Chapter Text
And to think he had been looking forward to internships. It hadn’t quite been the worst week of Katsuki’s life, but he would have much rather spent the entire time taking entrance exams… to apply for a college specializing in goat herding… in hell. He had more sympathy for goats now, given that Best Jeanist had herded him around like an animal all. Damn. Week. Long. The guy was crazy, like, legitimately crazy. The things you don’t realize from watching news reports…
The very first thing Katsuki was going to do was fix his hair. As soon as he was out of the nightmare’s sight, that’s what he was going to do. The hero had offered to--insisted on--seeing “his student” safely back on the train to UA. Katsuki had rolled his eyes and growled, but the nutcase had not been deterred.
The student, back in his school uniform, suitcase in one hand, glared at his unneeded and unwelcome chaperone out of the corner of his eye. It seemed the hero had decided to give up on chastising him for his demeanor now. Why did the guy even care? Katsuki was here to learn to be a hero, not look pretty for civilians or kiss the media’s ass. Katsuki should’ve interned somewhere else. He had so many offers, should have gone to Dare’s agency. That woman was a terror, not that highly ranked, but a terror. Katsuki could have spent his week running through cities blowing crap up and having a blast. Instead he got this. Whatever. It would still look decent on a resume, even without a letter of recommendation--which he wasn’t going to ask for and certainly wouldn’t receive if he did ask. Jeanist had made it plenty clear he didn’t like Katsuki at all and wouldn’t do him any favors in the future.
“I know this was not what you expected, or wanted, from this week,” Jeanist said as they approached the bulky, brown architectural monstrosity that served as a train station. “You are a very interesting young man with a lot of potential. I wish you nothing but the best. Most of all, I hope you learn to turn your temper towards productive avenues. That will certainly serve you well.”
Katsuki snorted. “See ya,” the student spat out, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to say “thank you” or anything like it.
“Wait.” The hero grabbed his shoulder, eyes narrowed.
“What now?”
Where did that guy come from? There was a tall, raven haired man on his left--and suddenly Miruko of all people lunged out from between two office buildings. She ran hot on the tail of some lady with a gruesome transformation quirk--the woman looked like a demon hedgehog, big black quills, glowing red eyes, the remains of a dress in tatters across her back. There were four other villains, none nearly as impressive as the spiky woman, but all armed to the teeth with knives and… claw hammers? Sure. Why not?
Jeanist pulled Katsuki back by his shirt. “Hey!” Katsuki snarled, explosions dancing on his palm as he sized up the hedgehog--Miruko was dealing with two other villains now. This was a hundred times more action than Katsuki had seen all week. Hell yes! Better late than never. He dropped his suitcase, squirmed out of the fiber manipulator’s hold and darted towards the fight.
Jeanist was yelling at him, but he was well and truly through listening to that jerk. The guy never had anything useful to say, so why should Katsuki listen? The student aimed an explosion at the hedgehog lady, catching her across the face. She staggered then turned towards him with a hiss. One of the other villains, some guy with hair nearly as green as Deku’s, lunged and grazed him with a hand--and Katsuki could barely move, as if he hadn’t slept in a week, the world flickering into dark gray and the ground rushing up to meet his hands and knees. There wasn’t much time to reflect on that. Katsuki was vaguely aware of the hedgehog turning toward him, claws bared--even less aware of Best Jeanist bodily tackling him out of the way--someone else touched him… and then they were falling...
The two of them reappeared at that extremely inconvenient height where there is enough time to realize that one has been teleported into mid air but not enough time to do anything about it other than reflect on the amount of pain that will shortly result. Not that Tsunagu was teleported into midair all that often--it had only happened thrice before. Though, from a certain perspective, four times was a lot. Provided he didn’t break his neck on the landing, and provided he eventually made it back to Japan from wherever this was, Tsunagu should take a survey and see how often this happened to other pro heroes. Was he doing something wrong that caused this to keep happening to him? Or was this normal in the profession?
The fiber hero rolled with the impact, tumbling down a short slope, coming to rest tangled up in a section of krumholtz. That hadn’t hurt as much as he expected--he had managed to avoid slamming his head into any rocks. Reaching out with his sixth sense, he found Bakugou lying in a disheveled heap twenty meters to his right. He wasn’t moving, not even a subtle shift of muscles against fabric--might be stunned, might be unconscious--not dead, thank all the gods in heaven--Tsunagu could feel him chest rising and falling evenly against his clothes.
