The sound of explosions filled the air. Every movement Bakugo made was a battle against his own body. His muscles screamed, his joints felt like they were being consumed by flames, but he couldn't stop. Not when so many lives were at stake, so he forced himself to keep going.
And in those fleeting seconds, Bakugo was beyond himself. His movements and thoughts were faster, more precise, almost superhuman. He could see Shigaraki's attacks and counter them. Every strike he delivered was a calculated risk, every explosion shaped by his unwavering will to win.
Then came his mistake. Or perhaps it wasn't a mistake, but rather something inevitable given the difference in power between the two.
As Bakugo prepared to unleash another explosion, Shigaraki found the perfect moment and launched an attack with his fingers.
He felt it instantly. There was no way not to feel it. A sharp, searing pain tore through his chest. The impact sent him flying backward, his body spinning uncontrollably in the air before colliding with the ground.
And then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed. The battlefield vanished, giving way to a white, infinite, and silent space. Bakugo remained motionless for a few moments until he felt something warm and comforting touch his back.
"I understand…" he murmured, before turning around. In front of him, All Might's flaming figure stood, watching him with a sorrowful expression.
Bakugo swallowed hard, feeling a lump form in his throat. "I… I know I'm a problematic kid," he said, recalling the arrogant encounters, the harsh words, the times he shut himself off.
"And since the first day we met… I've been a pain in the ass, so I never got the chance to tell you…"
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an All Might card—the same one he got as a child and had always carried with him. "I… I really wanted your autograph."
***
'Am I alive?' That was the first thought that crossed Bakugo's mind as he opened his eyes. He blinked a few times, adjusting to the soft light of the room. 'How is this possible? I'm sure that attack… hit my heart.'
With a jolt, Bakugo sat up and pulled his shirt up, his fingers trembling with anxiety as he searched for the wound. However, what he saw left him frozen.
Nothing.
No scar. No mark. In fact, all the scars he had accumulated over the past year were gone. 'What the hell is going on!?' Bakugo quickly searched for an explanation and concluded that he must have been taken to the girl Eri.
'Does that mean we won? Did Izuku… manage to defeat that monster?' He ran a hand over his face, trying to organize his thoughts. Still confused, Bakugo pushed the blankets aside and placed his feet on the ground.
Only for his initial confusion to transform into shock when he realized where he was. This wasn't a room at U.A., nor an improvised medical wing on some battlefield. It was his room in his parents' house.
'Why did they bring me here?!' His heart raced, his mind running wild with possibilities. Even if they had defeated the villains, it made no sense. The cities should still be in chaos, far too dangerous for civilians to return.
Rushing out of the room, his eyes scanned the hallway frantically, back and forth. But everything was exactly as he remembered it. Nothing out of place. No strange sounds. It was just the familiar hallway of his parents' house.
'What kind of madness is this?' he thought, clenching his teeth as he tried to understand the situation.
"What are you up to, brat?"
The voice cut through the silence like a blade, and Bakugo turned, startled. There was his mother, standing with a basket of laundry in her hands, her eyebrows furrowed.
Mitsuki frowned even more at seeing her pest of a son standing there in complete silence. "What? Are you still sulking over—" Before she could finish, Bakugo suddenly moved forward and hugged her tightly, knocking the laundry basket to the ground in the process.
"Katsuki?" she murmured, shocked by the gesture.
Tears began to stream uncontrollably down Bakugo's face. Everything he had gone through in the last few hours—all the humiliation and helplessness—broke in that moment. "I couldn't do anything!" he shouted, his voice trembling and heavy with pain. "I tried everything! I gave it my all, but… all my effort, all my training, none of it mattered! None of it! I… I was nothing to him!"
Mitsuki was silent for a moment before wrapping her arms around her son, holding him tightly. "Calm down, Katsuki. It's over now. You're here, and everything's okay, alright? Breathe."
"Haah… haah… haah…" Bakugo began to control his breathing slowly, as she instructed.
Mitsuki relaxed her embrace, running a hand through his hair. "I didn't realize this had affected you so much…"
Bakugo froze. Those words sounded strange. No, not strange—they were completely disconnected from what everyone had been going through in recent months. He pulled back slightly, his eyes fixed on her. "What do you mean by that?"
She sighed, as if the weight of the situation were less than it seemed. "I mean, I understand that being attacked by that sludge villain was hard on you, but—"
He stopped listening. His entire body was overtaken by a chill. Something was wrong, very wrong.
***
[Two days later]
Two days had passed since Bakugo woke up in this nightmare. Somehow, he had gone back in time—more than a year, to be exact. It was ten months before the U.A. entrance exam and only a day after the sludge villain attack, when All Might had saved him.
