Kazashi

Not the smooth, calming torrent of river Kawasaki, not the pure flowering blossom of Kasumi, nor the victorious beauty of Katsumi: I am merely Kazashi, hair ornament.

Preface

AU. A lot of things are different. That's intentional, but some are not. In the end, there's a lot of variables that I can't account for. Keep in mind the fact that some people are out-of-character in reaction to these changes.

Warning: a little bit of dark thoughts, dead bodies, violated human remains, and other things. This isn't a dark fic per se, but I think they worked well enough as plot devices.

No, the crude language isn't a plot device.

I hated it, at first. My name. Kazashi. The old hag was probably delirious from medications or injected hard drugs, because she wasn't hair ornament material, and certainly not me. There was a disconnect between my name and my self. Brash, quick-tempered, and nothing like a Yamato Nadeshiko, I was just like my mother, but rotten to the core.

I was not, and am not, a psychopath or mentally ill, nothing like that. In fact, I cared about many things, about many people. But I was young, born with blessings of both parents combined, propelled into a higher status without so much as a blink. Mom was blunt, and dad rather spineless if I would say so myself. But most importantly, they raised their child blind, so all they knew was to throw me as much love and care as they could. Even my aunt, bless her heart, was a worrywart.

I'm delaying. In short, I was a retarded bitch.

I let it get to me. Showered in praises, I hurt people. As a big fan of All Might, I wanted his quirk. But when Explosion first activated, I didn't exactly think I was that special. But everybody told me that I was. I had the potential to rival the best of the best. The older kids, they made fun of the weaker quirks. By stopping them, they rounded on me. I learned intimidation and scare tactics from there.

But as more and more kids my age had activated their quirks, the more I saw weird and strange quirks. Some were great, some were strange, and most of them wasn't flashy. Most Emitter-types can define their style, their user could lean on them. They immediately have built-in versatility. Initially, I wanted my explosives to supplement my style. They said all I have to do is punch them with my explosives and they'll eventually go down. I did that, and soon I stagnated. Like a fool, I let my explosions define me, too.

They were not Izuku Midoriya.

He was physically weak, weaker than than the average human before evolution spontaneously manifested in everyone, but mentally stronger than their entire school staff faculty combined. He was kind, caring, and stubborn when it mattered most. He was helpful to a fault, knew when to push and when to stay away. When he set his sight on something, he won't stop.

He encouraged me to experiment, to be creative with my quirk. To be mindful of it's dangers. That was more wisdom than even my quirk doctor. Still, I thought I knew better. They poisoned me with their sweet words. You are strong, and he is weak.

And it was true. At age 3, he was admitted to the hospital for typhus. A week before his fourth birthday, the flu hit him hard. In this day and age where everybody could breathe magma and pissed nuclear bombs, unassuming was the role for him. He'd done a bunch of minor things for everyone, from family to strangers, like a good Samaritan. But he was never built to be a licensed hero.

When everyone found out about his designation, he was ridiculed. They treated him like he had a disabled, like he was a freak. They forgot that they borrowed his toys, helped them to the infirmary, called the teachers to break up a fight. They forgot about him and stripped him of his dignity. They forgot he was my hero.

I slammed them all, solidifying myself as something of a royalty. Permanently neutral or scowling, I stared everyone down. And, like the commoner that they are, they stayed the fuck away. But I didn't know how to be a princess. Diplomacy was never my strong suit. In retrospect, I should have realized that Izuku couldn't handle a roughhousing.

He became a nervous wreck. Since no one wanted to interact with him, he didn't know how to act, how to talk. He didn't understand social cues. His confidence spiraled, and his mother noticed. Her worries became straight up anxiety, and I often worried if she was going to have a panic attack.

Then auntie got another part time job. When they could no longer come over to visit, I distanced myself. Didn't call him names. Just Midoriya, like we were strangers (because insulting his name hurt me more than I expected). The rift between us had grown so large, enormous even. Yet still he called me with that nickname-

"Kacchan!"

