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‘This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen,’ Bakugou thought as he stood where he had been standing for at least an hour, though he couldn’t be sure. He did know that the sun, which had only started to set when he arrived, was now gone behind the horizon. The sky had been painted a dark orange where bits of sunlight still peaked through the city skyline in the distance. Bakugou’s eyes had gone out of focus at some point, tears threatening to spill over. Slowly, he sank to his knees, being careful not to get too much of the loose dirt onto his suit, no matter how futile it would be. He refocused his eyes onto the grave in front of him, a stray tear running down his cheek. With an uncharacteristically soft voice, Bakugou spoke.
“I never got to tell--” Bakugou stopped mid sentence and tried again, voice a bit stronger this time. “I never got to thank you. I didn’t appreciate it then, but you really helped me realize something; that I needed to change. Hell, I couldn’t even pick an actual hero name!” He gave a half-hearted laugh as he said this, shaking his head at himself. “Can you imagine if Midnight let me name myself Lord Explosion Murder? I think you might have just killed me the second I walked into your agency just to spare yourself the trouble.” He gave a small smirk at the thought, though it was a far cry from his usual superiority-powered one. He subconsciously ran his hand through his heavily gelled hair, mussing it up, though Bakugou supposed that it would always be messy. Not even Best Jeanist himself could keep it down for very long, Bakugou was shocked the man had tried so hard. Bakugou resumed talking to the grave below him, closing his eyes as words left his mouth.
“I had this plan, ya know? I wanted to talk to you after you had recovered. I wanted to thank you for helping the other heroes back at Kamino; for helping to save me,” Bakugou took a breath, still barely able to admit he’d ever need help. “I wanted you to be the first to hear my hero name, but I guess I’ll have to make do with this shitty situation,” Bakugou swore. He continued with a new found vigor, “I chose my name because of you. I realized that everyone was going to keep passing me like some sort of weakling if I didn’t shape up. I was able to start reworking myself from the bottom up because of your lessons, no matter how aggravating they were.” Words were flying out of Bakugou’s mouth now, and he was almost afraid to try and stop them. As he spoke, he regained his characteristic anger and began standing up. He was almost yelling now as he declared, “My name is Bakugou Katsuki, Explosion Hero: Ground Zero, and I will be the Number One Hero!” He punctuated his sentence with twin explosions in his hands, both just big enough to light up the area around him without doing any damage to the environment. Taking a deep breath and relaxing his stance, he muttered, almost to no one and everyone at the same time, “And don’t you forget it.”
He turned on his heel and started walking out of the cemetery, brushing dust off his clothes. The sun had finally disappeared for the night and the streetlights were on. The young hero went to catch the train to take him back to UA campus. Hopefully he wouldn’t be scolded too harshly for staying out so late. As he reached the gates he looked back in the direction of the grave he had bared his soul to; the grave that read, ‘Hakamata Tsunagu, Pro Hero Best Jeanist’.