Chapter Text
Shouta heard a knock on his door just as he was getting out his lesson plan.
His class was a big one this year, with 18 of originally 20 students making it past the first day’s quirk assessment. It was a big job to take on– he needed to keep all of these kids alive until graduation, at which point they should be able to survive in the hero industry.
He got up to answer it while his cat Gin did his best to trip him.
“Mikoto. It’s been a while.” It wasn’t unheard of for Mikoto to visit him unexpectedly. She liked to pop by every once in a while to catch up, but more often than not, she was just a pain in his ass.
“Yeah, I was in Kansai for a while, but I found something more interesting here in Musutafu,” she said as she took off her shoes. Sadatsuka Mikoto was an investigative journalist in the ‘true crime’ sector, but she was also a childhood friend and neighbor. Her dark brown hair was wet from the rain. Shouta got her a towel to dry off with and made her a cup of tea while they caught up.
“And what are you up to this time?” he asked. He could tell she was dying to tell him about her latest project.
She grinned. “Straight to the point as always, Shouta.” Then her face got serious. “Have you heard of Bakugou Katsuki?”
“Of course.” In his position, it was impossible not to know who the kid was. A little over a year ago, his death had made national headlines. It hit close to home for Shouta, to see such a promising young kid lose his life to a villain. It happened right in Musutafu, not even 30 minutes from UA’s campus. Shouta had even attended the kid’s funeral, since it was open to the public. “You’re writing about him? Why now?”
“I stumbled across one of the videos recently, and I just got this crazy feeling that I needed to learn more. So I started digging...”
“I’m surprised you’re so interested in that story. Seems a little mundane compared to your usual stuff.”
“Well, what I’ve found so far is turning out to be pretty damn interesting. And listen to this– There is no doubt in my mind, that if Bakugou Katsuki were alive today, he’d be in your class right now,” she said with confidence.
“He did have a strong quirk-” he started.
“—That’s barely the beginning of it Shou. Believe me.” And then she unzipped her backpack to pull out a couple of large folders. “I got all of these from his middle school and elementary school. It’s got grades, awards, teacher feedback, notes from teacher-parent conferences, you name it. I’ve only just started going through it; I’m gonna go back to interview all his old teachers later.”
He stared at the piles of paper. “There is such a thing as being too thorough,” he pointed out.
“Oh shush, you’re the same way with your cases.”
Shouta didn’t deny it. “So what’s so interesting about him?”
“I looked through all of Bakugou’s report cards and found that he had straight A’s. Every single time. For his entire life.”
“So he was smart.”
“Very. It also means that he was a hard worker. You know better than most that grades correlate with effort more so than intelligence. And he had ambition. He worked to get those perfect grades his entire life, and why? To get into UA. So he could be a hero.” She hammered the point straight into his heart. “And that’s not all. The high school graduation rate for kids that went to Aldera Middle School like him is below 50%. That’s one of the lowest in the country, and certainly the lowest in this prefecture. The kids of Aldera are almost exclusively from low-income households. But that means that if he’d gotten into UA, and I’m almost positive he would have, he would have beaten the odds and reached heights that no one in his community had before.”
Shouta was silent for a moment. He already knew the basic story. It’d been told in the obituaries, the news reports, and at the funeral itself. Bakugou Katsuki was a talented and smart young man with dreams of becoming a hero and he was taken too soon.
Mourning the death of a child was always difficult, but adding extra details made it so much more real. By keeping tabs on Mikoto’s work, he’d be signing himself up for an extra daily dose of depression.
Good thing he was in therapy.
“What are you going to do with the information?”
“I’ll figure it out once I have the whole story in my hands.” Mikoto was lucky that she didn’t have to rely on her work for money. She’d unexpectedly inherited enough money to last her whole life, which allowed her to put all of her time into creating quality work. She’s done various kinds of media: articles, a couple of books, and she even played a major role in making a documentary one time.
“And are you going to properly respect the wishes of the family? You’re not going to do anything that could get you sued for defamation?”
She rolled her eyes. “You should know better than to ask me that. I’m going to learn the whole story, no matter what,” she said with determination.
This was why Shouta felt like he needed to get involved. Her motto was something along the lines of ‘Ask for forgiveness, not permission.’ He’d just keep an eye on her to make sure she didn’t go too far… But there wasn’t much he could do to stop her.
And as much as he wanted to deny it, he wanted to know more about Bakugou Katsuki’s story. In another life, he would have been his own student. He knows exactly which seat in the classroom Bakugou would sit in if he were alive today.
There’s nothing wrong with helping Mikoto out a little bit.
~~~
The first phase of research was going through all of Bakugou’s public and easy-to-find records. His former schools were helpful, but Shouta went ahead and pulled Bakugou’s information from the quirk database too.
“Bakugou-kun was quite the athlete,” Mikoto said from where she was now sprawled on the couch. “These papers are pretty disorganized, but I’ve found at least three different first-place awards for sports competitions.” She pulled out another paper. “Wow, this kid won everything. Apparently he was Aldera’s all-time champ for the geography bee.”
Shouta scratched Gin’s head gently. “I probably would’ve hated him if I were in his class. Those people who always seem to win everything can drive me nuts.”
“You say that like you’re not one of them,” she joked, but in a more serious tone asked, “Do you think his classmates might’ve hated him for that?”
“Who knows,” he said, shaking his head. “Just something to ask during interviews.”
Finding a dead kid’s quirk records wasn’t the easiest thing to do on the outdated interface, but he finally got it.
“Hm. Bakugou’s quirk was a mutation quirk.” That was unexpected.
“What?! But his hands made explosions! How is that a mutation and not an emitter?”
“His actual quirk had two components. The sweat glands on his palms produced nitroglycerin, and he was also able to spontaneously detonate it. His father, Bakugou Masaru, can make small explosions from the combustible acid that his hands produce. His mother, Bakugou Mitsuki, sweats glycerin.”
“What even is glycerin?”
“Uh, apparently it’s used in skincare products.”
“Oh.”
“He also got a permit for medically necessary public quirk use in 21XX, so he would’ve been about 7 at the time.”
Mikoto looked up at him incredulously. “His quirk is explosions. What the fuck?”
“Apparently the easiest safe way to dispose of nitroglycerin is to detonate it. If he didn’t explode it then he’d get nitroglycerin on every single thing he touched.”
“That’s kind of terrifying actually.”
Shouta agreed. They kept on reading.
~~~
Shouta found himself getting attached to Bakugou and his story.
It was like Mikoto’s words were on replay in his head. He would have been in your class.
At this point, he knew Bakugou better than he knew his current first years. It felt like he’d already lost one of his own, before he’d even met him.
That feeling, combined with whatever he felt when he saw the empty desks the next morning, made him do something a little bit insane.
Maybe a lot insane.
He only really stopped to think about it after he’d already done it.
“Um, Aizawa-sensei?” asked Sero. “Why’s there a framed picture of some guy on that desk?”
“That’s Bakugou’s desk.”
“Who’s Bakugou?" asked Ashido.
“Bakugou Katsuki,” he responded. “You don’t know him?”
“Uh, no?” Shouta wasn’t surprised by their answer. Bakugou’s death was old news. Even if they’d heard it before, they probably wouldn’t recognize it out of context, especially now.
“You will.”
They’d definitely be hearing more about his side project as it progressed.