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Kirishima knew that this day at UA wasn’t going to be like any other.
For starters, he had woken up before Bakugou. To most, it might seem so insignificant or small. But everyone knew how the guy liked to stay on schedule. Despite his brash and borderline delinquent attitude, he would rather eat Kaminari’s awful cooking than not sleep and wake up at the same time every single day.
Yet, here he was. With a mug of coffee at hand and no sight of the blonde. He had asked the others, who were also lounging around the dorm all dressed up and ready for another day at UA. But even they didn’t know where the explosive boy had run off to.
Their day went on as normal, all of them gathered at class 2-A, immediately going silent at the sound of the door opening to reveal their homeroom teacher, Aizawa entering.
Despite that, the silence was rudely interrupted at the sudden flurry of questions that was expressed throughout the classroom. Almost half of the class questioned the whereabouts of Bakugou.
“Sensei! Why isn’t Bakugou here?”
“Yeah! We didn’t see him earlier this morning either!”
All quickly stiffened and sat up straighter when their teacher activated his quirk, eyes bright red, and hair levitating, like he always does to silence them quickly.
“Bakugou is currently with a guest who’ll be joining us later at Practical Hero Studies. So he’s excused until later lunch,” He ignores the grumbles and questioning looks from his students.
“Now make sure to have your papers finished and turned in before the end of the period, I’m going to take a nap,”
--
“Blasty is soo lucky!” Mina had whined as they were all gathered together during lunch, a pout on her lips.
They heard Kaminari sigh dramatically as he nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I mean getting to skip class and getting to be all buddy-buddy with the secret guest!”
“Kinda weird right? out of all people, why did they pick Bakugou to be the one to introduce him to school?” Uraraka muffled as she continued to stuff her face with food.
A hum of agreement came from the majority at the table.
“As much as I would want to give Bakugou the benefit of the doubt, I would agree. In normal school settings, the proper procedure would be that the class president be the one to show guests that are related to our classes” Iida voiced out, having finished eating his lunch.
“Maybe it’s some guy he knows?” Sero asked with a shrug.
“Who cares?! I think the real question is who this person is! Imagine if it was a hot girl?! Bakugou’s so lucky!” Mineta had added, though, she was instantly ignored by everyone, especially the girls.
Momo sighed as she stood up. “Whoever it is, we must learn to be respectful and hospitable to them! Since the main reason as to why they were invited in the first place is to help us in our development as heroes!” she said encouragingly, an exaggerated cheer that filled the entire cafeteria was said by the whole class.
--
As soon as lunch ended, the students didn’t waste any time changing onto their PE uniforms and practically ran their way to the gym. (Not without their class president reprimanding them for doing so of course)
They enter gym gamma in groups, looking around to see their homeroom teacher, Present Mic, and Midnight all gathered together and talking amongst themselves. And still no sign of Bakugou.
“Hey, hey, hey Lil’ Listeners!” Present Mic’s voice boomed enthusiastically, though fortunately, he didn’t manage to use his quirk. “I’m sure you’re all curious about a lot of things today! Fortunately, we’ll all be talking about that todayyy!”
Midnight steps up this time to talk.
“I’m not going to go further into details but I’m sure you all know the history of quirks and what society was and became to be after its emergence. But what you don’t know is that there were all kinds of races back then! Over the years though, their genes were slowly adapted and even complemented quirk genes, withstanding the test of time” she explains briefly, eyeing each of the students’ reactions.
Aizawa nodded briefly as he glared at them. “Today’s exercise will focus on that, I’ve invited a guest, to which Bakugou has been showing him around and keeping company for the whole day. He’s also here to talk about the dangers they can impose when encountering them.” he begins, already feeling the anticipation from his students.
Before the pro hero could begin his introduction, a resounding sound of an explosion was heard from above. At first, the whole class had tensed, having to encounter countless villains ever since they entered the school. It was only natural and at this point part of their reflex.
What they didn’t expect was for a boy with green hair falling through the roof, a suitcase clutched tightly close to him.
Kirishima’s eyes widened as he saw how the stranger was falling to the ground at very high speed, turning to Momo who was starting to use her quirk to help lessen the impact.
Though, the boy was quickly saved by a familiar blonde, who had used their explosion to fly through the hole the green-haired stranger had created, quickly catching him and landing on the ground with ease.
Everyone stared at the two in silence, the redhead swore he heard Aizawa mutter ‘problem child’.
