Chapter Text
When you watch your child die, you're supposed to feel rage, grief, and unbearable sadness.
Right?
Wrong.
Mitsuki was a different kind of person. She hasn't been happy about anything since Katsuki developed his explosive quirk.
No. It only led to stress and a lot of trouble.
When she watched Katsuki die during the live stream of the War against All for One, the first emotion that ran through her was shock.
Relief then came soon after.
Joy arrived last.
She was joyful. Joyful because she didn't have to apologize for everything her son did.
She was joyful because she would no longer be targeted by villains just because her son was a famous hero student.
She watched as heroes surrounded his limp body, blood staining the ground underneath him. She watched in awe as they tried to save her son.
No.
Katsuki was no son to her; he was a monster she just happened to give birth to.
It all started when his quirk came in when he was four years old. She already had plans for him to take over her fashion business when she and Masaru could no longer work, and they could enjoy retirement and go on luxurious vacations.
That couldn't happen now because that explosion quirk ruined everything.
So that's why she felt joy.
She had already found a replacement to take over their fashion business for them. Still, it would have been far easier if Katsuki had inherited Masaru's quirk or even become quirkless.
But no, that child just had to develop a love of heroes and gain a powerful quirk to boot.
She hated everything about him.
But she was never going to kill him, no.
Despite how much she hated the world of heroes, she's not a criminal. She was a law-abiding citizen who didn’t want their fiery child to become one of them.
She hated how her precious son had latched onto the idea of becoming Japan's number one hero, and essentially fucked up her plans for the fashion industry.
She began to treat him differently after that. Small things that started to add up over time. She knew he was a brilliant and observant kid; he would pick up on things quickly, so she had to be discreet about it.
She learned her son started to bully his best friend because he was quirkless.
That's when things started to change in their household.
Once she found out, she knew she had to step in and rough him up to steer him away from the hero industry.
To try to get him to enjoy the world of fashion.
She had thrown him into the closet under the stairs for two days without food or water.
"It's to protect you from yourself," she remembers saying, knowing that heroes had to be in perfect shape, and if her little Katsuki wasn't in shape, he couldn't turn into a hero.
But that kid was persistent, going off on his own with his rag-tag group of friends, and began to train with his quirk.
He trained at school, at the park when no one was around; he trained in the woods behind their house past midnight.
The kid was determined to do what she hated.
She had to turn it up a notch, if only to protect him.
She began to yell at him, accusing him of stuff he didn't do because she knew how to get him to obey out of fear.
She wanted him to fear her. Where else would he go? He could never go to the Midoriya kid; she had already told Inko about the troublesome brat.
She could always kick him out of the house at night when he didn't listen. She knew he wouldn't run away from home; he relied on her. No one would believe him either.
Indeed, if her child desperately wanted to become a hero, she would make him suffer.
Heroes suffered, after all. It was only fitting that he did too.
She starved him a lot, preventing him from gaining muscle and getting stronger.
But she could only do so much when he was not in the house.
She knew he would sneak food from school and his friends, but she never said anything. She allowed him this one instance of control before she snatched it all away.
She slapped his face when he talked back to her, yanking his hair out by the roots when he tried to talk about All Might in front of her.
All Might this; All Might that.
If she had her way, she would have thrown away every piece of merchandise that Katsuki owned.
But she never did because Masaru always talked her out of it.
"Let him have this," he would always say, "he might grow out of it."
That ungrateful child of hers never did. He grew more obsessed with heroes as he got older and more dangerous to society due to his quirk.
Her previously sweet blonde-haired, ruby-red-eyed child continued to ruin everything she had built up.
She had to stop his delusions in the only way she knew how.
She had to threaten to kill him, of course. She paid sketchy people to attack him, hoping it would scare him away from the hero industry. But he always fought them off with that powerful quirk of his.
She had to go further to teach him that being a future hero means you will be targeted every second. "Scare him straight," she remembers saying to a criminal syndicate through the phone. She had power; she had connections. She knew people, and she knew dangerous people.
