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⚠️ Trigger Warning ⚠️

Bakugo's POV

"Goodbye Kacchan… I will always love you." His last words filled my ears and nothing else mattered. The man I have loved since I was too young to understand what love was… He is gone. I held his body in my arms, holding him close, as if that alone could bring him back to me. I prayed and begged and screamed and cried but nothing, his eyes didn't blink, the clear malachite pools of green were now dull, staring lifelessly at me, his small smile that he just used to tell me that he loved me, was still there, almost like it was mocking me.

"WHY!?!?" I screamed only to hear thunder answer me as rain started to pummel the ground and anything that was in its way to get there. I could feel my tears streaming down but I just didn't care, my screams carried throughout the area and even I was vaguely aware that I was not alone anymore.

Our friends came rushing up, the now charred villain screaming about how it should have been me, was taken away and for once I couldn't argue. I couldn't deny it. The fact of the matter was that it should be me laying here lifeless, not Deku. Not Izu.

"Izu," I croaked, my voice breaking from the harsh screams. "Come back to me? Please? Izu?" I begged, hugging his body closer as I cried for anyone to let me trade places with him. Anyone at all. Please.

I heard our friends come up and I heard their cries, I felt their anger. Icyhot actually burned me but I couldn't let Deku go. Not now, not ever. I can't let him go. I felt someone hitting my back but I couldn't let him go, my screams begging for answers I will never know. My tears demanded release even after so long. They were so hot, they burned far worse than Icyhot's fire, any day of the week.

Eventually though I felt arms around me and tears that were not my own as they landed on my burned and battered body. My body was trembling, from the cold and rain? Maybe I overexerted myself from the rescue mission or all the deaths in general today took a much larger toll on me than I realized. I just don't know but I can't let him go even as I lost the feeling in my fingertips.

My voice was all but gone as I cried out for the friend I lost, the lover I could have had, the soulmate I pushed away. He's gone now and there is nothing I can do to bring him back.

"It should have been me," I croaked, holding him tighter. "I should have died, not you," I don't know if it was the lifetime of refusing to shed any tears unless I was forced to or not but right now they just wouldn't stop and I don't give a rat's ass who saw or not. The one person who mattered more than the world is gone and it's all my fault.

"Bro."

"Dude."

"Dynamight."

"Bakugo."

"Problem child..."

The voices were currently mixing and swirling together so I couldn't tell who said what when, meant nothing, I could hear them and yet I couldn't. Why is that?

"Kacchan!" I jumped at the childhood nickname but when I looked Deku still wasn't moving, not breathing. I looked around and saw Kaminari was trying to shake me loose, he's the one that said it.

"Midoriya wouldn't want this! Look at yourself, he asked you to smile," Kami was yelling in the otherwise silent area, but his face was covered in tears too. Now that I look around I saw all of the Baku Squad and Deku Squad and none of them had dry eyes, even Icyhot's face was covered in tears.

"How can I smile when he isn't here to see it?" I feel broken. I felt the snap the moment Deku stopped breathing. The moment he turned my world upside down. The moment he left me empty.

"Bro, we understand," Kiri was holding onto Todoroki as if at any moment they were going to fall apart. "Bring him back down with you when you come down. We'll be waiting at the bottom. We'll come back if you're not down when it gets dark." I slowly nodded and they all left me to mourn in peace. I held him to me and just cried. I know that I don't deserve this, this kindness they are giving me. But I am fucking taking whatever I can get.

Hours passed but I still couldn't move from that spot, on my knees I just held his limp, lifeless body in my arms. Deku's last words repeating themselves over and over in my head. Tear tracks could be seen by anyone who dared to look at me, I'm a broken hero I stayed silent in my grief, my screams now exhausted, my throat raw. My quirk was flowing out of control and I couldn't help the bitter smile on my face, a lifetime of Deku chasing after me, following me everywhere I went and now? Now it's my turn to follow him.

To the next life. I couldn't stop my nitroglycerin even if I wanted to. Should I be thankful that I can't control my emotions properly? Is this actually suicide since I couldn't get it to stop?

Does it actually matter?

Suddenly time seemed to stop. When I looked up I saw the rain floating as if frozen in time, a woman shrouded in a deep, dark green hood was standing in front of me, most of her face covered by her hood, I could only see the mouth and chin of her pale face.

"Go away," I croaked. I'm not ready yet to deal with people. I still have time before the sun sets all the way.

"I can bring him back, but it comes at a cost," my head jerked up at her words and I started to demand answers but she waved me off.

"I can send you back in time, to when you were four, you would have to relive your lives together but there are rules," she answered my most pressing questions, the ones I couldn't even voice. I waited to hear her rules;

1. You both must become heroes again.

2. You can tell no one, not even him, that you are reliving your life. Don't worry you won't be the only one to know and you will recognize them once you see them and they you.

3. You must cherish him and keep your promise to his dying soul and be nice to him. Don't lose him again.

"If you break any of these rules you will be brought right back here. At this moment in time, you will not get a third chance."

My thoughts were spinning around in my head but if there is even a small chance that what she says is true…

"Do we have a deal, Hero?" She asked her voice closer to bells than that of a woman's.

"I have a condition, I can't ever see him die again. Give me his injury and let him live," my words hung in the air and a clap of thunder rang in the air when before there was none, there was now a flash of lightning above us, also frozen in place.

"Deal."