As time passed, everyone began to spring towards the two, everyone checking if they were okay. Mina, Sero, Denki, and Kirishima himself had asked Bakugou as to where they’ve been.
“Alright problem children, back to your places.” Aizawa had grunted, approaching the stranger who had wiggled and stood up out of Bakugou’s hold.
The boy was dusting himself, wearing a green hoodie, slightly lighter than his unruly and curly green hair. Eyeing his suitcase and sighing in relief after doing so.
“Good afternoon to you Aizawa! Zashi and Nemuri!” The stranger said with a grin. Wincing when Bakugou had hit his head rather harshly. “Kacchan!”
“What was it this time? Problem child?” Aizawa murmured with a glare, though that doesn’t seem to make the boy falter or nervous.
‘Problem child’ grinned sheepishly before responding. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve already brought it up with Nedzu! Seriously, your school reeks of stress” he scrunches his nose before glancing at the confused class 2-A.
“Problem Children, meet Problem child #1.” Aizawa starts as he motions to him.
The green haired boy waves, eyes almost sparkling as if he’s just as excited to meet them “I’m Izuku Midoriya! It’s nice to meet all of you!” he steps forward with a grin. “I’m currently a detective-in-training, but I was asked by UA to talk about something not even heroes know a lot about, things that existed long before quirks were even a thing!”
They watch as Izuku sets down his suitcase, similar to the ones UA issues them with their hero costumes but this one was sleek black with green outlines that were bright enough to look like they were glowing.
“Now, as most of you know, the number of quirks has only increased over time. As more generations passed, less people became quirkless, it came to a point where there were only 20% of the entire population of us. Despite that, different races and species managed to survive. Most of them, unfortunately, are dangerous and a threat to society.” he begins slowly, tone low to show just how serious he was.
“Because they’ve been around for so long, they’ve also grown immune to quirks.” Gasps and whispers of confusion rose in the room.
Kirishima furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Immune to quirks how does that work?
“I was just getting to that uh... Kirishima right?” said male blinking profusely as he looked at Izuku. Silently cursing himself when he realized he had said it out loud.
“You know us?” Ochako spoke with astonishment.
Izuku hummed. “Yes! Kacchan told me about all of you! Not to mention I saw you guys at the sports festival! Big Fan” he gushed.
“Bakubro! You talk about us?! That’s so manly bro!” Kirishima said, laughing when the blonde glared at him.
“I talk about how annoying you all are, how much you–” Bakugou doesn’t even get to continue as Iida rudely interrupts him, which only makes him displeased even more.
“Could you please elaborate about it being immune to quirks!”
“Iida right? Of course, I was just getting to it” Midoriya claps his hands together as he continues speaking “Well, because of the fact that these species were already immune to almost everything. Nuclear weapons, natural disasters, weapons...you name it they’ll probably survive it! With the rise of quirks, the quirk-gene manifested in them only amplified them being immune. It’s how they were able to survive years upon years of being hunted and killed” he answers the question.
“You say almost everything, not to mention that they’re being hunted and killed. So it means there is a way to get rid of these things” Todoroki said, shocking most of his classmates. As the male was never one to be vocal towards anybody.
“Yes! Very observant, Todoroki! I mean it is quite expected” The boy said as he gestured at the suitcase he was holding. “These entities are called demons, at least that’s the easiest and closest description of them. They’re physical manifestations of people’s negative emotions like fear, anger, revenge. They mostly thrive in consuming these feelings from mortal beings, so they thrive in places that are usually high stress, hospitals for example or schools.” he says, everyone still listening intently to his explanation.
“These kinds of feelings and emotions have long withstand the test of time, which is why it cannot be simply destroyed by something as new as the existence of quirks. This is where soul blades come in, they are tools that kind of purify these demons down to their core. They can range from something for close range combat like a sword to long distance like a gun,”
Iida raises his hand and speaks when Midoriya looks towards him. “How do you acquire this kind of weapon then?”
Midoriya grins “Well, of course it has to come from someone who came from a long line of soul blades. They were centuries’ ago versions of a quirk factor. There even were previous records that even like to romanticize soul blades and hunters as soulmates,”
“Its kind of hard to explain so it’s better to show you,” he said as he looked over to Bakugou, which made the class a little curious as to what was about to happen.
