𝓐 𝓜𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓼 𝓽𝓸 𝓪𝓷 𝓔𝓷𝓭 | Katsuki Bakugou x Male Reader

Chapter 15

Their hover planes were initially ignored by the commanders in the Nut, because in the past they had been little more trouble than flies buzzing around a honeypot. But after two rounds of bombings in the higher elevations of the mountain, the planes had their attention. By the time the Capitol's anti-aircraft weapons began to fire, it was already too late.

Shoto's plan exceeded everyone's expectations. Tenya was right about being unable to control the avalanches once they had been set in motion. The mountainsides were naturally unstable, but weakened by the explosions, they seemed almost fluid. Whole sections of the Nut collapsed before their eyes, obliterating any sign that human beings had ever set foot on the place. They stood speechless, tiny and insignificant, as waves of stone cascaded down the mountain. Burying the entrances under tons of rock. Raising a cloud of dirt and debris that blackened the sky. Turning the Nut into a tomb.

(M/N) imagined hell inside the mountain. Sirens wailing. Lights flickering into darkness. Stone dust choking the air. The shrieks of panicked, trapped beings stumbling madly for a way out, only to find the entrances, the launchpad, the ventilation shafts themselves clogged with earth and rock trying to force its way in. Live wires flung free, fires breaking out, rubble making a familiar path a maze. People slamming, shoving, scrambling like ants as the hill pressed in, threatening to crush their fragile shells.

"(M/N)?" Shota's voice reached his earpiece. He tried to answer back and found both of his hands were clamped tightly over his mouth. "(M/N)!"

On the day his father died, the sirens went off during his school lunch. No one waited for dismissal, or was expected to. The response to the mine accident was something outside the control of even the Capitol. (M/N) ran to Eri's class. He still remembered her, tiny, very pale, but sitting straight up with her hands folded on her desk. Waiting for (M/N) to come collect her as he promised he would if the sirens ever sounded. She sprang out of her seat, grabbed his coat sleeve, and they wove through streams of people pouring out onto the streets to pool at the main entrance of the mine. They found their mother clenching the rope that had been hastily strung to keep the crowd back. In retrospect, (M/N) guessed he should have known there was a problem right then. Because why were they looking for her, when the reverse should have been true?

The lifts were screeching, burning up and down their cables as they vomited smoke-blackened miners into the light of days. With each group came cries of relief, relatives diving under the rope to lead off their loved ones. (M/N) stood with his family in the freezing air as the afternoon turned overcast, a light snow dusted the earth. The lifts moved more slowly now and disgorged fewer beings. (M/N) knelt on the ground and pressed his hands into the cinders, wanting so badly to pull his father free. If there was a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you loved who was trapped underground, he didn't know it. The wounded. The bodies. Waiting through the night. Blankets put around their shoulders by strangers. A mug of something hot that he didn't drink. And then finally, at dawn, the grieved expression on the face of the mine captain that could only mean one thing.

What did we just do?

"(M/N)! Are you there?" Shota was probably making plans to have (M/N) fitted for a head shackle at this very moment.

(M/N) dropped his hands. "Yes."

"Get inside. Just in case the Capitol tries to retaliate with what's left of its air force," he instructed.

"Yes," (M/N) repeated. Everyone on the roof, except for the soldiers manning the machine guns, began to make their way inside. As he descended the stairs, he couldn't help brushing his fingers along the unblemished white marble walls. So cold and beautiful. Even in the Capitol, there was nothing to match the magnificence of this old building. But there was no give to the surface. Stone conquered people every time.