I was a girl. And boys don't play with girls. I was a tomboy, so I had to make it clear (again)to all those mongoloids who they were dealing with: an apex predator at the top of the food chain. They weren't worth to be called prey.

"YOU IDIOTS DON'T THINK I'D FIND OUT?!" a loud crackle escaped my palm as I bust out the old song and dance. "WHO'S THE BOSS? ME! THINK THIS IS MY SHIT! FUCK OFF!"

It was a good thing those faceless filler characters were so predictable. Even if it was the usual, running away with tails between their legs instead of trying to fight and giving me another headache. But then I saw his crumpled form on the ground, bruises everywhere, and it threatened to carry out its revenge. It failed. I carried him to the infirmary and disinfected his wounds.

"Go home. Tell your mom what happened. Get some rest," I said.

"Kacchan-"

"Shut up, Midoriya. I know what you were doing," I sneezed loudly. "I'm gonna go home, go to my bed and nap. Maybe then my nose wouldn't feel so itchy."

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

He looked away from me. I noticed, but didn't pay too much attention (Our faces were so close, foreheads touching). "It's not your fault. Go home, take care of your mother. I'll take care of myself," I forced out, irritated.

He opens his mouth to say something, but closed it before a word got out. He stared at me, the gleam I saw in his eyes -and only his eyes- that never faded away. Then, he mouthed something about going to class. Probably left something behind, that clumsy idiot. At that moment I could care less.

I wanted to walk home him, to go and visit his recovering mother so badly. I wasn't particularly allergic to pollen but damn, I felt my nose becoming wet. So I returned home instead, ignoring the concerned matriarch, and went straight to my room, my bag left on the floor.

I tried not to compare my figure against the old hag. I was still growing anyway.

The next day, Midoriya was absent from school.

I spent my time at school alone, like usual. I found out Aunt Inko's recovery of from mom. I was told that her son was declared a missing person.

I froze. I spent a minute sitting in silence, before mom told me to get ready to head out.

We rushed to her home. The hag badgered me to join them and stay the night while dad headed home. It was painful. We listened to the anguished cry of the unfortunate mother and tried to comfort her. I didn't comment on the amount of tears she shed. I was crying too.

Like a bad dream, I found out on the weekend that the beheaded corpse puppeteered by the mad villain Psyqueteer was Izuku.

The televised recapture broadcasted the previous day was censored heavily, but it couldn't hide the worms and the maggots and the wounds and the bruises and the tattered school uniform so similar to my own and the dried fluids and andandand-

Huh, I thought. Psychic possession doesn't stop rigor mortis.

I spent the next three days with family (and the only remaining Midoriya, morbidly enough) and on the funeral. Bodies of villainous attacks were rarely returned this quickly, but I understand why no one wanted to touch the disgustingly violated remains of a young boy. Or maybe they didn't have to, with the villain's confession. Maybe because of his status. I didn't know or particularly care.

But I was thankful that the everything else went well enough. When it came time to move his ashes into the urn, my chopsticks wobbled, barely managing to pick the remains of his bones and place it into its intended destination. I had begged out, lacking physical delicacy, afraid it would snap into a million pieces under my touch. Dad convinced me otherwise, and I didn't regret the decision (and still don't). It was an intimately beautiful experience. I felt a lot more at peace.

I woke up on Thursday, still on family leave, when I discovered a skull in my room. Which I was hugging to my chest. In my sleep.

I freaked out, and quite loudly too. And, well, so did my parents.

We talked, and we talked a lot. They tried to dispose it, but it came back once they blinked. It seemed to have a one meter radius. If I moved away (or it was moved away from me), it moved to a random position within that a meter of me. And a meter is... short. The teleporting thing is... less creepy, and more of an annoyance. Desperately, I tried blowing it out of the window, but it returned to my desk in pristine condition. My hands exploded out of sheer anger. What a shitty prank.

I halted them when they offered to call the emergency services. The inside was hollow (so probably not a bomb), and it didn't seem to be of ill intent, other than ruining my mood. Too soon. I memorized the basic descriptions of the kids' quirks at school (and the staffs', and the police), and knew all of Hero Analysis for the Future by heart. No one I knew had powers that invisibly bound things to a person.