She paid them a lot of money to kidnap him. Would they have killed him? Possibly. She wasn't at all worried; she just wanted to teach her kid a lesson.
On his tenth birthday, his friends came running to her house and banging on the door, yelling that he'd been taken away by 'scary men in suits and thrown into a truck that sped off.
She had to play the concerned mother as much as she hated to do it. Had they not come running up, she wouldn't have known that Katsuki had been kidnapped.
She wouldn’t have cared anyways
But her plans suddenly changed when the brat's friends got involved. They would never be anything of use to society, their quirks were completely useless, and their academics were in the gutter. She never understood why her idiot son hung out with them. She always wondered if Katsuki ever bullied them as he did Midoriya.
Midoriya was always around him, no matter how much her son yelled at him to stay away.
Before she could pretend to call emergency services, she got a message from the syndicate that her son had escaped his restraints, burned down their truck, and ran into town. She almost broke her phone right then and there.
They wanted a refund for their troubles. She obliged.
Masaru found out later. "Mitsuki, there are better ways--" she threw her wine glass at him before he could finish.
She hated everything, and Katsuki was to blame.
Masaru quickly left after that, packed up his bags, and left without saying where he was going.
He never said goodbye to Katsuki. But the kid was brilliant for his age and quickly deduced what was happening.
A part of her was happy that Masaru was leaving her; she could do whatever she wanted now. Katsuki had one less person to go to.
There was now no one to stop her.
It wasn't part of her original plans, but she quickly adapted.
"If you weren't such a destructive bitch, your father wouldn't have left," she distinctly remembers saying as she slapped him dizzy.
It was Katsuki's fault. Everything was Katsuki's fault. Masaru would still be here if her son had never pursued being a hero, if her son listened to her orders.
But he never did.
She had to teach him.
"I love you, Katsuki," she would say when she threw him out of the house during winter without a jacket or coat. He would stare wide-eyed at her as she slammed the door shut in his face.
She didn't care where he went to get warm as long as he was far away from her.
But she was also worried that he would tell on her eventually. That little voice in her head would tell her that Katsuki was telling teachers or even Midoriya. She always laughed away the thought; the teachers would never believe that a kid with such a powerful quirk from a famous fashion family was being abused. Midoriya was different, though; his green eyes always locked onto her when she was seen around Katsuki like he was waiting for something to happen.
She never did anything when he was around, but she had to be more cautious to get Inko's son off her trail.
And then, the Sludge Villain attacked Katsuki and damaged the town when he tried to escape. She watched on the news as her son struggled to breathe, and she remembers thinking, 'Who did he piss off this time?'
This was a lesson for him. For her, this was vindication.
She watched as the small quirkless kid jumped in to save him. After that, she turned off the TV; it made her sick to see Katsuki escape harm again.
She wanted him out of her life.
Katsuki arrived home later that night covered in dust, school uniform ripped and hanging off his body. There was something he wasn't telling her, and she wanted to find out what. He pointed his eyes away from her, staring at the wall. "You deserved everything you got today, you useless brat." She was furious, and she smirked as her son flinched at her tone, eyes bloodshot as he stared at her.
"Fuck off; I didn't do--"
Smack.
Her palm stings as her hand hits his face, the sound echoing across the house.
"I know you're hiding something. Does it have to do something with that Midoriya kid? What the fuck did you do to Inko's boy?" She grabbed his hair and yanked his face up to meet hers. A gasp is pulled out of him as he tried to squirm away.
"I know how much you hate that kid; why would you allow him to save a piece of shit like you?" she shoved him into the wall, his head smacking into it. She could see the fear in his eyes; nothing could get past her. Heavy breathing is the only sound that reaches her ears. She can tell he’s hesitating.
"I--I might have told him to--" She slaps his cheek again before he can finish, and his head snaps to the side as he brings up a bruised arm to cover his face.
She's heard this before. She's told him the same thing.
"Go fucking die, Katsuki," or "Hope a villain fucking gets you." He always understood her words, but she never knew he would start saying it to his childhood friend.