The fiber hero disengaged the krumholtz, wincing as he staggered to his feet and discovered a sprained ankle--could be broken but he was going to say it was sprained whether or not it was broken. Coniferous cellulose fibers danced through his awareness as soft, glowing presences tasting of green tea. Turning his attention back to the visual plane, he quickly made his way to his intern’s side. “Bakugou,” he called to the heap. “Bakugou Katsuki.” No reply.
Check for bleeding. Check for broken bones. Check for spinal injuries.
As far as Tsunagu could tell the intern was fine, uninjured save for some bruises and cuts. Why was he unconscious then? A quirk effect? Could be. He had collapsed after one of the villains touched him as if his strings had been cut.
With his student apparently stable, the fiber hero took the opportunity to assess his own injuries. He had his fair share of cuts and bruises, too. A compression bandage seemed to be all the ankle injury required. That was ten second’s work with Fiber Master. The ankle was not damaged too badly. He could put weight on it.
Tsunagu hoped his phone or short range locator beacon would be in working order, but there was a good chance they would not be. During one of his previous unscheduled teleportations, the innards of all his electronics had unraveled like centuries old cotton in a dog’s teeth. It seemed to be a common side effect of teleportation quirks. Tsunagu pulled the items from their respective pockets. Dead. Extremely dead. Spewing acrid smoke, in fact.
There was always a chance that they might be close enough to some human presence for Tsunagu to sense something… he pressed his senses to the the limit in every direction in turn, searching for human-made fibers or clearings that might indicate roads or logging operations. Trees, trees, small gaps which were probably ponds, more trees. Well, then. There went any hope of contacting help.
Alright. Now down to the business of wilderness survival. The two of them could not stay here. The sun would be setting soon. Maybe not that soon? They were clearly at high latitude, so daylight might remain for some hours yet, but finding shelter was unlikely to be easy and it would certainly be needed. A chill breeze sliced across the tundra, tossing old pine needles in every direction. It would be a frigid night. Were they in Siberia? No… these trees didn’t look quite right and the shift in daylight was wrong. Canada, then.
Tsunagu had never been to Canada before. He shook his head and sighed. The passport situation was going to be a disaster. That was probably something to think about at a later time. You know, if they survived the trek back to civilization.
It figured that it would end this way. Perfect end to a perfect week. Maybe Tsunagu really should have gone to art school instead of hero school. Become a professional tapestry weaver or something. Too late now.
Tsunagu fashioned large, broken branches into a south-pointing arrow, just in case the teleporter knew where they had been sent and was convinced to relay that information, then he grasped Bakugou in Fiber Master’s firm hold and slung the student over his shoulders. The kid was lighter than Tsunagu expected. That did not make the following three kilometer slog pleasant.
The land was mostly flat. T ravel was not easy, though . The krumholtz were everywhere . Many of the horrible little twisted, spiky trees were dead, and the dead ones did not want to move when he told them to either with Fiber Master or with his boot. Everything that wasn’t krumholtz was either a swamp or a lake. It might be easier to just wade, but it was far too cold to stand the idea of getting his feet wet. On top of this, his ankle was killing him.
So far, no decent shelter had presented itself. The hero had hoped to find a boulder with an overhang at least. Maybe he should have just built an A-frame where the two of them landed. It seemed he would now have to do that anyway after exhausting himself carrying a first year hero student for two hours.
The next piece of decently elevated, non-swampy land he found, the fiber hero laid his intern down and set to work on a shelter. It had been a very long time since he had built such a thing--he had been Bakugou’s age--but some skills stick to you like sap.
Indeed, there was a lot of literal and figurative sap sticking involved. He stripped branches from dead little trees and used the trunks for the supports. Branches ripped from live trees served as side insulation and flooring, piled layer after layer. He took fibers from his sleeves to lash where necessary. More live branches covered the entrance and exit. It was far from a work of art, but it would do. See? This was why he didn’t go to art school. He knew there was a reason.
