The River Styx [Resurrection Quest]

[King Shark]

As he awoke he had the dim sensation of being around a campfire, but far too close to the fire itself. Bakugo’s eyes flickered upon, his hand went to his forehead, and he felt the warmth all at once. For a moment he thought he was still on the island. Only the telling clarity of his mind alerted him to the fact that he was no longer feverish, he was no longer hungry to kill either, and that he was feeling a lot more like himself. ...which left him feeling rather irritated. Lying on the ground curled up in a ball, he opened his eyes all the way, and found himself staring dead ahead upon a scene he wasn’t expecting.

He stood. His arms were both intact - that was new to him given his death - and he was, well, he again. No longer did the crown weigh upon his head. No longer did he feel Deku in his mind with him, nor did he feel the presence of the scourge Sigma. It was just Bakugo again, and he was all alone up there. As alone as he’d ever been.

Except…

He heard a rustling nearby, and glanced over to spot Deku rousing himself from slumber upon what looked to be molten rock so hardened it was nearly obsidian. Despite his pride he felt himself compelled to rush to his longtime companion’s side - he’d never shown the sheepish boy compassion, but things were different now. They’d been together in a way more intimate than even a coupling could beget. They’d shared the same body, the same mind. The same loss of control when Sigma had taken over their frame.

As much as Bakugo wanted to keep up appearances; things were different now.

“Deku. Get up. Something’s happening,” he whispered, his voice harsh and commanding. Bakugo shoved the slumbering figure of Deku, huddled and hushed, and then stood upright and kicked him hard in the ribs. “Get. The fuck. Up.”

Deku whimpered, tears streaming, and quivered for a second before opening his eyes. The green haired boy sat upright slowly, looked about, and then widened his eyes.

“K-Kacchan...are we...are we in…?”

Bakugo looked in the direction of Deku’s gaze and felt himself uncharacteristically corked. The faucet of his rage had run dry momentarily, and whatever it was that kept him always moving forward had slowed.

Before them stood a hooded figure standing at the bow of a boat, oar in hand, and from underneath the shadow of the cloak Baku felt the piercing gaze of the ferryman. An ethereal beckoning fell over him and despite himself Katsuki Bakugo was compelled to motion. In slow shuffling steps he began to approach the boat.

It floated atop a liquid unbroken by surface tension. The boat was quaint, long, and simply built. It was nearly motionless at the shore of the flatland extending the distance between it, Bakugo, and Deku. The cloaked figure with the oar beckoned yet more hastily, and in doing so found that its sleeve accidentally tugged backward to reveal a long fingered and feminine hand. In alarm it hastened to pull the sleeve back up over the hand, and accidentally let its hood fall.

Bakugo’s eyes bugged: a beautiful blue haired bombshell beheld him, bewitching. She beheld him.

“Sorry about that,” she greeted, looking abashed. She met Bakugo’s gaze and he found that her expression was one of compassion, even regret. “...I’m Botan. I’m the ferryman. I know you must be feeling confused right now, but the two of you have...expired. You entered yourself into a dangerous situation, and now you’ve lost your lives. I’m here to see you over to the next stage.”

She thumped her oar once, playfully, against the floor of her boat which had, fittingly enough, just two seats to it. Deku stepped forward, past Bakugo, almost eager. Bakugo lingered back. For reasons unknown to him he felt apprehensive, though he knew this was the logical next step for him. He thumbed the hemline of his waistband nervously. Surprised, he found that his fingers had caught on a loop of twine.

Attached to it was the Super Crown. He looked down suddenly, crimson eyes alight with wonder. Part of him, fresh into this Afterlife, had wondered if what had come before had only been a dream. Yet...here it was. The crown, its eyes nonplussed, staring back at him.

“Don’t worry about that,” stated Botan reassuringly. “That Crown is a part of you. You might have noticed...it is a part of your soul. That spitfire of a Princess, deep down, is part of who you are! Take it with you when you go onto the next phase. Your soul will need it to be complete.”

Katsuki looked from her to Deku incredulously, though, the expression Deku shot back was one of warm affirmation. It was as if the fucking nerd was trying to tell him it was OKAY! ...how could this be okay!?

Yet his feet moved without him, and carried him forward onto the boat which rocked gently. Izuku Midoriya, bless his soul, was right there beside him. They sat upon the seats with Botan at the helm and slowly she began to paddle out. Looking over the side of the boat complacently, Bakugo realized that ghostly figures swam beneath the surface of the river, reaching, looking forlorn. Some disquieted part of his mind that felt distant urged him to feel alarmed, but he’d become overcome with a malaise. He just...couldn’t care. He felt calmed. For once in his life, Bakugo’s fire had become quenched.

Deku’s hand reached over and landed on his leg, and rubbed it in a gesture he was sure was meant to be calming.

“It’s okay, Kacchan. We’re going home now.”

The seafoam green eyes met his own and for once the smile beneath them was easy and peaceful rather than nervous and hungry for approval.

“We don’t have to fight anymore.”

But for the first time since his arrival here, Bakugo was disturbed.

Don’t have to fight anymore?

...that...that, he could never abide.

Far away in the direction they were heading he heard a growl, and then a howl. Some of Bakugo’s wariness returned, and he began to sweat. The sweet smell of burnt sugar filled the air, and the oar wielding ferryman, Botan, glanced back.

“...none of that now,” she whispered soothingly. “I know it’s hard, but you need to accept this. It’s time for you to move on. Both of you. You belong to the Afterlife, now.”

Bakugo felt his teeth grind and clenched one fist while the either hand grasped the Super Crown. Was he not royalty? Was he not a Princess? How could he go quietly into the land of the dead?

He knew that he could not.

Word Count: 1137/5000

 

[Fennec Shand]

Izuku Midoriya hardly noticed his companion’s disquiet. He was too busy reveling in the fact that finally, at long last… he was free.

Sixteen years. Most would say he’d lived too short a life, probably; they would lament over the things he could’ve done, if he’d only had more time. Deku, too, found himself swimming through similar thoughts as wayward spirits danced beneath their ferry. They lingered in some sort of terrifying in-between as the two teenagers rode their way towards their own oblivion. Their spirits, both lost and stuck at once, reminded the young, emerald-haired boy of how he’d felt just before his untimely demise: wholly unprepared for what the world was trying to throw him into.

