GROTESQUE RELIGION

GROTESQUE RELIGION I

ACT ONE    THE OVERTURE
  I – do you want salvation? ...

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TO BE A MAN OF VOWS AND VIRTUES, there had been a time when that was all he wanted. His morals never swayed, no matter how much the people glorified him, and his inherent goodness was not sewn into him by holier-than-thou Gods. You may dare label him as a nonbeliever, however, his full faith would remain to rest only in one thing: himself, Bakugou Katsuki.

He used to be somewhat full of himself, as in a big-headed, egotistical, and terribly arrogant boy that strove to achieve greatness no matter the cost. But, at least he was full, always a whole of something — an ever burning inferno, and never a piece, or a flickering flame. With full faith in his abilities and ambitions, Bakugou couldn't locate when he had started to feel so split. So half. The feeling had come in moments, sometimes there and sometimes not. He could tell a fracture had divided his being and he believed himself willing to do anything to get it back.

As he stared down at the letter in his hands, the sense of half-ness struck him again.

Drenched from the rain, and bloody bandaged fingers, the envelope was heavy — a solemn weight. Even as his clothes began sticking to his skin and the hair pushed back from his forehead soaked his neck, he remained still and rooted to the earth.

It was addressed to him. Typed out was his parent's house address and his name. Except there was no sender's address, which he found to be especially strange. Sure, when he was in school he'd get the usual ten page fan-mail stuffed in his desk, but at nineteen, still in the early stages of his hero career, his home address hadn't been leaked to the public.

          So, who the hell was this from?

He eyes the front door, the letter, and the door again. His grip crinkled the paper between his fingers at the thought of what would happen if he were to walk into the house holding it. His mind's eye constructed images of his parents' inquisitive gazes followed by his mother's intrusive questions – it would be a fucking disaster.

Now if he opened it outside, well, it would be exclusively his business. No one would know. It could be something that was only his for the first time in a long time.

Flipping it over, his hands ripped open the envelope to find a single card. Handwritten, it read:

'Do you want salvation?'

The black ink starkly contrasted the red stamp of Hinode Temple, a place Bakugou had never heard of before. Crimson eyes burned into the paper as though trying to force answers out of it through sheer will alone. He flipped the letter over and examined the enveloppe once more to find no other clues alluding to the sender. Despite that, something clawed at his stomach like an urgent gnawing at his gut. His instinct was pushing him, needing him, to investigate and satisfy his piqued curiosity.

He almost frowned at himself, the sound of his psychologist resonating from the back of his mind:

48 hours prior . . .

"How're you feeling today, Bakugou?"

A beat passed. "Fine."