Beyond the Stars (BNHA!Various x Genius!Reader) INDEFINITE HIATUS

22: His Side: KATSUKI BAKUGOU

"[Lastname], are you certain that you want to surrender?"

You nod and turn around.

"Stop messin' around! A win isn't a win unless I put in everything I got!" Katsuki's arm shoots forward but you sidestep and catch him by the wrist. You then twist it, causing him to fall to his knees.

"Rest assured," you say, removing your hand to reveal blood dripping down your chin, "this is less about you and more about me."

Katsuki is so stunned with the blood that he doesn't bother to push you off.

You regard him with a hollow stare. "You win, Katsuki."

You let him go and cough into your fist. As you turn around, he hears you mumble "So pathetic..."

Seeing you enter the vestibule, Midnight declares, "[Lastname] has forfeited. Bakugou is the winner!"

The crowd erupts into applause, but Katsuki's chest weighs with frustration, unable to stand still, he blasts through the hallway you disappeared in, ignoring Midnight's calls for him to stay put.

"You damn brat!" he yells. "I'm not finished with you—"

He skids to a stop.

You are bent over the floor, back a quivering arch as you spew geysers of blood.

"You—"

You raise your palm at him as you continue to cough. "Stand back...the fumes are..." You vomit more blood as your elbows give in and you black out on your side.

"Hey!" Katsuki runs towards you, eyes and nose stinging the closer he gets to the bile on the ground.

"Dumbass..." He holds his breath as he lifts you in his arms and breaks into a sprint.

"Hey! This idiot needs help!" he shouts, kicking open the door to the infirmary.

Recovery Girl puts on a gas mask and orders him to place you on a cot, where her staff perform first aid.

"Recovery Girl, the patient is muttering something," informs one of the nurses.

"...late... fumes..."

"What? Fumes?"

"She threw up on the hallway," Katsuki tells them, steadying himself on the wall, "she didn't want me to come near her, something about fumes, I think she meant her blood gave off fumes..." He shuts his eyes, trying to control the fog in his head.

"Did you breathe in the fumes?"

"Only a little."

"Take a seat on the cot over there."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not," she counters. "We can't be too sure. We don't know enough about her quirk to be sure about anything."

Recovery Girl sanitizes your arm with an alcohol-dipped cotton ball. "The Fog is a double-edged sword. All my life, I've only encountered three people with The Fog, this girl and two others who never lived past childhood. There's a fourth one I've read about. He didn't live too long either." She sighs. "Its users are born with some level of immunity, but activating the quirk raises the toxin levels in the body. My hypothesis is that those three other children did not receive the help they needed to manage their quirk and accidentally poisoned themselves due to excessive use."

"Why can't you just kiss her better?"

"Part of my quirk increases the metabolism of a person, usually, it's to flush out all the bad things in their body and enhance cell regeneration. But [Lastname]-chan is a special case. I don't know if speeding up her metabolism will remove the excess toxins or produce more, that's why I need to perform testing."