He remembered exactly how he’d felt when he’d been bestowed with One for All some time ago. He’d been thrilled, excited to finally embrace a role he’d dreamed of for so fucking long — the role of a hero. Why wouldn’t he be thrilled? After all, he’d been preparing his whole life, hadn’t he?

And yet, maybe subverting the Arbiters’ plans for him had ended up an unwise move. Maybe they’d known all along that he just wasn’t built for the intense pressure, the relentless work, and the deep pain being a hero brought with it. His body, predictably, had rebelled against his power, and left him a shell with a dash of super-strength. When he looked back on his time as a hero, he couldn’t find any reason to keep going on, to keep trying his hardest and falling flat on his face.

When he looked back on his time as a hero, death seemed like a release. It seemed… appropriate.

Expelled from the hero course. His greatest rescue? A poodle. His most dramatic transformation? Fusing his body with his best friend’s and turning into a… turtle princess. It wasn’t exactly a story that would be sung for generations. He wasn’t exactly the kind of hero anyone would be mourning. He knew that maybe his mom would shed a few tears, but otherwise, he’d mostly be lost to the times. That sounded sad, but Izuku didn’t feel sad about it — no, for once in his life, he felt… peace.

This was freedom. He’d lived his life bogged down by expectations he had for himself and at long last, he was dead, and knew he’d never live up to any of them.

At the head of the ferry, Botan crooked her chin over her shoulder, shooting a comforting glance down toward her more muted passenger. Her lips curled into a soft smile, almost as if she’d felt his thoughts. She looked at him with the kind of welcoming compassion of someone so relieved he’d finally reached enlightenment, that he’d finally accepted this fate was his, and it was the right one.

“Botan,” he piped up, leaning forward almost excitedly, “where exactly are we going?” Kacchan’s gaze darted to him, and out of the corner of his eye he could feel the spiky-haired boy’s adversity radiating towards him. For whatever reason, Katsuki Bakugo did not want him to ask that question… or, he could sense, any questions. But he had to admit — now that he’d decided he wanted to be here, the curiosity of where exactly here was dogged him.

Botan giggled, in a way that, for the first time since entering this new realm, made Izuku feel altogether uneasy. He’d encountered non-human creatures before, but something about Botan seemed otherworldly in a whole different sense — one that made the boy profoundly uncomfortable. Suddenly, the same smile that had brought him such comfort sent a shiver down his spine.

Kacchan’s back had also stiffened like a board, and young Midoriya could almost hear the worry catching in his throat. So he felt it too, then.

What happened next occurred almost too quickly for Deku to process, especially as mentally worn down as he was. He watched idly, almost as a bystander, as Botan twisted towards them and her icy lips opened to answer his question. The emerald-haired boy sensed something was off as her cloak billowed around her lithe form, making her seem even more ethereal than before. Kacchan must’ve sensed it faster, though, because as quickly as sound started to leave Botan’s mouth, the fiery boy’s hand clutched Deku’s shoulder and shoved — hard.

He stumbled over the side, careening backwards until he splashed into the greenish-brown water. It was only at this point, as he collided with the soupy liquid, that he realized he was completely naked… even of skin?! Beneath the waves, every bit of his human form seemed to wash away, leaving nothing but a writhing, panicked, half-screaming skeleton flailing near the surface. He burst out of the River Styx, relieved to see the molecules of his skin reforming around his bones, and feel his mop of green hair hitting his forehead again.

“Kacchan, what the hell?!” he shouted as Bakugo mounted the side of the boat.

“Shut up, you damn nerd!”

And then he jumped, too.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 841 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 841/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 1137/5000

 

[King Shark]

When he vaulted over the boat he could hear Botan’s protest behind him.

“Wait! Don’t -”

Whatever she said after that was snuffed out as he crashed into the murky soup of death. The River Styx. From beneath the surface he heard her voice, muffled and exasperated, but he paid it no mind. With the single minded focus that belonged only to the most desperate of souls he swam; as he swam, the skin sloughed from his bones, and he could feel himself begin to decompose. He’d seen Deku emerge on the shore, though, and if trash like that could do it, this should be a leisurely swim for someone of his talent.

As he breached the surface and clambered up on shore, Bakugo determined that he would not describe the past few moments as ‘leisurely’. The fibers of his being wove themselves back together and he could feel himself becoming Katsuki again.

Interestingly enough, he noted, the crown gripped tightly in his off-hand appeared unaffected. Or maybe it had just put itself back together faster than he had because it was smaller? He was surprised to find that some part of himself had been worried it might not be there when he emerged.

“Kacchan, what are you thinking?” hissed Midoriya, his voice panic stricken bordering on hysterical. “We’ve finally gotten out of all of this and you go and-”

“Shut UP!” bellowed Bakugo, his face twisting into a furious snarl. His red eyes were rife with boiling fury. “If your damn trash brain hadn’t been bogging mine down we never would’ve ended up here!”

In the background he could hear Botan calling at them. She had a tone of worry that one might find in someone worried for their job, or even their life. Her voice was growing closer, but Bakugo did not turn around. His hand came up angrily and seized Midoriya by the shoulder, squeezing.

“And now you’re going to help me get out of here!”

He spun Izuku around, grabbed him HARD by the forearm, and then broke into a dead sprint wherein he tugged his reluctant companion behind him.

“Kacchan! You don’t even know where you’re going!” Midoriya balked, all nasal whine and protest.

...and so he didn’t. But as they ran Bakugo looked from one side to another and trusted his keen instincts to guide him. To the left there was nothing, a real fire and brimstone type of landscape similar to what they had been running across and also to what was dead ahead of them. To their right, however? Something luminous, and a low rumbling.

That. Whatever that was. That’s where they were going.

Hanging a sharp right and pulling his baggage with him, Katsuki Bakugo made full haste towards whatever light lay ahead. He pulled them into a passageway with an enormous vaulted ceiling and walls made of what looked like they might be mud and bones packed so tightly he wondered if even one of his massive explosions would budge them. Hurtling, running, panting, they kept moving until they could hear nothing from behind them and only the growing sound of a low, ominous rumbling ahead.

Bakugo stopped abruptly.

“Kacchan. What are we doing here?”

“Quiet,” the blonde spitfire commanded. His voice snapped like a whip.

For a quiet moment he listened behind them. He could not hear the sound of Botan’s pursuit, and wondered for a moment if the Ferrywoman was in the business of pursuing souls. Maybe she had other folks, detectives that hunted down stray spirits or something, that took care of that kind of work. Regardless it seemed that he had a moment to collect himself. Oddly enough, once they’d separated themselves from the boat, the River, and the Reaper, he had started to regain some of his faculties.

