don’t understand you and they haven’t tried to understand you. Not really. Even if they appear nice, you must have felt their disapproval behind their words and actions.”
That part wasn’t wrong. Even if his teachers tried to be sensitive to his issues, he could see that he made them uncomfortable. His pair of idiots didn’t help much either. They just made the heroes even more wary of their relationship. There was that silent hope behind every gentle word that they wished he would be less…involved with that side of society.
“That’s not it. That’s not enough reason for you to pick me as the primary target.”
The two villains shared a look and Magne strugged. “Your boyfriends crossed someone they shouldn't have. Religious conflicts sure are scary things. He provided some good stuff so Shigaraki said we’d keep our business partner happy.”
That was a lie.
Not Magne and Dabi’s though.
The curse manipulator was the one who lied.
Things weren’t as simple as the criminal having issues with his boyfriends. If hurting the duo was all he wanted, he wouldn’t let the villains take Bakugou to try and get him on their side. He would have took Bakugou for himself and killed him, or maybe let the villains torture him, not allowing him to sit here with barely a bruise on him after all this time.
Magne was ranting on about more of their cause and whatnot. Talked about Gojo being a rich playboy and Getou with his adopted daughters…she doesn’t know the truth. At least, not the full truth. The villains seemed to believe that jujutsu was just a brand of quirk that people used to claim to be part of the supernatural. She talked of the Gojo family like one would with a strong and wealthy political power–hard to take down, but not impossible.
Bakugou was reminded that the villains before him were not shamans. They were not jujutsu sorcerers and they didn’t grow up with their legends. No one on that side with even half a brain cell left would be confident enough to consider Gojo Satoru as just a snobby rich kid with a strong power.
It did explain why they hadn’t taken supernatural measures against him though. They were already overconfident that he wouldn’t be able to escape and underestimated what jujutsu really was about.
That didn’t add up.
The Doctor certainly knew, didn’t he? And the Warp Gate…they were villains but not idiots. Idiots wouldn’t have been able to build that kind of a lab and created Nomus. They must have known the danger of the curses so why were these two in front of him right now acting like they had everything figured out? If they knew what Gojo could do alone then how could they still be so calm and easy?
Maybe Magne and Dabi weren’t important enough in the villain’s organization to know the full truth yet.
Or…this was part of the curse manipulator’s plans.
The villains, they were normal people. They were people without the sight and talent. This society was composed of a few distinct groups in a jujutsu sorcerer’s eyes: Curses, those without talent and jujutsu sorcerers. It was a delicate balance where the mystic world was kept hidden as a secret from the mundane. There were unspoken lines that people didn’t cross.
The curse manipulator didn’t care about Bakugou. His targets were Gojo and Getou, who were invincible and best friends despite their differences. One and only, their friendship was irreplaceable.
Who could hurt the strongest duo the most?
Only each other.
No assassins or fighters anybody sent could pose a greater danger or deliver greater damage to either of the special grades. Not unless they were each other’s opponents.
“Hey, kid, are you even listening?” Dabi kicked his chair again but Bakugou only lowered his head, trying to stop the trembles originating from inside him. “The fuck is wrong with him?”
“Let’s go, Dabi. We’ll see if Shigaraki wants to see him now,” Magne said while she got up. “I hope this doesn’t drag out to dinner time. I’m already hungry.”
Bakugou stayed silent. He watched as the villains exited the room and the door slammed shut, leaving him in isolation with silence and the darkness.
He figured out what the curse manipulator’s goal was.
Now he just needed to meet with Hands again to prove it.
3
The campus was quiet.
This level of silence wasn’t uncommon. There were only a handful of students in all the grades together and it wasn’t uncommon for a lot of them to be out on missions simultaneously. Not to mention, summer was a busy season where all hands on deck was the norm.
Gojo sat down on the bench in Shoko’s infirmary and passed her a can of juice. The infirmary was white and there was a large metal sink on the side. Metal tables were also stacked in the corner as the place doubled as an autopsy lab when needed. There was a piece of flesh already dissected on one of the tables closer to them but neither complained about the smell. Gojo spared it a glance. It was only part of a corpse. An arm to be exact. It was thick and muscular but also pitch black like ink.