The fiber hero half-carried half-dragged his still unconscious student into the shelter. Please let him wake up in the morning. Tsunagu didn’t know what he was going to do if he did not. He couldn’t leave Bakugou, he clearly couldn’t travel carrying him, and if they stayed here too long they would certainly die--exposure, disease, starvation… annoying mosquitoes. The breeze kept many of the buzzing insects away--for now--but they were already irritating.
Tsunagu emptied his pockets and unraveled the entire outer layer of his costume, hesitated, and took apart the second, thicker layer of denim, too, showing off the body armor few people realized he wore beneath. He ripped through stitches, pried pliant fibers into new shapes, pushed and prodded and flattened until he had a double layered blanket large and broad enough for both of them. He crawled into place beside his student and completely covered the two of them with the fabric.
If Tsunagu had accurately extrapolated Bakugou’s temperament, should the student wake up to find that the fiber hero was effectively cuddling him--regardless of how cold it was--the student would scream, swear, and blow things up. This would be extremely inconvenient, not as inconvenient as if the kid remained unconscious, but it would still be bad. This should be an excuse for the universe to allow Bakugou to wake--it would still be causing Tsunagu immense inconvenience, after all, so it need not feel it was letting the fiber hero off too easily.
Katsuki woke up to find someone cuddling him. It was too dark to see who it was, but a warm body had stretched out beside him, clearly beneath the same blanket. Who did this guy--girl?--think they were? “The hell is wrong with you?” Katsuki yelled, explosions leaping from his palm as he sat up, shoulder immediately colliding with a low roof. He shook his head, clawed at the blanket, pulled it off at last--and realized that he was in an improvised structure, a hastily constructed a-frame. “What the actual hell is going on here?” he demanded of the half-awake blonde in black beside him.
“Please calm down, Bakugou,” said Jeanist placatingly. The voice gave the hero’s identity away, that combined with the radioactive-green eyes. His hair was every bit as wild as Katsuki’s own and he was dressed all in black, nose to toe--a thin mask covering his face and throat. It took Katsuki a few seconds blinking in shock to realize that the hero was wearing body armor but not a shred of denim. That’s because the blanket Katsuki had thrown off was denim--presumably the entirety of Jeanist’s costume repurposed.
He understood the blanket’s purpose now--it was frigid. “What the actual fu--”
“Language.”
“-ck is going on here? This is crazy!”
“I agree with you there.”
“Where are we?” Bakugou kept shouting, at a loss for anything else to do.
“Northern Canada I believe.”
“Why the hell are we in northern Canada?”
“Because this is where the miffed teleporter decided to dump us after you charged at his ally in a rage and nearly got yourself killed.”
“I did not nearly get myself killed!” Jeanist raised an eyebrow. “What do you know anyway?”
“About almost getting myself killed? Quite a bit. Done it two or three dozen times now. I have endured,” the hero continued in that infuriatingly calm tone, “the most exquisite lectures from concerned friends, angry teachers, and disappointed coworkers.” They probably screamed at him because they couldn’t stand how damn calm he was about everything.
Katsuki fumed, not quite sure how to reply to that. He’d just pick insults until he got a reaction, then. “This is a terrible A-frame. You suck at building stuff.” The fact that it was light enough for him to assess the quality of the structure meant there wasn’t enough insulation--it should be nice and dark.
Jeanist cocked his head from side to side, critically assessing his own work. “It’s not that bad. It did the job. You are correct that it is far from pretty. It has been at least a decade since I last built a survival shelter.”
“I could do better,” Katuski growled.
“Excellent. I look forward to seeing your work this evening.”
“Graaah!” Why did he have to be stuck in Canada with the most irritating single human being on the entire planet? He thought Deku was bad, but he would rather be stuck here with the nerd listening to him say “Kacchan, Kacchan” all day long.
Jeanist sighed. “If you could calm yourself long enough to have a rational discussion with me about how we are going to stay alive that would be greatly appreciated.”
“Grrrr...” He had zero interest in doing that. Jeanist decided not to notice.