Back on the boat he’d felt himself drifting further and further away, like who he was before all of this was flickering down, and that the fire of Bakugo would go out altogether if they’d kept travelling towards wherever they were headed. Looking back, in fact, he could recall a similar feeling after he and Deku - the Princess Dekugo proper - had been infected with that Sigma thing. A slow descent, and altogether unpleasant. The feeling of having three separate personalities, different egos, all competing for control of the same body...he ground his teeth at the memory.

Before Sigma, at least, it had just been him and Deku. He would never, never, admit it, but that hadn’t been altogether unpleasant. ...really. Never. It was true, though. The two of them despite their differences could work in tandem in a way that he was unable to explain. Years of shared experience and the way their paths seemed forever intertwined, perhaps, had created a synergy between them that could not be broken even by his harshest criticisms and attempts to push the green haired twerp away. If anything, maybe it had tempered the bond into something unbreakable. Even in death, here they were. Together. Wherever the fuck they were now.

“Where do you think we are now?” asked Deku, reinforcing Bakugo’s notion that they had somehow dug into the other’s consciousness.

“Doesn’t matter,” Baku answered, turning his head towards the brighter end of the passageway. The light filtered in, illuminating the walls enough that he could see he was standing eye level with a jutting femur. “We’ve got to keep going.”

“Keep going? What do you think we’re going to accomplish? We’ve done nothing but fail, Kacchan,” and though what Izuku said was depressing, he did not sound like he was complaining. He sounded earnest and sincere. “Maybe this is what we were meant to do.”

There was silence between them.

Then, Bakugo rounded on the emerald haired boy. They were practically nose to nose.

“You listen!” he jabbed a finger into Midoriya’s chest, pushing him back with a startled gasp. “This is not failure! If we stay here, that is failure. I am not rotting away in whatever the fuck THIS place is with trash like you! I’ve only just begun, Deku, and I will never stop. Not now, not ever. ...and if you get in my way, I’ll kill you.”

“But we’re already-”

“Don’t say it,” Katsuki commanded, hissing. “...this way. We’re leaving.”

He thought Midoriya might argue, but instead the boy let out a resigned sigh and the two, intertwined by the threads of fate, made their way towards what they hoped may be the exit. They remained unaware of the labors that lay in wait down the path they had chosen.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 1094 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 841/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 2231/5000

 

[Fennec Shand]

The path laid ahead of them seemed endless, and Izuku Midoriya wanted nothing more than to just stop, turn around, and get back on that damned boat with Botan. Yet something tugged him along, and he wasn’t just talking about Katsuki Bakugo’s hand wrapped tightly around his wrist -- he knew it was moreso Bakugo himself.

He and Kacchan had been… ‘friends’ for a long time, in the loosest sense of that word. Despite never quite seeing eye to eye, they’d always been around each other, and neither had ever really wanted to leave. The blonde boy had bullied him relentlessly from their youths, but he also knew that no one had ever quite believed in him like Bakugo had. Sure, that belief generally manifested as some sort of jealous competitive spirit combined with a flurry of insults, but the fact that something about him made Kacchan insecure… comforted Izuku.

His train of thought paused for a moment to consider just how unhealthy a relationship dynamic that was.

That being said, though, in the past few months, even that had evolved into something much more manageable. Kacchan seemed not only willing to work with him, but begrudgingly keen to, and that was, perhaps, the most surprising thing of all. It surprised him even now, even here, inside whatever sort of afterlife they’d been conjured into when they’d been slain in the Death Game. Deku had done nothing but make it clear that he’d been resigned to their fate, willing to drift into death and obscurity and stay there for the rest of eternity. Kacchan, naturally, had taken the opposite opinion, determined to escape this somehow, hankering to get out and give the universe a big middle finger for daring to kill him in the first place. Yet, even amongst those diametrically opposed opinions, a flame burned in Katsuki Bakugo to complete his goal… with Deku.

Wasn’t that just absolutely insane of him? Even when they were both working towards the same goals, Kacchan had always lamented that his presence was a burden, or an obstacle to their success. Now that he was, no question, an actual roadblock -- he was determined to keep him around?

As they sprinted through the seemingly endless underground corridor, Deku’s feet carried him, but it was the warm touch of Bakugo’s fingertips that pushed him onward. He could feel every centimeter of his friend’s skin touching his own, could feel his heartbeat bouncing against the palm of Kacchan’s hand, and without question, that feeling was what kept him moving. He knew the explosive boy didn’t really have access to the full breadth of his powers right now, but Izuku could almost feel the fiery boy’s flaming energy transferring to him, leaping from Bakugo’s skin to his and then coursing through his veins.

And then, at long last, the hallway began to open up into something… different.

It wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, it was quite dark, most corners of the comparatively gargantuan chamber shrouded in shadow. Lining the walls of the huge, circular antechamber were torches burning an electric shade of blue, spilling just enough light into the room for Izuku to make out the image just ahead of them.

“Kacchan,” he muttered as quietly as possible, “...does that dog have three heads?”

Bakugo gulped. “Yes, Deku, it does,” he whispered, “and it is also fucking giant.”

Midoriya looked over at his companion, and noticed that somewhere since they’d emerged from the River Styx, clothes had materialized on both of them. He looked down at his own, smiling about how whatever otherworldly beings controlled this place had chosen to don him in some traditional Erde Nonian outfit, a callback to who he was before all of this mess with One for All had started. He glanced over at Bakugo, dressed similarly but more suited to his own personality, the Super Crown still hanging from his belt. The spitfire boy stepped forward and the Crown clanked against his leg.

The giant, three-headed dog stirred ever-so-slightly at the sound, which echoed remarkably louder than Deku thought it should. But the slight movement allowed the young man to get a better look at their latest obstacle, and he reached out and slammed his hand on the blonde boy’s shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

“Kacchan, that’s Cerberus,” he said excitedly, prompting a sideways glare from Bakugo. “He’s a gigantic three-headed dog that essentially serves as the gatekeeper to the underworld. According to legend, he’s been down here for eons just doing his job to make sure things at the gates go smoothly, which means we’re probably pretty close to the way out if we’ve found him.”

Katsuki Bakugo blinked. “How the fuck did you know all of that?” he asked, incredulously.

Izuku glanced his friend’s direction. “Research, obviously?”