That's not what a future hero does. That is what villains do. Her son has turned into a villain before her very eyes.
She punches him in the face, relishing the sound of breaking bone.
He doesn't have school until next week, so she's free to do anything. She relishes the sound of Katsuki roaring in pain as she brings up a knee to hit him in the stomach, "I thought you were better than this," she snarls as she brings her hands around his throat to choke him out. She can feel him struggling to breathe air below her fingertips; tears trickle out of his eyes as blood splatters to the floor.
He’s trying to get words out, and she releases him once his eyes roll back into his head. She drops him to the floor, and he lays there gasping for air, hands digging into the floorboards as he tries to steady himself. "You--" his voice is low, shaky, and she can see the gears working in his mind, "You taught me everything I know." Her eyes go wide as she stares down at him. She can feel the anger rising within her, and she watches as Katsuki tries to back up to get some space.
Taught him everything she knew, huh?
Well. There's still something that he can learn.
She turns her back on him and walks towards the kitchen, opening the door to the pantry to find the largest bottle of liquor.
Katsuki wants to learn. He's going to learn.
She walks back to where Katsuki's sitting, arms on his knees and hands running through his hair, a distinct sound of mumbling under his breath. He seems to be having a breakdown, but she doesn't give a fuck.
Future heroes don't have breakdowns. That's weak.
Katsuki is weak.
He doesn't seem to notice her as she stops in front of him, the bottle hidden behind her back. She knows he's debating whether to meet her eyes, but that doesn't matter; she can grab his attention.
"Katsuki," he flinches at her words and curls in on himself.
That won't do. She lowers herself to his level and snatches his hair again as he stifles a curse.
She's always hated it when Katsuki said anything to her. She wanted him silent. She tried to erase that fiery personality.
She hated everything about him.
She brings the bottle forward, and Katsuki's eyes widen as he tries to escape. He would never use his quirk on her; she beat that into him when he was young.
"--This is because I love you," and she swings the glass bottle towards his head; she watches him raise his head at the last second as glass shatters into a million pieces and alcohol sprays everywhere. A cry of pain reaches her ears, and then Katsuki's holding his hands on his head, blood dripping from multiple gashes from his face.
Oh.
Did she do that?
What's done is done, though. She learned that Katsuki said something unforgivable to his childhood friend, and he had to pay the consequences.
She stands there and watches, the smell of vodka permeating her nostrils as she watches Katsuki try to get the glass out of his skin.
Did any hit his eyes?
That's not her problem. That's Katsuki's problem. He started this entire thing in the first place.
"Katsuk, dear," she remembers saying at the time but not remembering it reaching her ears, "clean this shit up and go to your room. You're not getting dinner tonight. I want you out of sight for the rest of the week." She could tell he wanted to say something back to her, mouth opening and closing like a fish as blood ran down his face. His eyes were bloodshot.
He could only manage a slight nod as he heaved his body up to get the cleaning supplies from the closet.
She went upstairs after that, and true to what she demanded; she never saw Katsuki for the rest of the week.
~~
Time went on as Katsuki was accepted into U.A., and she was delighted for him to be out of her hair. But then more trouble came, and her reputation in the fashion industry continued to drop.
"Did you hear about the Sports Festival? That explosive kid has got the makings of a future villain." She would hear her nosy co-workers whisper to each other in the building cafeteria, and she hated it. Everyone kept talking about her powerful son; she wanted all the attention on her. She was an influential fashion designer; she ran the company. Later on, she would call them up to her office and fire them. She hated it when people talked about him. He was a monster that ruined her life and marriage.
They were right, though, that Katsuki was a troublesome child that had to be chained up like an animal. Didn't she teach this kid not to be a menace to others?
Afterward, she decided to buy a muzzle from the pet store to use on Katsuki. If U.A. found it appropriate to use on her son, she would do it too.
It's only to keep him in line, teach him that the world of heroes is not what he imagined.
Then the training camp happened. She was in a middle of a business meeting working on the latest product when she got the news that the League of Villains had kidnaped her son.