Yaga said it was from a Nomu, a piece from the modified human that attacked Bakugou’s class at USJ.
Popping opened his own can, Gojo drained the cold refreshing beverage in one large gulp.
“Have I told you how much I hate summer?” He crushed the empty can in his hand and tossed it into the recycle bin. “The heat, the mosquitoes, and the idiots up top trying to work us to the bones. Bleh, not sure if it is because of the Hero Killer stuff but the small fries are extra annoying this year.”
“People are scared,” Shoko said. “They feel like their peace and safety has been threatened.”
Gojo bared his teeth, looking like he tasted something awful but he didn’t try to argue.
“You’re both here,” Getou’s voice came from the doorway. He dropped a bag of snacks and souvenirs on the table and kicked Gojo lightly, mentioning for his friend to scoot over. Sitting down, he patted Gojo on the head. “Let me guess, has it been pretty awful on your side too?”
“The worst,” Gojo groaned. “It’s boring and tedious enough to be exorcizing curses, but now we have to watch out for morons that want to make it big as a villain too. Do you know how hard it is for me to not break their bones and waste my time listening to their evil monologues?”
“Do that and you’d get the cops on your tail…again.” Getou unbuttoned his jacket and fanned himself with a book. “But yeah, there are more thugs on the road looking for trouble lately. Nanami and Haibara said they are going to be late coming back because they ran into a robbery attempt and the bus got delayed.”
“This sucks,” grumbled Gojo. “Got anything less infuriating but still interesting going on, Shoko?”
“I don’t know about less infuriating but I do have a mystery here.” The girl put on latex gloves and walked over to the dissecting table. “The heroes and police wouldn’t release the full Nomu into our care but Principal Yaga did manage to get the arm that Katsuki said had a curse infused to it. The tattoo is basically ruined but after reconstructing it on a computer and running a DNA test, this arm belongs to Shin Karasu, a small time curse manipulator that sold exorcism services.”
“So some sick idiot decided it was a good idea to turn a sorcerer into a living weapon, that’s old news.” It wasn’t like no one had ever attempted that before.
Shoko picked up the arm to show it to her friends. “That’s where it got interesting. According to the police reports on the rest of the body, Nomu had multiple people’s DNA. Only parts of this arm belong to Shin.”
“Only parts of his arm?” Getou’s eyebrows were knitted tight together. “I thought Nomus were living corpses. You are telling me someone sewed parts of a curse manipulator with a normal person’s and then pumped the dead full of chemicals and odd substances that forcefully prolonged its life. That doesn’t make sense. Even if they did that, how did they get the jujutsu technique to keep functioning properly?”
Sewing together corpses was easy. Anybody with enough time and some needles and threads could do it. But a jujutsu technique was carved inside the shaman. Dismembering the dead body and then gluing that onto another person wouldn't be enough to activate it.
“Somebody fused the cells together. They picked apart the tissues and cells then pieced the cells back together,” Shoko answered grimly. “If it were in a different situation, I’d say this was crazy but they did it, probably with the help of a lot of science and quirks. It’s unstable but the jujutsu technique has been preserved enough that it’s possible for Nomus to use them.”
Gojo didn’t like the sound of that. Chewing on a lollipop, he leaned his chin on his hand. The brilliant blue of his eyes behind his sunglasses appeared colder all of a sudden. “I smell rotting old oranges from this…who’s with me?”
“Satoru, don’t jump to conclusions just yet.” Getou hummed. “We don’t have any proof.”
“You know those bastards have been thinking about it though. Quirks and jujutsu couldn’t coexist and now there’s apparently people making an army of modified zombies with both? That’s not a coincidence.”
“What’s not a coincidence?” Nanami questioned as he followed Haibara into the room.
“Before that,” Haibara stopped him and guided him to sit down. “Shoko-senpai, can you please take a look at Nanami’s arm? I think he might have a fracture.”