Then, Bakugou started to glow, startling the students in the room who were unaware. They watch as he turns into a orange, almost fiery ball of energy zipping towards Midoriya already outstretched hand.
Like it was a practiced motion already, the ball of energy stretches and thins out until it forms into a shape to what looks like a scythe. The glow dies down and the handles were that of Bakugou’s signature orange wrapped around the grips of the weapon, the rest of the snath were a deep army green. At the blunt end of the Scythe there were pairs of mini explosions dangling from it. The blade itself was a metallic black that had orange outlines.
Everyone looks at Bakugou, completely enamored at his weapon form.
“This, everyone, is Kacchan in his weapon form,” Midoriya says, with pride dripping in his tone.
“He looks so cool!” Mina shrieks as she takes a step forward to take a closer look.
“I didn’t even know that blasty could look this cool,” Kaminari says
Almost all of them jump when they hear the scythe scoff. “Ha? I look cool all the damn time!”
“Yes, Kacchan of course you do,” Midoriya says, an amused smile and all that made it seem like he was placating him. “We share what we call a soulbond, as his hunter, I’m the only one that can wield him like this,” he further proves his point as he makes a simple but elegant swing of his weapon.
“How can Bakugou both be a weapon and have a quirk?” It was Sero who asked.
The question actually makes Midoriya think about his answer for a bit. “That’s actually a really interesting question, there’s actually not a lot of research that talks about the mixing of quirk factors and genetic factors of the soul blade.” He said as he looked at Bakugou while trying to find an answer. “Maybe it's because my family and Kacchan’s come from a long and traditional line of hunters and soul blades. If I had to guess, since a lot of us were still active hunters even during the emergence of quirks, our bodies adapted to take it into account,”
“I still don’t see the use of a weapon and hunter can be more formidable to this so called demon compared to if we were to use our quirks though,” Tokoyami comments,
If the comment had offended Midoriya, he showed no signs of it. “I completely understand, I mean usually it’s difficult to identify the differences between a demon and a villain these days. Since sometimes, very powerful demons take human bodies as hosts for their own bidding, which is entirely different from a sentient quirk,”
“Again, I’m not really good at explaining it so it’s better to show you, through a controlled demonstration of course!”
Slowly, the sunshine and cheerful grin morphs into something very similar to their homeroom teacher,
“Hold on! Is this even safe?” Jirou asked with concern.
“Probably” He replies as he walks towards the opened suitcase, rummaging for something. “Though, it's important that as heroes in training, you learn how to spot the difference whether you’re facing a regular villain or it turns out to be a demon,”
The students were growing nervous.
“Did Nedzu even permit this?” They hear Midnight fake whisper to Mic.
“Of course he did. Probably even encourage something like this” Eraserhead replied with crossed arms.
A few seconds pass and Izuku reveals what looks like to be a jar containing a floating ball emitting a black and blue aura. “This is a low level demon that we caught a few hours ago just for this demonstration, I ask that everybody stand back so you don’t feel its full effects,”
Nineteen pairs of feet shuffle to take a few steps back, though not as far as Midoriya would have liked. Oh well.
Midoriya eyes the jar with wonder. “Are you ready Kacchan?”
“Always am, damn nerd,” Bakugou growled.
He wastes no time twisting the jar open, and a loud wail and scream quickly fills the room. This makes all the students cover their ears in surprise.
The orb quickly hops out of the Jar. Its movements looked similar to that of Bakugou’s transformation but it was dark, twisted, and slow– like thick molasses that slowly grew and grew.
When the demon materializes, he’s already half the height of their gym. Its demon form had multiple eyes, mouths, and hands that looked like multiple people trying to escape the black substance.
It also very much emitted a kind of aura that seized their bones like they were rock solid. All sorts of emotions started filling their senses such as grief, sadness, and very evidently– fear.
“What a mad banquet of darkness,” Tokoyami muttered.
“Since this is the first time you’re encountering a demon, you’ll feel all its negative emotions to the point it paralyzes you. The more encounters, the easier it’ll be to move. But your body will most definitely feel heavier. Hunters and Soul Blades train hard to build immunity against it,” Aizawa supplies helpfully at the sudden weight felt by his students, his body oddly relaxed, same goes for Present Mic. Though Midnight powered through with her calm demeanor, it was evident that she was still tense.
They try to ignore that bubbling feeling, closely watching Izuku. The male was sizing the demon up and down with a smirk on his lips. gets on to his fighting stance.