We needed an investigation, and a doctor. Or possibly an exorcist. Maybe a shrine maiden. Better to be cautious.

The police couldn't find anything or anyone. The doctors found it to be indestructible. No amount of blunt damage, elemental damage, or scraping could do anything to it. It was also permanently spotless and disease free, but I admit it wasn't Teflon. I had to clean it if anything stuck to it.

Normal DNA testing couldn't be done and other experimental techniques was too intrusive and time-consuming, especially when I had to be present. It was a strange phenomena that was documented but never quite explained, theory upon theory piling up over the years, but went unresolved.

I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry as I tried to avoid mingling with the extras leeching off of each other. I settled for a series of cracklings. I tried to not open up my bag at all, to not think about how the thing would open and close its mouth at random with great difficulty.

The hardest thing I've tried to do was to not look at the vase of flowers on top of his desk.

I didn't remember the exact number of 'exorcisms' and 'readings' I went through, because they never worked. Perhaps they did, but they were far too vague, absolute nonsense, something she already knew. Like, for example, whose skull this was. Or the relationship between the skull and her (it was always a tragic story, but each one was always different. In the end, they sound just like the doctors). By the third week, my parents stopped pursuing for answers. Didn't want to meet with unsavory people. Or villains.

Now, wherever I went, my trusty modified messenger bag went with me. Aunt Inko was confused at first, but came to an understanding once explained was explained.

"It's probably the work of an enemy quirk," she said. We laughed at the reference, but increased the pace. We were going to be late to therapy.

Once, I met Izuku in my dream. No, I think that time wasn't an actual dream, per se, but it definitely happened in my sleep. It was white, white everywhere. But not enough. There were cracks within the space, and multicolored kaleidoscopes bled in. The cracks pulsed, becoming bigger and bigger by the second, threatening to remove the white from existence.

I saw him in front of me. His short and frail body, just the way he was the last time I saw him at the infirmary. He was pale and almost see through, gold specks of light coming off of his form and falling upwards, like bubbles in a soda. Seeing me, he waved and ran over to me.

"Hey, Kacchan. It's me, remember?"

I wanted to move so bad, to move closer to him. Be with him. But my legs were shaking, and betrayed me by not abiding by my will. I looked down, at my two legs. Fuck you. I looked back at him again, and settled for a simple nod and a hum.

"I don't have much time with you, I can feel it. I don't know what's happening or why. Regardless, I've been looking for you," he said. "I can feel my voice becoming weaker and weaker. Soon, I'll become this... dust. I think this is the last time I'll ever speak to you again."

How were you supposed to react to that?

"Oh."

From this point on, he degenerated into a rambling mess, thinking that he had gone insane and was hallucinating. Apparently he had been here for quite some time, and his mental state at the time had deteriorated so badly that he kept shaking and stuttering. I couldn't let that stand. I don't exactly know what came over me, but in my tears, I ran and shoved his face down into my bosom.

I told him many things. The exact days since his confirmed death, the amount of time since his funeral, the approximate speed of my heartbeat, the condition of our families, the fact that they missed him, the fact that I missed him too, and also perhaps, probably, possibly, maybe my affections for him. It was embarrassing for me and for him. Despite my fear of performance issues, I conjoined my lips with his. He reciprocated.

I decided not to write the scene word-for-word. Ask him yourself. I'll keep you in suspense.

Things change, and people change along with them. And sometimes, the order is reversed. When I attached a skull on the back of my head, using it like some kind of demented parody of a hairpin, things changed... I'm kidding. Nothing changed much.

"Is that real?" they asked, pointing at him.

A neutral smile bloomed on my face. My eyes glinted dangerously. 'Is that real?' echoed in my head and I couldn't help but feel my anger viciously bubble in my heart. My hair came undone, standing up on its own and splitting off into countless group of tendrils, posed to attack.

"It is."