Bakugo rolled his eyes, and turned his attention back to the big dog. “So if he’s guarding the gates, why is he facing our direction?” he asked, peering through the shadowy chamber towards Cerberus.

“Well,” he responded, “it’s less that he’s guarding the gate from people coming in, and more that he’s trying to keep wayward spirits -- like, y’know, us -- from getting out.”

“Hmph,” Bakugo scoffed, “just peachy.”

Deku could see the strain on Kacchan’s face as he tried to form a plan even as they spoke, and the desperation wasn’t lost on the emerald-haired boy -- how the hell were they supposed to get past this gigantic canine if neither of them could fully utilize their Quirks?

Cerberus sucked in a deep breath through his saliva-coated, super sharp teeth, and then exhaled loudly and longly. The rancid stench traveled over to Deku and Kacchan, who covered their noses and took a step back. “By the Arbiter, that’s gross,” the shorter boy mumbled.

“Yeah, but…” Kacchan started, and Deku looked his way. He could see the gears turning in Katsuki Bakugo’s head, and could feel his own anxiety ramping up. “It’s the first thing I’ve been able to smell since we ended up in this shittastic place. I wonder…” Kacchan lifted his hand up and stared at it for a couple of seconds, almost daring himself to test it out, and Deku knew exactly what his wouldbe partner-in-crime was considering: if, as they got closer to the land of the living, their physical faculties were inching back toward normalcy, did that also include their powers? Katsuki Bakugo’s lips curled into a smirk.

“Kacchan,” Deku asked cautiously, “…you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?”

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 1087 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 1928/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 2231/5000

 

[King Shark]

And what was he thinking? The sickly sweet smell of burnt sugar filled the air, his moistened palms felt slick with sweat, and they almost crackled.

Erde Nona was a million miles away. How long had it been since they’d ventured forth from UA? A day? A month? A year? Bakugo still remembered the carnage that’d resulted in their expulsion. He still remembered that feeling, too. On the horns with the headmaster, the counsel about him, the scorn in their eyes. Regret, too. Oh, there had been regret, when they passed the sentence. Expulsion. When he’d gotten it, he knew Deku would, too, and despite his best efforts Bakugo had felt a tinge of shame at that moment. His dream could not be smothered by a blanket of authority, but Deku? All he’d ever wanted was to be a hero. Noble, proud, whiny, reliant on the approval of others, and a sense of righteousness...the very antithesis of everything Katsuki embodied. He’d never felt sorry for his tag-along before. And hadn’t he always been his tag-along? Ever since they were boys, he an alpha, and Deku the bitch at his heels eating his scraps…but there were no scraps left behind that time. No glory to feast on, no honor to salvage after that.

From there they’d embarked on the Heroes for Hire endeavor. He remembered nights with whiskey, days with a temper and a headache, working the case. He remembered their first taste of success. It tasted bitter-sweet, now. A literal life-time ago. He’d never thought Deku would follow him even to the blood drenched other-worldly chaos of the game of death that’d spelled their ends. ...but he had. And now, in retrospect, was that even surprising?

“...and it’s a really bad idea,” Deku was saying, twirling his fingers over each other and looking nervous. “You know that, don’t you? Kacchan?”

Bakugo’s eyes shifted, locked on his partner, and narrowed. He felt his nostrils flare and knew his fury was on him, whether or not it should be, and that hot blooded feeling of rage coursed up from his gut and into his mouth.

“Shut up, nerd!” he bellowed, belligerent, and he raised his hand like he might smack Izuku.

The green haired boy flinched away, looking up at Bakugo the way an animal might an abusive owner. Eyes full of love, still, even now, and full of fear too. That cooled him down for a second. He lowered his hand and realized he couldn’t feel shame then - it was swallowed by his anger. Instead he trained his gaze on the dog ahead who drooled acid drops of saliva onto the craggy floor of the cavern. Behind him there was a staircase that split and forked out in two different directions into two different paths each of which culminated in a cave mouth. At the dividing point of the stairs, tethered into a large boulder, there was a stake that played host to a chain and that chain broke off into three parts that wormed their way all the way up towards the Cerberus’ three collars and bound him in place. Ever the guardian, and yet, the beast was not free to pursue them until they came within range. It slathered over itself, growled with one head, howled with another, and whimpered with the third. Never had Bakugo seen something so dark and terrible, so large, and so splendid. If ever he was going to own a pet that wasn’t Deku, it would be the Cerberus, Katsuki figured. In the beast’s fifteen feet of height he found wonderment. Terrible and powerful...yet, sworn to duty. The creature was Katsuki Bakugo in another body, another life.

But that wasn’t his life. His life, he knew, lay beyond what the Cerberus protected.

“You’re not really going to do it, are -”

“I’m going back to Erde Nona,” Bakugo growled. He threw his hands to the side, and felt power course down to his palms. “I don’t care what you do. Take the stairs to the right. I’m going left. It can’t stop us both. If it stops either of us, it’s going to be you, and I’ll go on to be the best of the Erde Nonans while you can snivel and whine your way to the lowest rung of Hell.”

A wicked smile split Bakugo’s face, winding from ear to ear.

“You wanna wallow here? Or are you going to make something of yourself?”

He launched forward as if from a springboard, arms flung back, and felt the familiar sensation of explosion erupting from his hands. It propelled him rapidly towards the Cerberus who hunkered down, teeth bared on all fronts, and readied itself.

Bakugo flung out his right arm and blasted. The Cerberus braced, leapt back, and found that to its surprise it was not the target. Instead the spitfire blonde had launched himself off to the left, put out his other hand, and belted out another explosion that propelled him forward. Faster than even he had thought possible the youth was up in the air overtop the dog and flipped about already with both hands cupped up ahead of his collarbones.

He detonated like a charge right over the neck guarding the left staircase, its right, the cowardly one.

Should’ve left the weakling to Deku, but too late for that.

The blast singed the beast who cried out, and then Bakugo divebombed into the smoke left at the base of Weak-Cerberus’ collar and grabbed it by the ears.

“Boo,” he hissed into one.

He pulled back, hard, and tore the ears from the creature’s scalp. A yelp rang out, and by the time it’d died down Bakugo was on the stairs with an ear in each hand and a smug look on his face.

He blew in one ear.

“Check, check. Can you hear me?” he asked, mockingly.

He looked to Deku. It was time for them to make their move. The world above awaited.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 1003 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 1928/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 3234/5000

 

[Fennec Shand]

Thump.