She was ecstatic. He would be gone forever if the villains did things right.
She remembers having to play the concerned parent to the media, being forced to show concern for her kidnapped son.
She was utterly sick of it. She wanted no part of it.
The media bombarded her with questions, wanting to know how she felt. Honestly? It felt amazing to have villains finally kidnap your son. "I expect the greatest heroes of Japan to bring him back home to me," she would always respond with crocodile tears, playing the role of the grieving mother.
She wasn't grieving; no, she was happy.
For a brief time, she felt free.
And then he escaped. All Might fought All for One and used up his power, and Kamino Ward was damaged beyond belief.
Once again, it was all Katsuki's fault.
He had to be working with the villains from the outside; that's the only reason. If her son was weak enough to be kidnapped, he was soft enough to join the villains.
She got a call from the police station to take him home. She didn't want to; who knows what agreements he made with the League. She knows he hates her, he hasn't said it in a long time out of fear of starvation and beatings, but she knows he’s just waiting for the perfect opportunity to tell someone. The League would be that someone.
She promptly took him home and chained him up in the basement for three days.
He was noticeably skinnier afterward, but she wouldn't let down her guard, and she refused to let him out of the house until Eraserhead arrived and introduced the dorm system.
That idea made her happy, and she swatted at her son's head joyfully, "Now you get to piss off your classmates instead of me. Consider yourself lucky." She watched from the corner of her eye where Katsuki was clenching and unclenching his hands. It made no difference to her, though; she was free.
After Eraserhead left, she smacked Katsuki around some more. "Don't come crawling to me when your classmates refuse to put up with your bullshit." He never responded, only glaring at her with his red eyes as he mentally killed her a thousand times over in his brain.
After Kamino, she had been woken up by screams and thundering booms from across the hall.
Nightmares. Nightmares were for the weak. Her son was a disaster. His classmates would get sick and tired of being woken up at three am. He would damage their grades and their sleep schedule.
"He only wants attention," she thought to herself. She hated giving him attention; he wasn't worth it.
And then he left, bags packed full of things he wanted to take to the dorms. His room was empty after he left, and a part of her wanted to burn down the house to get the stench of him out.
She never helped him move in or drove him to U.A with all his belongings. He was independent; he could do everything himself.
If he wanted to be a hero, he needed to do everything alone.
She didn’t expect to ever hear from him again.
Then the first war began; she got called by the hospital, stating that Katsuki had been stabbed through the abdomen and shoulder and was in surgery.
Did she care? Not at all. She only told them never to call her again and then blocked their number.
~~
And then he died.
She had watched the live-stream, watched his face get burned off, arm twisted and broken beyond belief.
But he had kept fighting. She had wanted him to stay down.
Then he had gone in for another attack, knocking Shigaraki off balance before he was fatally struck in the chest and was flung back to the ground, where he lay still, eyes dead.
She wanted to cheer in public while other people around her gasped in horror.
She didn't want any updates on him; she wanted it that way. She didn't care for him, not anymore.
Did she expect to be called by the hospital? Yes. If only to confirm that he was dead and they needed her to do the usual insurance bullshit.
She waited for her phone to ring; for hours, she waited for confirmation that Katsuki had died.
There was no way he could have survived. Right?
She had seen him dead; nobody could have survived that.
A part of her was worried, though.
What if?
What if?
Not a chance.
Her phone rings, and she composes herself to act like a grieving mother as she picks up the phone, "Hello?' she says shakily, her voice cracking with emotion.
"Mrs. Bakugou, your son has been admitted to a hospital that U.A. has put up on site; he suffered severe injuries and, for a moment, died.” Her heart leaps in joy, but she keeps her excitement quiet, "But your son revived. He's been placed in a medically induced coma to allow his body to heal, but he should wake up within the next few days. However, Eraserhead has ordered us to keep you away from him. If you show up, you will be banned from the hospital.”
Oh, hell no.
That bastard, how the fuck did he survive that?
More importantly, what did that kid tell them? Eraserhead did see her smack him at the time. She only thought he agreed with her methods to discipline such a troublesome teenager.