My quirk activated, and a nice crackle escaped my hands. They hurriedly left. I grinned lazily, so very tempted to ruin them. In an instant, my hair returned to normal and I continued her way home, hair styled back as if it hadn't been trying to intimidate a group of upperclassmen. My wrath slowly seeped away as I reined in my breathing. Pieces of shit.

I cannot lie to myself and think of their discrimination as ignorant behavior, but they almost always are. Embracing the comfort of their normalcy, they choose to be. I refuse to stoop to their level. So instead of trying to hurt them back, I thought of which kanzashi to wear for winter. He liked those old school hair ornaments, and his favorites are the flowery ones with long strings with triangles attached to them. But I know he loved every single one his mother bought for me.

"Is it weird?" I spoke, hair down and skull on my lap, bouquet of flowers near my knees.

My neck warmed up. Ooh, I liked it when he did that.

"Mm, you make a great scarf. Double vision still?"

My hair got messed up a bit. I didn't mind. The pointy bits of my hair tickled him a little and he likes it, and so did I. I placed the skull on the ground away from the shadows and waited a few moments. I wiped the bottom with a small towel and let the sunshine down on it, and waited for the same amount of time. Orienting it, I peered into his eye sockets and paused, before kissing his upper teeth. A laugh escaped before I had the chance to clamp down on my mouth, demure cheeks turning red.

I smelled smoke. From my palms.

I spent another half an hour with my prayers before straightening my bright red kimono and making the long plum flower kanzashi look presentable again. It was another gift from Aunt Inko, and apparently a gift to congratulate her marriage. I treasured it along with my growing collection.

I always enjoyed the time I spent here. Often I poured my heart out into nothing, traced the kanji of his name, and just touching the stone. It helped me get over the fact that the light of my life might be forgotten, but never gone.

I picked up the patterned umbrella and made my way to the train station. It paired well with what I wore and cooled me down. It was a hot day, and I did not want my clothes to stick to my skin. Damn, even on normal hours, the train was quite packed.

"I'm home," I announced, slipping off my wooden sandals.

"Welcome back, Kacchan! Where'd you go?" the reply came from the kitchen. I smiled.

Inko couldn't move in with them because of the distance to work. Her apartment was empty most of the time though, as she wasn't going to court anyone any time soon. She mellowed out a lot and spent most of her free days at the our residence or doing mindless, relaxing trips wherever she pleased. I was often invited with her. It was nice. Took the anxiety and stress of everyday life.

"Visiting Izuku, auntie. It's a couple months left until the 1 year right?"

"Yeah, it is. Thanks, Katsuki. I'm sure he appreciates it. We'll go there soon, my boss is pushing overtime this quarter."

I caught a glimpse of her making dinner at the kitchen. Even with all the delicious curry she made, her figure slimmed down. Nowhere near her prime beauty, but still attractive. Bad news though, her hair was slowly turning white. She looked older than my mom. Now, the two women talked beauty products or went to the spa quite often, with me invited. It was a waste of time, but it proved productive.

Therapy worked wonders for everyone, but none more so than her I guess. Didn't even bat an eye to my newest, most prominent 'accessory'.

I wanted to lift weights as part of my physical training, and my body's growth should no longer be stunted. So, I looked around for a modestly equipped gym around town. Why so far out? To be fair, the neighborhood was around the same quality as my school. The less said, the better.

After a day of unfruitful wandering, I sat down on a bench near Dagobah Beach, looking at the sunset and trying to ignore the giant pile of discarded electronics and plain old garbage that is Dagobah. All of a sudden, he pushed me forward with what little he could.

"You want me to use that?!" I whisper-shouted into empty air. Something blew to my right ear for a second, like a vibration of a vocal chord to me.

"What if I get Tetanus?" no answer from the wind, but a strand of hair managed to move its way onto my right cheek.

I considered it for a while. A gym would be better, with everything I would need in one place, but I was getting desperate. The fact that he was saying things about how it's the heroic thing to do or shit like the greatest heroes are the ones who contribute the most to their community didn't help.

"I guess I'll buy a pair of protective gloves tomorrow."

The hair on my right hand stood up abruptly. I blinked.

"Shit, it's this late already. I hope the the hag won't kill me."