“I’m going back to Erde Nona.”

Thump.

“I don’t care what you do.”

Thump.

“You wanna wallow here? Or are you going to make something of yourself?”

Thump-thump.

I don’t know!

Beads of sweat trickled down Izuku Midoriya’s face as his wouldbe partner in crime launched his attack on Cerberus. In his admittedly short time in the Crossroads, the youth had only scantly reckoned with the idea of being something more than most people thought he was. It had to be noted, after all, that for a long, long time, he’d simply had no chance. No Quirk or powers or fancy abilities to speak of, he’d been consigned and he had resigned to simply being nothing. To living a normal, boring life on the sidelines, never stepping out of his place.

He had goals, and he worked for those goals, but he’d always known that the best thing he could do for himself was keep those goals manageable. He wanted to be a hero, wanted to be heroic, wanted to help people, but he simply couldn’t be on the front lines or the front page like he fantasized about. It wasn’t his testimony, in the end, and no matter how much he’d dreamed about it, that’s all it had ever been — dreams.

Until One for All, dammit! That damn Quirk came along from nowhere and not only monumentally changed his life in ways he could tangibly see, but also crystallized those dreams into something more real than he’d ever really wanted to think about. The truth was that even if he’d had hopes for more, he’d grown comfortable in his mediocrity. He’d grown comfortable under the thumb of stronger folks, like Kacchan. He’d grown comfortable being, simply… nothing. Now, standing here, watching Kacchan flip and fight and leap into action, once again progressing bounds further than he in a matter of seconds, he spared a thought on something horrifying: was that why he’d slid so easily into an unremarkable death?

Thump-thump!

He blinked. Was that his heart beating?! He couldn’t remember if he’d felt anything like that since his untimely death in the Death Game, but now, suddenly, the pounding in his chest felt almost deafening. He watched as Kacchan ripped the ears off of one of Cerberus’ monstrous heads. The other boy was so damn… impressive. What did he have to match up to that? Sure, he tried really, really fucking hard, but did anything ever work? Was he ever the sole cause of someone’s happiness? He’d had help every step of the way, so why did he deserve a second chance at life? He didn’t, certainly… right?!

Green sparks crackled around his tennis shoes. He glanced down at them, eyes wide, as he felt the power of One for All snaking through his being once again. He looked to Kacchan, then to Cerberus, then down to his own, slowly-empowering hands. He closed them into fists, and in a split second decision, he let his feet start sprinting.

Cerberus growled, and lunged for him, but Deku was much too quick for the big beast. He dodged one of the huge heads and bent his body backwards so as to avoid the other. He pressed his hands into the ground and did a backflip to move himself fully out of range of the weakest, earless head of the humongous dog and watched as it moved for him. He crouched just out of the Cerberus’ reach as it pressed forward but got yanked back by the chain around its neck.

“The right staircase, Deku!” Bakugo shouted from atop his perch. “Idiot.”

Izuku Midoriya’s eyes flitted up to his longtime rival and then back to the stalled Cerberus. He caught a glimpse of the other staircase behind him, this one more twisty than the one Kacchan had scaled. Of course he gives me the difficult one, Deku sighed.

And then he saw something else. Movement, just beneath the monster’s feet. He trained his focus on it and there it was: a wooden trap door, seemingly locked, but with plenty of sharp-fingered hands beginning to emerge from the ground beneath it. Arms squeezed through the gap, trying to free themselves into the chamber, and Deku felt himself sweating more as a horrifying realization set in. Cerberus wasn’t the only monster they’d have to beat to escape back to the land of the living.

His feet started moving almost faster than he could think. Cerberus blinked as Deku nearly teleported from his spot and reappeared just beneath the dog’s stomach, crashing the sole of his shoe down onto the wooden trap door. The creatures beneath howled, but even a 5% kick from One for All couldn’t keep them at bay. All of a sudden, a cabal of horrifying humanoids, each paler than the last and sporting strange-colored eyes and unnatural hair colors. Dark, black marks streaked their faces, arms, and chests as they reached up and grabbed for Izuku’s exposed ankle.

“Kacchan… !” Deku shouted, “We’ve got another problem!”

The blonde spitfire above craned to get a look at Deku down below, suddenly spotting the crew of monstrosities that had emerged from the depths of Cerberus’ chamber. “Fuck,” he shouted just loud enough for Deku to hear. “Do something about it, nerd!”

Do something about it?! the emerald-haired youth screamed internally. What did Kacchan expect him to do?! He’d barely wanted to engage with the dog in the first place, and now all of a sudden he was supposed to fight these guys, too?!

He grunted. He really should’ve stayed on the boat with Botan.

“Air Force!” he yelled, swiping a hand before him and watching as a burst of air shot towards the monsters, knocking them back for just long enough that he could wrench his ankle free. He landed on the ground and turned to sprint past Cerberus’ oncoming claw, ducking just in time to miss it. The claw crashed into a few of the demonic pursuers who’d made it out of the trap door, shredding them into pieces and leaving just one in a pink dress on his tail.

He reached the stairs and finally let himself breathe just a bit. Out of Cerberus’ reach, mostly escaped from the weird-looking demons, he scaled the sort of spiral structure to the top, where he found himself face-to-face with a door.

He turned to Bakugo, still holding two of Cerberus’ ears across the way.

This was it, he knew.

Will I ever see him again?

Then cold, demonic fingers wrapped around his wrist. He met eyes with the demon, fangs bared. Her black, red-tipped hair flowed behind her, as did her pink kimono. Her sharp nails dug into his wrist, but judging from the expression in her big, pink eyes, and the way the veins in her face popped out, it wasn’t a violent grasp. No, it was more a grasp of desperation, and more than almost anything, that made Izuku sad.

…more than almost anything, meaning principally, fear shot through his body and he stumbled backwards through the doorway. The demon girl followed, holding tightly to his arm. He screamed a loud, high-pitched wail, falling to the ground and pulling her down with him. They both crashed to the ground in the unfamiliar corridor.

And then the door slammed shut.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 1228 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 3156/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 3234/5000

 

[Fennec Shand]

“Kacchan!” Deku shouted, lunging for the door. His fingers wrapped around the handle and he tugged, hard, but it wouldn’t budge. He could feel his breath shortening as anxiety washed over him, fear that he’d lost his childhood friend for good. Green sparks crackled around his fist, pink streaks of energy snaking up his forearm as he brought One For All to his fingertips and yanked on the door again, to no avail.