“Keep sharpness at medium Kacchan, we need to remove its layers before we reach the core” Izuku reminds as he raises his Scythe.
“Of course I know that, don’t underestimate me,” Bakugou mutters, Midoriya simply laughs, amused at Bakugou’s antics as he shifts the blade and it shines differently, probably indicating its difference in sharpness.
Midoriya effortlessly swings the blade at an approaching hand of goo that tries to reach for them. Successfully dodging another incoming one that tried to reach for them.
They watched, enamored by the way Midoriya moves. His steps were light, being able to twist his body effortlessly like he can easily predict the monster’s moves.
Once they get close enough to the creature’s main body, Midoriya raises his scythe again and angles it differently, the sheen of the metallic black blade changes and some swore they saw the blade grow in size.
The hunter swings and clearly makes a direct hit as the demon wails in pain, louder than their previous attempts at cutting the limbs. The scythe glows a bright orange and little sparks start to conjure when they’ve sliced through the middle of the body.
Midoriya’s eyes look wild, full of confidence as he mutters a soft “boom” before the entire monster explodes with all too familiar sparks when Bakugou uses his quirk.
Logically, the demon’s body all explodes and a gust of wind fills the air when the scythe makes a full cut across its body. The demon continues to wail at it being cut into half, clearly displeased at its damaged body.
When the theatric attack settles, the duo makes quick work in breaking down the demon’s body into pieces, its gel-like body slowly dissolving into black smoke.
Soon, the clearing settles and what was once a huge scaled demon, is now nothing more but the same ball of energy bouncing on the ground.
Midoriya’s feet land on to the ground, and admire his work. He releases a soft, satisfied huffed before he turns to his weapon with wide eyes and bright expression.
“We did it Kacchan!” He said as he hugged his Scythe, who quickly transforms back into the same loud blonde everyone is familiar with.
Bakugou grunts, but looks away as he tries to hide the blush forming around his cheeks. “Of course we did nerd, don’t ever fucking doubt me,” he muttered softly, despite his sharp words his actions clearly held a sense of shyness his classmates never saw from him until now.
The silence is quickly interrupted by the curious and impressed mutters from the hero students.
“That was so cool!” Uraraka exclaims, “I didn’t think I could ever move like that being faced with that thing, I could feel the negativity locking my whole body in place,”
Midoriya hums “It gets better, overtime eventually especially for those who aren’t hunters or soul blades. Building up some form of tolerance is very important, especially since most hero fights and times of natural disaster you need to be able to help evacuate citizens despite quite literally the entire place infected with demons everywhere,”
“I have a question, does a demon automatically affect everyone in the room? how come we never had to face such feelings until now?”
“Well, they’re smarter than what meets the eye. When they’re powerful enough they can affect a large radius of people, but most of the time they only ever emit it when they intend to feed off of a human’s body or distract a hunter and soul blade,” Midoriya explains as he lets Bakugou lean on to him slightly, though not obvious he’s clearly showing signs of fatigue.
Momo raises her hand but speaks before anyone calls on her. “Both of your teamwork is admirable, does it come naturally since you’re both each other’s hunter and soul blade?”
“No way, Kacchan is such a hard person to deal with, I’m sure you all know that,” That earns a few chuckles from the class, Bakugou grumbles in protest but doesn’t do anything about it. “Although we are very compatible, soul bonds isn't as easily formed as people may think or else a lot of us would still exist until today,” he said softly, as his expression is like he’s looking back on a memory, one that makes him fond.
“Soul bonds are built on trust and relationship, regardless if it's romantic or being close friends. It's entirely possible for a soul blade to reject its hunter and vice versa, sending a really unpleasant shock throughout our bodies.” He says this like it's happened to him before, but he shows no sign of hurt or regret at the memory.
What pulls him away from such thought is Todoroki’s question “Is it possible for a soul blade to hurt something other than a demon?”
Midoriya shakes his head, “No, they can't. Soul blades are created to purify or extinguish physical manifestations of negative energy. They are not designed to harm material beings like humans or animals, so some higher level demons usually take advantage of it and try to take on a human’s body to host itself, this makes it harder for us to defeat them that way,”
This makes some members of the class pale at the image. “So they can possess human bodies?” Kirishima says in horror.
