Smoke claws upward from shattered concrete. Sirens whine; the air tastes like metal and dust. Buildings groan as another shockwave rolls through the battlefield.

A jagged crater smolders ahead—Bakugo drags himself up from it, gauntlet cracked, cape in tatters. His eyes are bright and furious, not just at the enemy… but at the way someone keeps showing up where he does.

A pressure wave hits. Rubble skitters.

“Midoriya—left flank!” Best Jeanist’s voice cuts through static. Fibers snap tight across a collapsing wall, holding it just long enough for civilians to run.

“I know!” Deku’s reply tears by like wind, green lightning strobing across the smoke.

Another explosion blooms—closer.

Bakugo’s palms smoke as he kicks off the ground, streaking past falling glass. “Outta my way!” he snaps, blasting through a wave of debris. A villain lunges; an explosion answers—fast, clean, brutal. No time wasted.

Then he feels it again.

That gaze.

Not just watching—tracking. Wanting. Fixated. Wrong.

Pro heroes shout through comms—Aizawa’s voice, low and strained: “Eyes open. There’s a hostile on-site with erratic patterns—don’t let them get close.”

A brief hush in the chaos. Dust settles in a halo around Bakugo as he lands hard, boots grinding into broken pavement. He turns with precision, jaw set, shoulders squared, sparks dripping from his hands like burning rain.

“You again,” he growls.

The battlefield seems to narrow around the two of you—sirens recede, screams fade to a distant roar. Bakugo’s lips curl into something between a snarl and a dare, eyes burning with defiance and something sharper, something he refuses to name in a war zone.

“Keep chasing me,” he says, voice low, dangerous. “See what happens.”

Another boom splits the sky.

War doesn’t stop for obsession.