“Hnnnnnnnnh,” a low yet still decidedly girlish voice hummed behind him. He froze, suddenly aware of the temperature in the room. A chill crept up his spine as a gentle breeze trickled past his neck, sniffing sounds reaching his ear. The girl was dangerously close to him, investigating his person in one of the most invasive ways possible — smelling him. He shivered with disgust at the thought, spinning around and backing into the door. His fright must’ve been apparent to the creature, because she too took a step back, quirking her head to one side curiously.

Izuku tried to catch his breath. He’d traded one big nightmare room, full of demons and a huge monstrous canine, for a smaller room trapped within arm’s reach of this devilish girl. Why couldn’t he find a way out of danger for once in his Arbiter-dammed life?! He didn’t know what happened to a dead person when they double-died, but fuck, he didn’t want to find out.

“Kacchan,” he said again, still calling for his friend but less loud, “…Kacchan, are you here?”

Around a corner somewhere? Hopefully, maybe, he thought to himself as the girl in the pink kimono gave him a once over. The pair stared at each other for what felt like years — but might’ve just been moments — until finally, the girl squatted on her haunches and… cooed?

“The fuck?” Deku cursed aloud, furrowing his brow. “Aren’t you, like, a… demon?”

The mysterious creature smiled a toothy, fang-ridden smile, suddenly turning very gleeful. Izuku paused, briefly, yet another worry sneaking into his head: was this girl reacting this way to him now because she’d recognized one of her own? Was he, Arbiter forbid — had he been turned into a demon in his time down here in the depths of the underworld?

He spiraled. It only made sense. He was dead, after all, so had crossing through this last door, or the door into Cerberus’ chamber, or swimming in the River Styx, or anything else he’d done in the past hour broken the mortal world’s hold on him indefinitely and turned him into a full-fledged beast of Hades? His hands immediately flew to his mouth and started inspecting his cuspids. They seemed normal-sized, but how could he be certain? He looked back at the girl to see if any other tell-tale signs of demon-hood became apparent, zeroing in on her wide, empty eyes. They looked mostly like normal human eyes except that life seemed to have been sucked right out of them.

He turned towards the rest of the cavernous chamber they’d found themselves in. Its walls looked altogether different than the rest of the underworld that he’d seen so far; whereas the previous chambers were studies in the gray and charcoal brimstone aesthetic, this room was filled with imposing, sharp crystals of pink, purple, and blue varieties. He sped over to one of the reflective, crystalline walls, checking in the hazy reflection to see if anything about his eyes looked different. To his joy, they seemed to be just as alive as he remembered them.

He blinked. Was he alive again?

He looked down. No; he had clothes again, and he had a living person’s eyes, and his powers had started to inch back into his fingertips. But he wouldn’t deny that his body still felt incomplete, his bones and muscles not completely restructured.

On the opposite side of the chamber, something phased through the wall — a large, bulbous white orb with hands, a little tail, and big teeth. Deku nearly screamed at the sight of the ghost as it lifted a clipboard up. “Next,” it called, “Midoriya comma Izuku.”

The emerald-haired boy stumbled back into the crystal wall, letting out the slightest yelp that interrupted the spirit’s train of thought just as it was about to speak.

It peered at him over the top of the clipboard. “You act like you’ve never seen a Boo before,” it hissed, then glanced down at its notes. “Ah, I see. You haven’t. You never made it across the River. That’s… worrisome.”

Deku’s face scrunched up. Worrisome?

Fuck, didn’t he do enough worrying as it was?!

“Well, nevertheless,” Boo sighed, “you’re next in line. The Great Thoth will see you now.”

For a few moments, there was silence as Izuku tried to absorb all the words he’d just heard. A Boo… next in line… the Great Thoth… ? Then, the demon girl scuttled between the boy and the Boo, and cooed again, as if trying to communicate with the ghost.

“W-what is this nonsense,” Boo sputtered, putting a hand on its — well, where its hip might ostensibly be, if it had hips. “So you’ve brought this creature with you, eh? Trying to take a souvenir.”

“What?!” the young would-be hero shouted, straightening up where he stood. “No! I’m not sure — I think there’s been a mistake — I don’t know what that thing is,” he continued, instinctively jamming a finger into the air near the demon girl’s direction. He didn’t know what to think about the jumbled mess of information he’d just received, but something sounded like he was about to maybe, potentially, get out of here, and he wasn’t about to let any unholy freeloader keep him tied into a doomed existence.

Huh. What a change from a few minutes before. He’d been stuck on the other side of Cerberus with Bakugo, scared shitless, basically listing off reasons he wasn’t good enough for a second chance at life. Now that it was in his grasp, though… something in his stomach lurched at the thought of not getting it. Anxiety crept through his insides. It felt for just a moment like every organ inside his tiny-yet-muscular frame was being twisted up.

“You could at least call her by her name if you’re going to be rude,” Boo interrupted the boy’s train of thought. “Nezuko,” it looked down at the demon girl, “did you intend to leave here with this little cretin?”

Nezuko turned to look back at Izuku, and once again a broad, weirdly-cheerful smile cast across her pale face. She spun back toward Boo, nodding and chittering excitedly.

“Well then,” the ghost harrumphed, “I suppose you’ll be judged together. Come along now — the Great Thoth awaits!”

Then it turned and phased back through the wall, just like that. Izuku stared dumbstruck after it as Nezuko slithered up next to him and grabbed his hand, tugging him towards the crystals on the opposite side of the room. Reluctantly, he let her pull, and started to step toward where the ghost had gone; slowly, the crystals started to move, forming a doorway into another chamber where he’d supposedly be… judged?

He gulped.

I guess I will find out if I deserve to live or not.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 841 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 4366/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 3234/5000

 

[Fennec Shand]

The end of the underworld wasn’t at all how Izuku Midoriya imagined it.

He’d expected, largely, more of the same: large, cavernous tunnels filled to the brim with spikes and stalactites and crazy spirits of all kinds. Instead, he was greeted by a simple room, not unlike dining rooms from his district of Arcadia. A small table sat at the end with a single brass set of scales on it. A human-sized bird man, blue feathered, sat across the way.

The Boo bopped across the room, clipboard still in hand. “Great Thoth,” he said to the bird man very reverently, “this is Izuku Midoriya, here for judgment. And Nezuko’s here too.”

One of Thoth’s eyes peeked open. He looked, quite curiously, at Midoriya, before opening the other eye and gesturing at the pillow seat across the table from him.