“Yes, but can be fought off if you're strong enough and proper training,” Midoriya reassures the students quickly. “Though if you start feeling large and exaggerated negative emotions all of a sudden, it’s important to find a hunter quickly so they can help in extracting it,”
“Wow, you guys do a lot of work, yet no one really knows about it– how is it possible?” Tsuyu mutters softly.
Midoriya shrugs, “Working as a hunter doesn’t feel the same as being a hero I guess,” he replies to her question. “It’s not as flashy as hero work when it comes to villains, similar to underground hero work where most of the time you really have to look closely or look at places where people don’t bother looking at to find something to defeat,”
Before anyone can start asking more questions, Aizawa steps in to interrupt “It’s almost the end of Practical Heroics, so it's best we stop here,” there are multiple groans and protests from the students.
This makes the homeroom teacher grunt “Shut it. You’ll all have more opportunities to ask Midoriya and Bakugou next time. Midoriya will be joining us every now and then to help you all build resistance against demons,”
The protest suddenly turns into excited and satisfied mutters.
“Now scram, the next class will be here shortly to use the gym.” He tells his students before turning to the duo. “You two, go rest up and change, Midoriya will be picked up to go back to his dorm tomorrow morning.”
A mutter of ‘Yes Sensei’ and the sound of pairs of feet moving back to the locker area filled the room.
Just when the students are out of earshot, Midnight huffs and whistles in wonder “I’ve seen them a couple of times after villain fights but it still gets me everytime,” she muttered. “Where the heck do you pick these kids up, Shouta?”
“Those two are the best in the business,” Aizawa mutters as he buries himself in his capture weapon to hide his slight smile.
Hizashi strides forward and gives Izuku a big bear hug “I’m so proud of you, kid! You did so well today!” he said, grinning when the boy wraps his arms around the hero.
“Thank you! I was so nervous since this is the first time I did something like this, though I had fun! It was so nice finally getting to know Kacchan’s friends,” he giggled,
“Not my damn friends” Bakugou protests, voice weaker than his usual shout probably from the fatigue.
Izuku hums as he pinches Bakugou’s cheeks. “Whatever you say Kacchan,” he grins, taking in the red that spreads along the blonde’s cheeks. Displeased but clearly not making any moves to free himself from his gentle touch.
“Well, let’s get you both to rest up! I’m sure your both tired from today, yeah?” Hizashi says as he ushers the two outside the gym as well. “Inko wouldn’t certainly appreciate it if I return you dead on your feet after all,”
“Mom loves you guys,” Izuku tries to assure but this makes Aizawa snort. “She loves you more, that’s for sure so be sure to eat up or we’ll never hear the end of it, you too Bakugou,”
–
“I didn’t overdo it again, did I?” Izuku says in soft whisper tones as they’re now situated inside Bakugou’s dorm room.
Usually, guests weren’t allowed beyond this point on campus. But Izuku was an exception, not when UA had to explain to him that his Kacchan was kidnapped by a group of villains, where its leader was not only human but part demon. Not when Bakugou would sometimes get night terrors whenever he would imagine again Izuku being swallowed by some monster they fought before.
No, they fought tooth and nail every day, the least they could do is let him inside his dorm room.
Bakugou had already freshen up, in his sleeping clothes and situated himself in a blanket on his bed, having moved all the way to one side, reserved for the man who was still changing out of his clothes.
He grumbles at Izuku’s question “I told you a billion times, it's fine, I’m fine, I can handle it, ‘Zuku,” he replied, voice steadier as if it would ease some of Izuku’s worries
It did, slightly.
“And we’re fine right?” Izuku says as he fills up the space Bakugou made for him on his bed, enveloped quickly by warm blankets and an arm that was equally as warm.
The bond sings at their closeness, like to strings of heat happily circling one another at each other’s presence. Izuku lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“Of course we are,” Bakugou mutters as he places his lips just above his forehead. “Always will be, damn nerd,”
Izuku smiles, feels all gooey and soft just by the sheer love that radiates off of Kacchan because of him.
Historic records say that hunters and soul blades have different forms of compatibility with one another. The purest and most revered of them all is soulmates in every shape, sense and form. Ones where their souls are nearly identical matches to one another.
Once, he had read in a book how those kinds of souls meant they always ended up together, compliments or contrasts regardless of its timeline.
Hero Partners, Hero and Villain, Hunter and Soul Blade.
Slowly, the two drift into quiet sleep, a kind of calm only felt when they’re together.