The signs were all there, from the beginning. He should've known, from the first reports of the floating skyscrapers, of terrified witnesses reporting of the "Fallen Angel" floating above the havoc watching with hands pressed together as if in prayer.

But even with this nightmarish sight before him, he feels everything around him dull to a murmur, as if his brain is trying to compensate for this atrocious sight burned into his retinas.

Years ago, Uraraka was healthy with curves, with a charming bob of hair and eyes that sparkled with earnest happiness. This woman before him has lost weight, her cheekbones standing out like bird wings. Her hair falls to her shoulders hovering in the force of her power. But the biggest change is in her eyes...manic yet calm, cheerful yet colder than a winter night.

And there's a fucking city's worth of debris floating above her head.

He can't help the words coming from his mouth. "Round Face?"

The woman's head cocks to one side. "Round Face." Her voice carries quite well through the musty hair. The amusement in her bell-like voice shakes him more than the malice in her expression does. "It's been a long time since I've heard that nickname."

Bakugou can hear Todoroki shouting something at him in the back of his head, but his feet are frozen in place on the ground as his hands curl into shaking fists.

"What the hell is this, Uraraka?! What have you done?! This whole year you've been..." His voice doesn't sound like his anymore. Cracked, bewildered, lost. He hates it.

"Oh, has it been a year already?" Uraraka puts a finger on her chin, like that frog girl used to do. "Wow, I lost track of the time."

She places her fingers together, casually, and the hovering rubble in the air crumpled like a meteor shower, and Bakugou lets out an enraged sound as the deadly rain of rubble rained down on the evacuating citizens. There's a split second of silence before the screaming began.

"Oops." Uraraka smirks. "My hands slipped."

She waves her hands like a puppeteer, and Bakugou chokes as a crushing weight shoves him into the pavement, his gauntleted arms heavier than a thousand weights at the gym. His lungs are burning, burning...

Uraraka lands gently in front of him. She's wearing these weird, delicate boots with heels.

That doesn't suit her, Bakugou thought in a daze. She was always a badass who wore combat boots or sneakers, not this formal shit...

"Aw, I got the fabled Ground Zero on his knees." She's gleeful, her lips turned up as if she hadn't just murdered a whole crowd. "You look so helpless."

He's gasping into the concrete, his jaw smashed unceremoniously into the gritty surface. Blood is roaring in his ears, and something sour is rising to the back of his throat. "Go….to hell."

"You dare to tell me that?" Her voice is suddenly, inexplicably furious, and something sharp digs into his chin and Bakugou feels his head being jerked backward. He's staring into her eyes, those eyes that used to burn with determination and grit. Now there's nothing but fury and resentment.

"I was in hell," She spits, "for a whole year. I waited for you, Katsuki! I waited and waited while they cut up my fingers and opened my head. I waited but I was in hell, Katsuki. You never came, you heroes never came…not for me."

"I looked for you, dumbass." He croaks, his throat raw. His fingers curled like cat's claws on the pavement as he relived those frantic months of searching, of feverish all-nighters looking for any sign of a bobbed haircut, a determined smile, of ten fingers pressed together. "I upturned cities looking for you."

She smiles, crookedly, and for one blazing second Bakugou sees the old Uraraka staring back at him, her hair mussed with exertion and her cheeks red and round like their high school days. "Funny. I did the same for you."

And then she smashes his face into the concrete with the force of a bitter god and he remembers no more.

O.O

They find him, later. They find him staggering back to the nearest hero's agency, his face set like stone and his eyes hollow with anguish. They debrief him, and he answers all the questions in a clinical, detached voice. They give him, reluctantly, all reports with any incidents spotting the "Fallen Angel".

And for the next few years, he hunts her. She hunts him in return. Hero and villain, never anything else.

Never anything else.