“Go on,” he commanded gently, “sit.”

Deku felt almost… compelled to oblige. He knew already, just from being here for a few moments, that Thoth was the lowercase-a arbiter of this domain -- perhaps not the whole underworld, but at the very least, this room. The wise old bird’s voice made the young hero’s feet move almost without his permission towards the table, and as he approached, he took in more of the master of this realm’s appearance. Thoth wore a gold-and-white cloth over his head out of which his blue-feathered head and silver beak poked out, but the rest of his body seemed remarkably human. He was wrapped in a tan tunic with blue and black shreds of cloth billowing out of his belt like a long, shadowy skirt, his pale, gray-skinned hands sitting on the table, simultaneously looking extremely human but with… bird talons? Put simply, he looked strange.

But it wasn’t the strange-looking bird god that scared Izuku most; no, it was the set of brass scales in front of him. Sitting on one side was a feather, and on the other side, empty air. Izuku was smarter than most other teens his age. He’d heard the myths about the afterlife. Stories said that each person who died found, in death, their own iteration of judgment -- that here in the Crossroads, death was malleable, and the punishment fit the crime, so to speak. That anyone who crossed over into this realm -- and anyone who tried to cross back -- would find their own, individual journey. Their own path they had to walk to try and face their destiny.

So his was this, then. His was to face the question he’d always feared most:

Do I deserve to be a true hero?

He sat down, ready to begin, and though it was hard to tell with a beak for a mouth, Izuku thought he saw Thoth smile.

“Shall we start with the most recent thing, then?” the bird god asked. Before Deku could answer, the room around them -- and Boo and Nezuko -- swept away like it had been picked up like a tornado. The walls whirled into nothingness, and then slowly reformed into the trees on the very island where he’d died. He felt the pillow beneath him morphing into the grass as the table between he and Thoth dissolved, and suddenly he was there, sitting in the same spot he’d been sitting in just before… just before…

“I didn’t think I was good enough, Kacchan,” he heard himself saying. He glanced over his shoulder to see himself, broken and battered, lying on the ground, Princess Bakugo craned over him. He scowled at the sight -- less than two minutes later, he and Bakugo would fuse into one Princess Dekugo, and it would all be done. The slow-and-steady path to his inevitable death would become suddenly quick and non-stop.

“I don’t want to see this,” he turned back to Thoth.

“The moment that you chose to become something you aren’t,” the bird man nodded. “Not the best look for you, I’ll admit. Fusion is a messy business… we down here don’t fully understand how it affects your soul, I’ll be honest.”

“I’ll tell you how,” Deku scowled. “It diluted my soul. I… I love Kacchan, I do, he’s probably my best friend in the world, but…”

“But?”

“But he’s not me,” the green-haired boy’s eyes flew up to meet Thoth’s. “I’m me. I’m the only me.”

At that, Thoth smiled. “Exactly, my boy.”

The world whirled around them again. This time, Deku felt almost nauseous as the environment began to twist into something new and different. He saw the world of the death game begin to melt away into the compound where he’d met… Kenji. Rooster Cockburn’s place, the room where he and the young brunette boy had slept soundly after his first night of undercover work.

He and Thoth appeared several feet away from them, and he and Kenji’s voices were muffled, but he could tell they were having pleasant conversation. This was all happening before… before…

“Don’t say betrayed,” Thoth interrupted his thoughts.

“I did, though,” Izuku looked down, shamefully. “I betrayed him.”

“You saved him, young Midoriya,” the bird man placed a hand on Deku’s shoulder. “He may not have realized it -- he still might not -- but you saved his life. You saved him from being stuck in a life of crime forever.”

Again, they whirled, this time back into the original room. The table reappeared out of thin air, and with it, the scales. Izuku’s gaze tracked down to the big brass instrument as the feather slowly sank, signaling that Thoth’s decision had been made: Izuku had been deemed worthy.

He looked up. “What… does this mean?”

“It means, dear boy,” Thoth smiled, “you can go.”

Nezuko whirred nearby, leaning over and placing her head on Deku’s shoulder. Deku glanced down at her, smiling and wrapping an arm around her. For a demon, she was actually kinda cute.

Then everything went black.

Revival Quest
Izuku Midoriya & Katsuki Bakugo
Post WC: 974 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 5340/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 3234/5000

 

[King Shark]

When the door at the top of the winding staircase shut, Katsuki Bakugo knew that he was alone.

In the most literal sense he was not really alone as he was mounted atop the middle head of the Cerberus, hands gripping the scruff of its neck, and holding on for dear life. More company, in fact, had joined them in the form of pallid forms emerging from an infernal trapdoor playing centerpiece beneath the Cerberus’ belly like some bizarre concept piece in an art museum. The new company seemed hungry, and decidedly unfriendly.

…and yet he was truly alone.

Nipping at his heels like an over enthused puppy, Midoriya had been with him always. …less like a puppy, though, because even Bakugo couldn’t begrudge the company of a puppy. More like an irritating sibling; the kind of sibling that an older brother was always left home alone to babysit. Home alone to babysit so often and for so long that he started to sprout a tiny blossom of resentment. Left over time he’d cultivated that resentment into something much deeper and more complicated, with roots so entwined that…

He narrowed his red eyes and snarled.

Alone now. That was what mattered. His soul would be more alone in the cosmic sense, too, if he didn’t pull a rabbit out of his hat and fast. He’d pulled a million rabbits out of his hat before, right? Brash, strong, competent, and athletic, he was a star. A hero. A….

The memory of the gas station catastrophe bloomed from the back of his mind.

A fucking nerd. A failure. You botched that one, didn’t you, old boy?

He grit his teeth and pushed the voice into the back of his head. He didn’t need this kind of nonsense clouding up his judgment. Like always he’d come in with a plan and things had gone sideways but things went sideways sometimes, right? Improvising, now that was the calling card of a hero.

So he improvised.

Bakugo let go of the nape of the Cerberus and let his fleet feet spring from the well muscled neck. The head he dismounted twisted, snapped at him, and sprayed him with slaver as its teeth closed inches from the tip of his nose. …the spitfire smirked, twisted in the air to avoid another snapping head, coiled his legs, and then pushed off the chin of the final head when it missed him narrowly. The catapult careened the teen to the floor, but he rolled up into a ball and somersaulted to his feet lithely; he stood combat ready with his wild eyes scanning the perimeter like a hawk.