Fuck.
She can feel her temperature rise, and she's about to scream before she realizes she's still on the phone. "Yes, thank you for calling." then she hangs up and throws her phone into the wall, cracking the screen in the process.
She doesn't want to see him. She wants to see his dead body.
"It can still happen," she says to herself, a headache starting to appear.
How many other heroes were injured in the war, how many civilian casualties?
They've got to be short-staffed, running around the hospital checking on every patient.
He's probably alone.
A smile forms on her face as she thinks of a plan to reach his hospital room unimpeded.
She's banned from seeing him? Well, she's going to see him anyways.
~~
Getting to the hospital is easy, getting directions to his room is even easier because of the chaos the receptionist was dealing with. Hundreds of people yelling at her to check in with their loved ones. She pushed her way to the front and nicely asked what room he was in, and she responded in kind. She didn't even tell her to leave because she had been prohibited from seeing him.
Amazing what a war allows you to do.
No one recognized her either; doctors had their eyes glued to files, and stretchers rolled through the halls with dead bodies.
None of those bodies was her son, but things can always change.
The fourth floor is pretty quiet, with the occasional nurse entering a room with medicine.
She could only hope that Katsuki’s room was empty. If not, she can improvise.
She's only going to do what should have happened long ago.
She knows Edgeshot saved him, saved her ungrateful disaster of a son.
Edgeshot was wrong, though. He shouldn't have saved him. He should have saved someone more worthy.
She reaches Katsuki's room, and she can hear quiet voices inside. She expected this. She's been prohibited from seeing him anyways; they should expect her to show up.
She's never been one to back down quietly.
She takes a deep breath before barging into the room, wailing and crying about 'wanting to see her son.’ Several doctors turn around, and the kid she has always liked over her son, Midoriya, is also there. He jumps out of his seat at the sight of her, and some strange green lightning begins to float around him.
She doesn't care how he got his quirk; he's always been a better kid than Katsuki.
"I want to see--"
"You're fucking banned from here--" and oh, she's never heard Midoriya curse.
Did Katsuki teach him that as well? He's a terrible influence on everyone he comes across.
She looks around the room as Midoriya tries to push her out. To put it nicely, it's boring—just a regular hospital room with more machines than usual.
But that's to be expected, given who the room's resident is.
Katsuki.
There he is, as lifeless as she saw him on the live stream. He looks awful.
There are thick, white bandages wrapped around his head; she can only see the left side of his face as his right is bandaged up.
She wants to see the damage.
His right arm is in a cast that goes all the way up to his shoulder and placed in a sling. She awaits a twitch from his fingers to signal that he's awake, that he heard the commotion when she burst in.
There's nothing. She wants it to stay that way.
He's on a ventilator, an oxygen mask helping him breathe as his chest rises up and down, and she can hear the steady beep of the heart monitor, signaling that he's alive.
Through his hospital garments, she can see heavy bandaging on his chest, where she knows Edgeshot resides.
The whole ordeal makes her angry.
“Can’t a mother see her only son?” she says sweetly, hoping to make Midoriya feel guilty about pushing her out. He only continues to push her, refusing to answer her as she's shoved out of the room.
"If I catch you up here again, you won't be walking out on your own." His green eyes stare daggers into her own, and she smirks at the ridiculousness of Midoriya.
After everything her son did to that boy, he's this protective over him?
She only wishes that Katsuki had died much earlier.
She knows she's making a scene, but this is all part of her plan to be seen as the doting mother who only wants to be by her son's side.
She didn't even register the threat that Midoriya sent towards her. She knows how docile he is; he'd never harm her. Midoriya loved coming over to her house when he was younger, when Katsuki's quirk hadn't come in yet.
Things were better back then, Masaru still lived at home, and her son hadn't turned into a monster.
This is all part of her plan, though. She's seen Katsuki, saw how vulnerable he is, and she knows that she's going to have to sneak right back into his room, alone this time, and have a little talk.
That is if he's awake at the time.
But no matter, her plans can move forward.