At first, he thought it might be a dream. But when he punched the wall hard, the pain was far too real for a dream.
That left him with few options: either he had actually died and was in some sort of strange limbo between life and death, or this was an illusion created by All For One/Shigaraki to mess with his mind and he was still trapped in that hellish battlefield.
'Or I really went back in time, which doesn't make any sense at all.' He ran his hands through his hair, messing it up even more as he walked through the bustling streets of the city, where people laughed carefree, strolled without fear, and lived their lives peacefully.
There were heroes everywhere. Some waved to children who gazed at them with shining eyes, others helped the elderly cross the street, while a few captured small-time criminals. It was all so... calm.
And all of this was almost driving Bakugo insane. 'These people... are they dead in the future?' Who was still alive and who had already died? That woman carrying grocery bags—was she crushed during Gigantomachia's rampage across the country? That hero playing with a child—was he one of the first to be torn apart against the Nomus?
"This is insane," he muttered to himself, clenching his fists tightly and quickening his pace toward his destination.
***
'This is such trash…' Bakugo thought, his eyes scanning the mountains of junk that covered Dagoba Beach. There was everything there: rusty refrigerators, torn sofas, old tires, and even broken appliances.
"So this is where the nerd spent ten months training…" he murmured, kicking a piece of rusted metal aside. "Who was the idiot that turned this place into a dump?!"
But it was funny, almost ironic, that this place was Izuku's starting point. "From trash to the world's only hope, huh, Izuku?" Bakugo closed his eyes and shook his head slightly. Turning around, he began to walk away.
***
[4 months later]
BOOM!
The sound of a refrigerator door crashing violently against a tree echoed through the forest, followed by an explosion that reverberated through the ground. Fragments of metal and pieces of wood flew in all directions.
Bakugo, with heavy breathing and sweat dripping down his face, slowly lowered his arms. He watched the remains of the door and the shattered tree now split in half. "Still too weak," Bakugo muttered to himself, his voice filled with frustration.
'You'll never be more than a shadow following One For All.'
'Still too weak!' With a quick motion, Bakugo spun on his heels and walked toward the pile of junk he had gathered from what Izuku had already cleared off Dagoba Beach.
For the past four months, he had committed himself to relentless training, pushing every limit of his body and quirk. The goal wasn't just to regain the strength he would have in the future but to surpass it.
Ever since Izuku had awakened the Black Whip, Bakugo couldn't deny that he had been left behind. And after Jaku, all he could do was watch as Izuku drifted further and further away.
With the creation of Cluster, Bakugo thought, for a brief moment, that he might still catch up to him. That he could still fight alongside Izuku, as equals. But all of that crumbled in the fight against Shigaraki. It was there he realized—and the villain made sure to rub it in his face—that he was nothing.
Just a burden. A pawn in All For One's hands, used to target Izuku. His entire journey, all those years of training, reduced to that.
Even knowing the fate of the world depended on Izuku, Bakugo thought he could at least be a support. That he could make some difference.
That battle made it clear he wasn't enough. Not to help Izuku. Not to help the other heroes who fought by his side in that fight.
***
"Haah... haah... haah..." In a trance, Bakugo didn't know how long he had kept blowing up debris until his body gave out and he collapsed, panting on the ground. 'Mirko, Edgeshot, Manual, Hado, Togata, Amajiki, Monoma... Aizawa and Best Jeanist.' Had those who fought alongside him survived after he fell? Did Izuku arrive in time to save them?
And the others who believed in him? 'Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, and everyone else maintaining the "Coffin in the Sky."' Had they managed to escape? Were they alive?
No matter how hard he tried to push those thoughts away, they always came back with full force. Bakugo couldn't stop imagining that the timeline had continued after he fell. That Izuku arrived only to see him dead, with his chest torn open.
'Knowing that nerd, he must've lost it and charged at Shigaraki without thinking about himself,' Bakugo thought with a sad smile. 'Damn it... I might've been the reason we lost... everyone might've died because of my incompetence.'
Lifting his head, Bakugo let out an irritated huff. Dwelling on what could've happened wouldn't get him anywhere, so he forced himself to his feet, ignoring the exhaustion and the protests from his sore arms and shoulders after hours of continuous explosions.
'I'm almost there. Maybe in another two months, I'll get my body and quirk back to where they were before I died.' The pain was fuel. Every sting pushed him forward, every bitter memory ignited a new explosion within him.
Bakugo had never been someone who backed down in the face of suffering—he turned it into strength. And now, more than ever, he needed to surpass himself.
***
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or songs featured in this fic. Additionally, I do not claim ownership of any products or properties mentioned in this novel. This work is entirely fictional.