But he was surrounded. Shambling boogeymen closed in from all sides and there was nary a gap to force himself through. Bakugo became suddenly aware of the pungent stench assaulting his nostrils. It was death, decay, the smell of septic, of rotting vegetables…but it was more. When he smelled it he felt doubt, he felt broken dreams, he felt despair, and he felt…

Alone.

The fight started to seep out of him, drizzling out like the trickle of a faucet, and Bakugo hung his head. That’s when he felt them grab him. All at once their hands grasped him all over, pulling, mauling, gripping. At once the fight came back to him in a rush while panic overtook his senses - but it was too late. The shamblemen had seized him, and though he began to struggle and writhe there was no amount of force that could overwhelm their numbers. He suspected that he could never hope to overpower them; a feral sense of flight urging him to break loose and run had begun to take complete command of his body but his sapped strength didn’t seem to sway even a single arm of these damned souls.

They carried him towards the trap door and began to jam him down into its depths. Yelling, clawing, and gnashing his teeth until he was foaming at the mouth Katsuki Bakugo howled as he was shoved down into the gap in the floor.

They shut the door overtop of him, and the chamber filled with silence.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 698 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 5340/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 3932/5000

 

[King Shark]

ka-THOOM!

A ground shaking explosion sent the trapdoor spraying through the air in a helter-skelter shower of wood shrapnel. In its wake fire and smoke erupted in a plume from the maw of the in-ground hole which decimated the inner-most rung of Shamblemen; they disintegrated into a mess of dark ichor and pustulent parts that rained down on their fellow walking corpses in disgusting globules.

A silhouette crested the surface of the explosion and shot up into the air. She wore a crown on her head, a sneer on her face, and her red eyes held all the violent secrets of fury in them. Upon her back was an enormous shell, spiked, and from her nostrils matching jets of stream flooded the air, hissing.

Princess Bakugo descended, touched down on the sooty ground with one foot then the other, and looked about ferociously at the Shamblemen. They had already begun moving towards her in a jerky, unnatural rhythm that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. Her predominant emotion was anger, though, and her eyes narrowed. Hands splayed, displaying new sharp claws that gleamed in ivory even in the low light of the Underdark. She stepped forward towards the horde, who stepped forward in turn to meet her.

Then it all began. In that dark cave, the Princess began the fight for her life.

She burst forward, mouth opening, nostrils flaring, and engulfed the front line in a plume of flame. They moaned, crisped, and crumbled. Immediately more husked bodies filled in the gaps; she met those with arms forward, palms out, and a spark of reaction flared to life in front of her hands. That spark became an exploding powder keg that tore an opening into the wall of bodies before her. The air filled with the smell of sweat, nitroglycerin, putrefaction, and a sickly smell like sweet cooking pork.

The Princess marched forward through the opening. The bodies moved to close in, but she warded them off flippantly with a controlled explosion here and there. It was enough. She poked through the opposite end of the platoon and didn’t look back, though she could hear them at her back matching her step for step. It didn’t matter. The real quarry was ahead.

She climbed the stairs, reminding herself that it was right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot and after enough of those she’d be…somewhere. Somewhere up above. Deku hadn’t come back so there had to be something waiting past this, either something eternal or something fleeting like life. …life. Wouldn’t that be nice? A second chance? The idea of it almost made her laugh, she could feel the threat of something almost hysterical bubbling up at her throat threatening to escape her locked lips, which twitched in response. Despite the severity of the situation around her she was acutely aware of a feeling of relief.

Up there the problems were complicated - morality and whining twerps, what was right for the people around him and what was right for herself. Here the problem was almost comically simple despite how frighteningly impossible her situation was. It was her, Princess Bakugo, against the Cerberus. Against the Shamblemen. Couldn’t get any clearer than that, could it? It was downright crystal. A euphoria wrapped her up in that instant, as she realized that. Before she was just a boy, a simple half-soul of a boy, weakened and withered. With the crown it was like she was intact. A full soul, if just because the soul of the crown had mingled with the soul of the spitfire Bakugo. Either way, here she was, and she was royalty and she was power and more than any of that she just was.

Up ahead of her the Cerberus was, too. Oh was he. One of his heads hung limply, the head she’d ripped the ears of…before. Before she’d put on the crown. Before she’d gotten serious.

Two heads remained, and they looked fucking pissed. So did she, though. She was a livewire in that moment and she was a rocket, too, ready to explode. She flung her body forward and broke pace with the Shamblemen whose moans and groans faded into the background. In their place the sound of the controlled release of propulsion nitroglycerin detonating in micro-blasts from her hands, shooting her through the air, filled her ears and elated her. The sheer velocity of her trajectory pushed her blonde hair back, whipped at her cheeks, and brought a smile to her face. That was what it felt like. She’d almost forgotten. How could she have thought she was alone? With the Super Crown she was never alone.

Mid-air she came face to face with the snarling visage of Cerberus head number one. Mouth open, teeth bared, it clamped down on her. She jackknifed, stuck to hands to the roof of the beast’s mouth, and planted her feet on its tongue. The wafting stench of death engulfed her in a fog from the beast’s throat, and crawled out from all the pockets of its teeth. It overwhelmed the senses, filled her nostrils, and drew water from her red eyes.

In response, she drew a breath and then exhaled heavily. Upon exhale, a gout of flame blew down the throat of the Cerberus; the response was immediate and she was pitched into the open air, while a yowl of agony filled the cavern.

She smirked.

Below she watched the Cerberus, frenzied, begin to pitch and yaw back and forth in hauntingly jaunty motion like a drunkard staggering about on the deck of a ship, in the throes of a storm. The beast plunged into the crowd of Shamblemen, slavering and howling, and began to take care of two of Bakugo’s problems at once.

The Princess controlled her descent with micro-pops of nitro detonation, and landed atop the stairs. It was the opposite staircase from the exit Deku had taken, and she figured that it was about time they took separate paths anyway. She wasn’t really alone, after all. She had the crown, and it was a way better companion than some stinking nerd could ever be. With one hand she pushed open a heavy iron door, which swung open with surprising ease.

Left foot, right foot, she reminded herself.

With that in mind, Princess Bakugo stepped out of the realm of Death and into the light of Life.

Quest: Revival
Katsuki Bakugo & Izuku Midoriya
Post WC: 1074 (according to Google Docs)
Quest WC - Izuku: 5340/5000
Quest WC - Bakugo: 5006/5000