The sludge villain attacked me. Izuku's tendril attack got him in the eye, saving me from asphyxiation. Not a moment later, All Might came and blasted the villain away with a single strike.

"Thanks, young lady! Well, I best be off! Stay safe!"

Rude. I ended up clinging onto him out of spite (and no other reason!), and found out about his wound for my troubles. That sucked. With that injury, he should be on life support. On second thought, his continued work probably had something to do with his pride or his fears of destabilizing society. I didn't particularly care.

"Ne, All Might. Do you think a quirkless person can become a hero?"

"I would say no, they can't be a licensed Hero. They can try to be the first, but it's a risk I'm not willing to take. Even with my power, I have this debilitating injury taken from a villain. What if they were quirkless? They would have died a painful death. I'm sorry young lady, I cannot lie. Your quirk is wonderful. You can be their hero,"

I felt breathless, doubly so with the pressure of my partner squeezing my body tight. I handed the captured villain over to him, replying a numb affirmative. He left quickly as quickly as he came. On autopilot, I cleaned Izuku with sunshine and a towel, hugging his focus close to my heart.

I couldn't believe that guy. Where did the optimistic All Might on TV go? He was a washed up hero, probably retiring soon. A bad day maybe? Fuck, I was the one upset instead of him. I felt all those years of tormenting Deku return back to me. It felt hard to breathe.

Thankfully, my beacon of hope is a kind boy. Man. Male. He whispered sweet nothings into my ear. Even as I slumped down onto the ground, he traced circles on my back, keeping me close and my regrets far away.

"Even back then, you already were my hero, Izuku," I repeated over and over again. I felt him nod every single time I say it. It cycled again and again until my throat dried up. I hobbled home, not bothering to return the stares of random passerby.

With the house empty, I cried again. I ran to my room and slammed the door shut. My body slipped down to the ground, so I sat there, hugging my knees to my chest. Didn't give a shit about the training, didn't think about studying, or the hero observing. Just cried it all out.

The signature on Heroics for the Future #1 felt more disgusting than the gunk all over my body.

Izuku Midoriya had a quirk, just unfortunate in its activation. It had an entry on the notebook, but it was nameless at the time. The skull thing was initially thought to be the work of another person's quirk, so give me a break. Giving it a proper name was something long overdue, so I decided one day to give it one.

I sucked at names, so I thought long and hard to give it something worthy of it's user- with his lack of proper speech, my voice was his. There were a couple of names I thought of but didn't quite fit, like Apparition and Od, a couple he vetoed (looking at you, Vengeance), and others I couldn't bring myself to put to words. Curse you, puberty!

"Spirit Apparatus," I voiced out loud, a myriad of things clicking into place.

His sick days, his terrible balance, his weak constitution. He was a person split in two, and when one part was destroyed, the other became whole. I couldn't help but be thankful for things to happen the way it did. Had his entire body been destroyed, he probably would've disappeared entirely.

I felt him jump around and twirl: the apparatus' eye sockets in my lap almost glowing in response. I thought I could do a lot better with enough time, but it seemed that he liked it enough. Oh, hugs. I immediately thought of how to milk him for it, but refrained from letting it stray too far. I could just ask him nicely, of course.

I am unsure whether to write this here or in Future Heroics. Since the former is a must and the latter is (in the infinite wisdom of the esteemed hag) not, I'll write it in both.

To keep this brief, my Explosion quirk became different. At first, I observed my explosions to have decreased in power, but not long after I realized the activation sequence had changed.

I could make explosions from afar. It seemed that any combustible fluid that I touch become tagged, and I could explode them at range. My current maximum range is about a meter, and they stay tagged for around ten minutes.

I asked Izuku about this and he said something like "we became one." Phrasing, please. He thinks our quirks are actually fusing. I think he's right and I'm trying to believe that it's not because his quirk would essentially become mine, and the thought brings me pain.

He proved me wrong by inducing those explosions as well, though his current maximum is a firecracker. He said that it's more of a two player game, with each player delegating certain tasks to each other. Like the 360 degree vision thing from the skull, I get nauseous from that, so I relinquished that to him, among other things.