“I have no idea where we are. We are certainly in range of wolves and grizzly bears. There may also be polar bears depending on how close to the coast or the Hudson Bay we are… I cannot recall what times of the year they would be on land. Up until yesterday I could not have cared less.” Jeanist just kept talking, like they were discussing the weather or something, and Bakugou found it difficult to stay furious. “I am not sure if you are aware of just how dangerous polar bears are. They are exquisitely dangerous. Grizzly bears are nothing to underestimate, either, but my understanding is that they do not often attack humans with the intent to eat them. That being the case, I presume either of us would be a match for the average bear provided it did not get the drop on us.
“All of my electronics have been damaged beyond any hope of repair with the sole exception of a small LED flashlight. Thus, there is no possibility of contacting help. We have to walk out. I started off heading south yesterday--there are more people in southern Canada, but in some sense any direction is as good as any other. If we need to travel more than, say, a few hundred kilometers I would not give us good chances of survival, so population density is not likely to become a serious factor. Oh, can you light a fire with your quirk, Bakugou? I do not carry matches or a flint and steel on typical patrols. I have never been in a situation where I would need them given that I work in an urban environment.”
“Uhh… yeah. I can do that.” He’d never done that intentionally before, but it’d be a snap.
“Excellent. I was freezing all night. A fire will be welcome.”
“It’s not that cold,” Katsuki snorted. “And you’re wearing more clothes than I am.” Katsuki was just in his school uniform. Jeanist was wearing all that heavy body armor.
“If we were to compare our builds, you are a heavy jacket and I am a tank-top,” Jeanist replied. What was it with this guy and bizarre clothing metaphors? And now Katsuki was imagining Best Jeanist in a denim tank-top. Oh, this image needed to burn. “I have zero built-in insulation. I presume you are not carrying any food or water?”
“No,” and food would definitely be nice. Water would be nicer.
“I do have a small water bottle and, fortunately, it is steel so it can be used to boil additional water to dispose of microbes.” Katsuki licked his lips, but there was no way that he was going to admit he’d kill to have something to drink now. “Here,” Jeanist handed the water to him without being prompted. It was a very small bottle, just something that could be left, unnoticed, in a pocket. “Please leave me half.”
“Sure.” He was thirsty enough to drink without pointing out that he wasn’t some wimp who was going to cheat the hero out of his portion.
Katsuki handed the silver bottle back. Jeanist turned away from him to drink his share. The metaphors were weird, the obsession with hiding his face was weirder.
“Alright. Would you like to start walking now or would you prefer to build a fire here, purify some additional water and try to locate something to eat?”
“What do you think there would be to eat around here?” Katsuki didn’t have any idea, yet, what the surrounding environment was like…
“Presumably the mosquitoes are eating something .”
It was his choice, huh? “Let’s get out of here,” Katsuki decided with a grunt.
“Alright. Allow me a moment.” Jeanist flicked his fingers, rolling up the improvised denim blanket, fashioning a bag from it to hold a small pile of items which had presumably been in his pockets the day before.
Katsuki pushed the piles of conifer branches away from the entrance of the A-frame and crawled out into a misty land full of dead little bushes, stunted trees, shallow ponds and buzzing insects. The student fixed his eyes on a landmark--just an unusually tall tree--to the south and set off, using explosions to leap over twisted trees and across water barriers. This was almost fun.
“Please don’t get too far ahead, Bakugou,” Jeanist called.
“Why don’t you keep up?” the student snapped.
“I am not nearly as fast as you are,” the hero admitted easily, as if it didn’t even bother him. The fiber manipulator smashed his way through tree barriers or, occasionally, used his quirk to bend them out of the way. Katsuki had honestly thought Fiber Master only worked on clothes… but if it worked on cotton, which it clearly did, because that’s what denim was made from, and cotton was a plant… could Jeanist strangle someone with a pine tree? Okay, that was a weird image
Jeanist did, eventually, catch back up. Good for him, old geezer. “Don’t tire yourself out, Bakugou,” the fiber hero chastised. “The goal is to make decent time all day, not excellent time for one hour and terrible time for nine hours.”
“I’m not gonna’ tire myself out. You worry about you!”
Katsuki tired himself out. He had great endurance--he’d dare you to tell him otherwise--but his arms were aching soon enough, and he found it harder and harder to clear the trees with each jump.
“You tired yourself out,” Jeanist said as the fiber hero overtook him. He might as well have said “I told you so” outright given how damn smug he sounded.
“Shut up.”