The soft hues of the evening sky bathed the children's park in a warm, golden light.
Katsuki sat quietly on a nearby bench, her gaze fixed on the playground where a few children laughed and played without a care in the world.
A faint smile tugged at her lips as she watched them, their carefree joy momentarily lifting the weight off her shoulders.
But that smile slowly faded, turning into a frown as the sight stirred something within her—a memory she couldn't quite suppress.
The sound of their laughter seemed to echo with distant memories, blending the present with fragments of her past. It was as if she could still hear the joyful voices of her own childhood, where she, Izuku, and his little sister had spent countless hours playing together in a similar park.
Their voices, so vivid in her mind, mixed with the present... creating a nostalgic melody that tugged at her heart...
If only that was the memory that she remembered.
But no—as soon as the memory of their happy laughter faded, the painful recollection of their separation began to resurface.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"How could a useless, quirkless kid like me be a hero? I don't want to be a hero!"
"Shut up, Katsuki! Just leave me alone!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The young Izuku's words, spoken in anger and hurt, were still etched deeply in her mind, cutting through the warm evening air like a cold knife.
She could still remember how devastated she had felt when Izuku told her he didn't want to be a hero anymore... and how he had cruelly told her to get lost.
She hated that memory.
She hated the Izuku who had rejected her... the Izuku who had shut her out.
But at the same time, she understood why he had acted that way.
It wasn't just about him finding out he was quirkless; it was the loss of his father, killed in the crossfire between a hero and a villain, that had shattered his spirit.
And then, after that childhood fight of theirs, everything had changed.
Izuku and his family had moved out to the countryside... and the young girl Katsuki suddenly found herself all alone.
She hadn't made any real friends after that—how could she when no one ever felt right to her? Even when she awakened her powerful explosion quirk, it only seemed to push people further away.
People were either terrified of her... or tried to befriend her for the wrong reasons.
Naivety she could understand, as those people thought that they could be friends with everyone 'as long as they tried.'
But those who sought to take advantage of her power were swiftly rejected... usually, with a more direct physical approach.
And so, she lived most of her childhood and into high school in relative isolation, pushing others away before they could do it to her...
The laughter of the children in the playground grew louder, pulling Katsuki out of her thoughts.
She blinked for a moment, her gaze refocusing on the warm light of the evening sky bathing the park.
But as she continued to sit on the cold bench of the park, her mind shifted toward a recent memory...
The memory of what had transpired just that morning.
She vaguely remembered the confusion she felt this morning when she thought that Izuku was actually aspiring to be a hero.
Her confusion quickly turned into anger... as she thought that Izuku was mocking the idea of being a hero itself... and in turn, mocking her...
She had confronted him, embarrassingly for herself, right in front of the whole class, with even Sora-sensei witnessing her temper tantrum. She had even destroyed school property out of sheer emotion...
But then... she learned, just after Izuku's careful explanation, that it was all just a big misunderstanding. Someone had apparently played a prank on him by putting 'hero' as his future aspiration on his paper.
He even had to explain to everyone in the classroom... and especially to her, that he had no interest in becoming a hero...
At that point, she had been deeply conflicted.
She still didn't know, not even now, why she felt so... frustrated, so... sad.
The thought of Izuku not wanting to be a hero had stirred the most conflicted emotions she had ever felt.
She knew full well, even back then, that Izuku was quirkless. He had explained it, over and over, how he was quirkless... and how he didn't want to be a hero.
But the worst thing he said to her was just before everything had turned blurry.
"Don't force your ideals on me. I'm not the hero you want me to be... nor the hero you think I was in your delusion."
Delusion.
That was the word that had hurt her the most.
It wasn't as if he was wrong... no, it was quite the opposite.
He was right.
She had been holding on to this delusion of hers...
The delusion that Izuku was a hero.
Her hero...
Suddenly, the sound of the children playing in the park interrupted her thoughts once again. Their laughter rang out, this time accompanied by excited voices.
"Let's play heroes!"
"Yeah, I'll be All Might!"
"Ah! No fair! I want to be All Might!"
Katsuki flinched at the enthusiasm of those kids, as it almost forced her to relive the same painful memory she had been struggling to escape...
She stood up from the park bench where she had been sitting for almost an hour or two, her emotions still tangled in a storm of both frustration and sadness.
With a heavy heart, she promptly left the park.
Katsuki still needed a distraction... something to pull her away from her troubled thoughts. She was also avoiding her teachers and even her parents. Her mind was not in the right place to face any of them...
As she walked, lost in her own turbulent thoughts...
THUD!
"What...?"
A sudden loud thud startled her. It came from behind her...
Katsuki turned around, her gaze landing on a plastic bottle of carbonated drink that had mysteriously appeared where she had just walked past.
She frowned, puzzled by how it seemed to have materialized out of nowhere, as if it had fallen from the sky. But what struck her as even stranger was the contents of the bottle—a thick, nasty green liquid swirling inside.
She decided to investigate the strange object, hoping it might be the distraction she was looking for.
But it was something she shouldn't have gotten too close to begin with.
"Malice."
As she approached, a dark aura suddenly enveloped the plastic bottle...
That was not all. After the dark aura seemed to be absorbed into the bottle, the bottle began to shake wildly!
"What's going on...?!" she exclaimed, taken aback by the erratic movements of the bottle.
The liquid inside started to bubble violently, as if it were boiling from within.
Before Katsuki could retreat from the strange and dangerous-looking bottle...
It exploded! From the explosion emerged the sludge villain in its full monstrous and grotesque form!
But its goal was not to hijack the body of the high school girl... no...
What it sought... was the deep malice that Katsuki had been harboring inside...
"Malice... GIVE ME YOUR MALICE!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author Note (and surprisingly, almost little to none shilling here):
We are getting closer to the fated battle.
I hoped this chapter didn't come of as sort cheesy or something like that lmao.
And like I said, no shilling here.
I already deleted my current Web Novel about that football thingy. The main reason was that I did not popped up like I had thought it would, but also due the fact that I did not felt like it was something I would like to write. It didn't felt like I was writing it out of passion, but purely trying to get as most profit that I could take.
Don't get me wrong here, I do want some profit. I need profit because I'm broke as hell, but... at the same time, writing that thing not only felt like a torture, but also didn't even bear any useful fruit, so why bother, right?
Sorry about the rant. I needed that after feeling like shit right now. I hope it did not undermine this chapter though, because this chapter is supposed to be an important part of (OOC) Katsuki's character in my fanfiction.
Anyway, I'm still planning to create an original web novel... the one that not only I like to write, but also would be profitable!
Stay tuned for more!