I'll update the quirk registry by the end of the week. For now, we need a lot more practice. I'm determined to make it work. I'll have to adapt my style a bit, but we'll manage.

When I first properly met Toshinori Yagi, I was lifting garbage on the beach. He looked sufficiently impressed by how clean it was of the smaller junk. He greeted me, told me his name. I didn't give much thought to him.

He surprised me a little by bringing up the slime incident, apologizing in All Might's behalf for 'hurting me and my friend's feelings'. An underground hero would be for the best, he said. We didn't care. The past was in the past. I told him of Izuku's death. The man winced.

And coughed blood. Cool quirk, bro.

He offered to help haul the trash into the recycling centre with a rented truck. I declined. I was focusing on using the bigger piles for UA training. His eyes gleamed with... something, and claimed that anyone who could single-handedly clean up the beach within nine months will easily pass, no problem.

I took it as a challenge.

Today was a rare day where I took an entire day off every month or so. I decided to abstain from going outside of my room other than for basic necessities. I spent my cheat day filling my head with all the romantic activities we could do in my bedroom. It was heavenly.

The nice thing about having a skull on the back of my head is that people that notice give a wide berth. The negatives? Well, the way people judged silently, looked at me strangely, or assumed I was a delinquent. That sucked, but it was tolerable. The thing I couldn't? Chairs with backrest. That was the main reason I asked mom to buy a small low table for my room (the other reason was so that I could jury-rig my own kotatsu).

Sometimes I'd just place the apparatus on my lap and make him listen to whatever melody I thought of. Today though, I sat still while he played with my face (and my body, sometimes. I encouraged him. Too shy for his own good). Never had I thought my Seiza practice would be useful. My legs still hurt from the strain. I ignored the burn because it made for the perfect lap pillow. Like every cheat day, today I sleep early. Time to ramp up my... cleaning.

We cuddled as my consciousness faded. And we'll do it tonight, and tomorrow night, and the night after. I love cuddling. One of the many secrets I would bring to my grave.

...

Hey, this is me the day after. Next time, don't ignore the pain. I can barely walk.

The last push to UA had me work harder, but it also taught me to work smarter.

The first month was when I learned that the less i touch, my control increased inversely proportionate to the amount of power released. This was good for more finesse, like 'cutting' a car chassis in two. My control improved a fair bit, sadly not by leaps and bounds like I had hoped. Still though, now that I got the hang of it, my destructiveness returned and shot up.

It was also when Mr. Yagi went wide-eyed at my -our- quirk. He thought it was merely hair control. I couldn't help but laugh at his face.

By the second month, I learned the consequences of tunnel vision. My grades dropped and mom nagged me about it. I vowed to work twice as hard, twice as smart, and relax four times as often. I also learned the dangers of heatstroke and overworking. It was such a real possibility, it had it's own name... karoshi.

Anyway, it seemed that the more we trained, the stronger our techniques were. Once, I flooded energy into my palm and nearly destroyed my eardrums. But it was fruitful, now my costume had to have ear protection. In the fifth month, we could fuse multiple facets of his gifts into a form I dubbed Demon Mode.

Cold, frosty anger seeped in. My hair came undone and lengthened, becoming tendrils of doom. Eyes (and sockets) glowed with unholy wrath, taking on a constant change of colors I myself couldn't quite put to words. A giant oni mask hovered behind me sent shivers down his spine, and soon he found his legs to be paralyzed.

Killing intent radiated from my entire being, mere presence defying the world and giving the pocket of space around me a pitch black background, not unlike looking at an empty sky. I quickly turned my head towards him, almost gave myself a severe case of whiplash. The skeleton man flinched.

"What was it that you said before?"

"I... can't bring the truck as often because I will be teaching at UA..?"

All of a sudden, reality clicked back into place, and everything returned back to normal as if nothing had happened. I sighed, fun over already. All Might -Toshinori Yagi, whoops- kept his promise longer than I expected. This was bound to happen. I was hoping he'd realize what a waste of time patiently waiting every day instead of coming over every several days, but he doesn't seem to have the sharpest of minds.