“Roll up his sleeve then.” Shoko went over to heal the blond teen and Nanami thanked her.
Yawning, Gojo got up to stretch his back. “It’s nothing important. Anyways, I got to go. Don’t know why but they’ve been shoving emergency missions to me all day now.”
“You too? I told the assistant director that the mission levels were strange because I’m getting first grade missions but the curse couldn’t be more than a pre-second grade.” Getou got up too and scrolled through his phone. “Oh, another one just came in.”
“...We sure are busy this summer,” Haibara sighed while scratching his head. “I got to grab something to eat and then Nanami and I are going to be off on another mission too.”
There was a knock on the door. Ijichi walked in carrying a binder. The youngest of the group looked nervous as he nodded at his seniors.
“Shoko-senpai, here are the files on missing jujutsu sorcerers that you asked for.”
“Thank you, Ijichi.”
“No problem, it’s the least I can do.” He wasn’t like the rest of the jujutsu sorcerers. Ijichi didn’t know the reverse technique and he wasn’t as strong in combat either. His main goal was to graduate and become an assistant director for the jujutsu sorcerers.
“I need a change of clothing,” Nanami said as he took off his dirty covered jacket. “Haibara, I’ll meet you outside the dorm so grab me something to eat too.”
“Sure,” Haibara agreed easily.
“Ah! Nanami-senpai,” Ijichi suddenly stopped him. “Not sure if you already saw it but your friend, the kid from UA? He was on the news earlier. They said that he was kidnapped from the school’s training camp by villains…”
His voice grew quieter as he felt the temperature drop. Shivering, Ijichi looked around the room and gulped uneasily.
“I-Is something wr–”
A fist slammed into the wall besides his head. The concrete groaned and a spider web of cracks radiated out from the dent on the wall.
“What did you just say?” Gojo grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. The teen with black hair and glasses quivered in his skin and cold sweat ran down his back as he stared into his senpai’s eyes. The blue was striking. It was no longer beautiful though as the blue was tainted by a fury that would shake the heavens and promised nothing but blood.
“I-It’s on the n-news…? Bakugou Katsuki from Class 1-A of UA was kidnapped by the League of Villains.”
“How long ago?”
“A day and a half–Senpai! I-I can’t breathe!”
His face puffed up red as he felt the pressure of Gojo’s cursed energy crashing right into him, pinning him down like gravity and his strength was swept away by the strong current of power.
“Satoru, let him down,” Shoko warned.
Gojo dropped Ijichi and the latter immediately scampered away even if he was coughing violently, he went into hiding behind Nanami and Haibara whose expression were as dark as ink. Breathing in, Gojo managed to control the heaving of his chest as his fists balled at his sides. His usual smile was gone and all that was left was an icy rage threatening to be unleashed.
“Suguru?” asked Gojo in an uncharacteristic soft voice, like a ghost’s whisper.
“His teacher’s phone went to voicemail,” Getou said without looking up from his phone. His own expression wasn’t a pretty sight either. The space around him twisted slightly as if there were cracks going to form along the empty air around him, opening up the gates to hell and releasing his monsters. It was taking all of his focus to not lose control over his herd of cursed spirits. “Eraserhead’s too. Katsuki’s phone isn’t connecting.”
Hearing that, Gojo cracked a smile. It was barbaric and terrifying. “So this is their genius plan? Did they think they could control us with dirty tricks like this?”
“Satoru–”
“Yeah, I know. We got to find Katsuki first.” Gojo draped an arm over Getou’s shoulders, feeling his best friend’s cursed energy flaring as well. “Then we have a lot of people to make sure they regret doing what they did.”
“Starting with the villains,” Getou added, his violet eyes casted to the ground and his expression hidden from view.
“And that shitshow of a school.”
“Agreed.”
They would let everybody know that touching what was theirs meant there would be hell to pay.
And if one example wasn't enough, they'd just have to drive the message home with more blood.
A lot more blood.