✧ 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚢𝚙𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐. ✧

Epilogue

Midoriya wasn't deluded enough to believe he wouldn't have to go against his ex-boyfriend. Still, he wanted his feet planted in the ground before he even looked at Shigaraki.

Besides, Midoriya still had to figure out how he was going to keep Katsuki and Eijiro from attacking Shigaraki. Mina and Uraraka would also be a danger Midoriya would have to solve.

Midoriya runs a hand through his hair, suddenly thankful for all the practice matches he had been doing with Shoto and Shinso. Still, this was his first official match in years, the greenette just hoped he didn't trip on his feet on his way to his opponent.

Midoriya was going against someone named Ojiro Mashirao. He was relatively new to this and had only had his debut a few months after Midoriya had left Judo. Midoriya had analyzed Ojiro's videos, despite the quality being grainy. The greenette was hopeful that as long as he kept a level head, Ojiro shouldn't be too hard to defeat.

The Judoka lets out one more determined breath, before walking out of the locker rooms. He had gotten here reasonably late, or maybe everyone else just came supremely early. Either way, he had been the only one present in the changing area. Midoriya hoped he hadn't missed a valuable opportunity to learn more about who he was fighting, but knew there was no use worrying about it now.

Katsuki had tried to get them here early, but the three of them had gotten out of bed late. Which was fine, it gave Midoriya a little more confidence in the match anyway.

Izuku had told everyone from the KiriBakuDeku Squad ( named by Mina and Uraraka, who immediately became best friends among meeting each other ), not to wait up and to go ahead and find their seats. Still, as Izuku's nerves set in, he was beginning to regret that decision.

You've got this, Izuku assures himself, trying to gravitate the same confidence Katsuki always seemed to have.

Izuku spent the last few minutes before his match, stretching out his muscles and going over Ojiro's shown weaknesses, and assembling strategies in his mind.

When Izuku steps onto the Judo Mat, he straightens his uniform, doing his standard routine that most Judoka's had before a match, but added a move Kaminari had told him to do a few days again, cracking his finger. Midoriya had no idea how that was supposed to be helpful but went along with it anyways.

The match was over at an alarmingly fast rate. And while most can guess the outcome, may it be said that Midoriya Izuku came out on top, stronger than ever.

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Author's Note

Well, first and foremost, thank you for finishing this story! I really hoped you liked it!

I'm not going to lie. The idea for this fanfiction came from two things; the weird show called Masked Singer, which my grandmother is obsessed with, and the musical Hamilton lmao.

I had been DMing my best friend about wanting to do a KiriBakuDeku book, but neither of us came up with any solid ideas for it, and the conversation went downhill real quick. I'm not sure I could consider it a stroke of luck that I was semi-grounded into spending the day with my grandmother considering that at the time, all I wanted to do was work on getting my driver's permit and finishing Danganronpa, but whatever.

It wasn't until I watched the singers talk about their bodyguards that I was like; hm... what if Bakugou was a bodyguard? But then, I resolved that Bakugou being a guard for someone was kind of dry, and semi-redundant, so I just gave our favorite cinnamon roll the job. I chose Judo because that's one of my favorite forms of Martial Arts.

I've read many stories where Izuku was the actor but had never really stumbled on one where Bakugou was the actor. Which was another reason I didn't give the protector role to Bakugou and eventually decided not to give the role to Eijiro either.

I knew that I would need to have Eijiro be the one to convince Katsuki to get a bodyguard since there was no way in hell Katsuki would willingly get one. But didn't know how I wanted to go about it. Just before I went to bed for the night, I listened to the soundtrack of the musical Hamilton, because that's just how my life works. And I landed on the song, 'Burn,' which is a badass written song, by the way. Eliza talks about 'erasing herself from the narrative,' and how she had been deceived.

And those lines can not only be applied to history but celebrities as well. Sure, scandals and shit get out, but really, the public only knows what celebrities allow them to. They had a lot of power in that way. I wanted the plotline to mostly focus on Eijiro, Katsuki, and Izuku's life outside of their jobs, which is why Katsuki's movie had only the purpose of showing Izuku how easy it was to be something else.

Eijiro's persona was the one I had the hardest time with. Most books have Izuku as the middle man who delegates the relationship, and that isn't always something I felt was accurate to the characters. If we're completely real here, Eijiro is the most level-headed out of the three in the anime or manga anyway. Midoriya's out there rapidly breaking his arms, and Bakugou... is Bakugou. So I wanted Eijiro to be the character to even the others out.

Shigaraki and Izuku's relationship was to show that being abused has nothing to do with being weak or useless and that abuse does not reveal the characterization of the victim but of the culprit.

I am lucky enough to have never been abused like Midoriya was, so I sincerely apologize for any inaccuracies that this book held.

Again, hope you enjoyed it!