"Eh, alright. Clear a day of your schedule next month. Give me 30 days to work with, give or take. I'll clean this place up, and you'll drive as usual. Or you can send someone to do it for you. Do as you wish."

I saw his surprise when he returned 35 days later to see the entire beach clear of trash, and a section full of neatly organized trash bags filled with small bits of scrap. Some were the heavy-duty ones too, probably had to do with metal shards or sharp pointy things. I was using one the tallest bags (even taller than All Might) as weights. He transformed into the big guy and offered me One for All right there and then.

In these points of divergence, I was always paralyzed from the waist down.

After a long explanation, we decided to hold back. He persisted, and gave me a week to think about it.

I am a coward, I know. Too scared to walk forward, unable to run away.

"You are intimate with loss, are you not? I can see it in your eyes, in your actions, in the way you carry yourself. That is why you move with that dogged determination, why you move without thinking. Not because you rush in blindly, but because you have something you want to protect. That is a trait only the best of the best have.

"Whether or not you take my power, you don't have to become another symbol of peace. I know my presence has turned our society into a damsel in distress, too dependent on knights in shining armor. Frankly, I don't think we don't need another Symbol of Peace. I want you to become your own version of Hero.

"Most importantly, Hero or not, I'm sure you'll bring great change. I believe in you, Young Kazashi."

But now, I know that he will always be with me.

And I feel free.

This journal writing thing the therapist recommended is a chore, but I'm still going at it long after I needed it. I'm surprised, too. Izuku is nice enough not to peek whenever I write, and I feel so happy whenever I push down my embarrassment and show him myself. Ah, doubly so for today.

I'm going to go to UA, and so starts a new chapter of my life. I just got the news of the acceptance today. Funny enough, this is the last page. If I have the time, I guess I'll write the next entries on a new book. I'll shove this one in the closet, where every other book in the franchise are.

My name is Kazashi. I'm not the hair ornaments I wear, nor the frightening skull I proudly present to the world. I am Kazashi Bakugou, daughter of Mitsuki Bakugou and Masaru Bakugou, Inko Midoriya's (future) daughter-in-law, and Izuku Midoriya's lover. Don't forget it!

A blonde teenager walked from her seat and onto the front of the class. She saw the various looks of her peers, ranging from indifference to straight up leering. She said nothing for a while as she looked directly into the direction of every single one of her classmates. She curled her lips into a wry smile.

"Yo. My name's Kazashi Bakugou. My quirk is Assisted Explosion. Don't ask about my skull, don't bother me if I'm not in the mood, don't ask for demonstrations or explanations. I know that I'm the best right now, and I expect to grow a lot more. In the future, you will catch up and maybe even surpass me. Go for it. Don't be a career Hero.

"Oh, before I forget, I'm taken. Creep on me and I'll cripple you. Yoroshiku."

Afterword

I'll keep this short: Yes, I made Katsuki a female. With a summary like that, any reader who has scrounged the BNHA section of FFnet can understand. Yes, Psyqueteer is an OC, and I shouldn't name my offspring in the future. No, I'm not going to continue this. I do shorter, more condensed character pieces best. I wish this could've reached at least 10k words, though. What a shame.

This fic is open for adoption, inspiration, spin-offs, tweaking, yada yada. You can take bits and pieces of anything, if you wish. Quirks? Plot? Style? No need to ask for permission, just don't steal my identity or the entire fic, yeah? Tell me if you've put your spin on it, Give me a link and I'll read it.

(You can even copy paste, but no plagiarism though. Don't be baxterthegreat.)

Special thanks to my alpha and beta reader whom shall remain anonymous. We're rusty writers. I mixed up a bunch of tenses in the first draft, so if you spot some, they're probably remnants of the prototype. Some parts might be terrible, some parts might shine, too. Do tell in the reviews. Don't be shy!

I hope you enjoyed reading. Cheers!

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P.S. Cover image is a kanzashi by kyotokaoriya. Found it on Pixabay.