Chapter Text
Katsuki’s whole body was sore as he collapsed on a bedroll in the science shed. His fingers were numb from twisting wire together and his shoulders burned from carrying Kaminari and Sero’s statues all the way across the forest to the camp and burying them underground so that only those on their side could find them and wake them up.
His nitrosweat had nearly run dry at this point as Senku collected as much as he could for experiments.
Senku was the only other person in the science shed since Chrome was already on a mission to plant the cellphone in the Tsukasa Empire. Katsuki wanted to go with them to just get it over with and tear this Tsukasa guy apart, but he had to admit Senku had a point that they were trying to win over the members of the Tsukasa Empire, not start a full blown war because they went ahead and assassinated their leader.
Not only that, but Katsuki’s presence in general led to a complication. If anyone saw Katsuki’s powers too close to their territory, they could take just the sounds and flashes of explosions as a declaration of war and the Tsukasa Empire could attack early, bringing his men to the village and endangering the children and elderly. Not to mention they still apparently had someone spying on them, though Senku had conveniently neglected to tell Katsuki this until the last minute.
So Katsuki obediently stayed in the stupid village doing all the patience-wearing tasks villagers had to do. Hunting, fishing, patrolling, guarding. Though it wasn’t really all that bad. After all, this was pretty much what the day to day of hero life was in his time. Patrol one area, move on to the next, take down a villain, repeat. Though instead of villains in this world, it was game animals he was taking down. And for every deer or other prey he caught, there was another source of meat, bones, and hide to process.
The villagers were patient in teaching Katsuki the things they knew for generations, but strict in making sure he was pulling his weight. He couldn’t just lounge around until Senku needed more nitrosweat, he was a full on member of the Ishigami Village and the Kingdom of Science. If he wanted to eat, he had to work. That was the rule.
And so work he did.
But between those tasks, he watched everyone else closely. It was weird to be around so many people without powers. Everyone pretty much looked the same, too. No one had horns or body parts resembling animals, there were little variations in skin tones, and their faces were all very similar. As if they were all mostly related to each other. And they kind of were.
That’s what happened when there were no quirks to give people further variance in their genes, and were all descendants of a handful of lucky astronauts that missed the petrification beam.
How the village didn’t end up with messed up genes like any other community that was a little too close-knit from the history books Katsuki had read, he would never know, and he would never ask. But that didn’t mean it made being around a bunch of quirkless cookie-cutter clone-like people any less weird.
Despite their lack of powers, though, the villagers were all capable people. Katsuki often spent time wondering why their numbers were so low for being such an ancient civilization. After all, three thousand years to only have a 40-ish person village struck him as odd.
But when he realized their primary source of food was fishing, that started to make sense. And while they did hunt sometimes, they just didn’t have the manpower to send out hunters when there were elders and children to guard and general village maintenance to uphold. There was talk of famines that were caused by bad fishing years that nearly wiped out the population more than once.
Now that Katsuki was here with boundless energy he needed to work out and a distaste for eating fish for every meal, the village had been provided more protein sources to build their strength. Not to mention Senku, who encouraged hunting so they could use the leather and other animal parts for building and other advancements.
There was so much more to life in Ishigami Village than building the cell phone and surviving. They were starting to thrive despite losing their homes to the fire caused by their enemies. And their fear of science and sorcery was starting to transition into excitement and appreciation for everything Senku had done, and everything he was promising them.
As Katsuki lay in his bedroll in the science shed, he could hear rocks clicking against each other as Senku shuffled through the materials Chrome had gathered throughout the years. But with only the dim moonlight, Katsuki had to wonder how he would find whatever he was looking for in the dark. “Oi, Leekhead, it’s kinda hard to sleep when it sounds like a rockslide in here.”
Senku didn’t say anything, but the noise stopped, too. The science shed was too quiet now, like they were both holding their breaths for some reason.
But finally, Senku said, “This mission ten billion percent rides on the infiltration team’s success. We don’t have a backup plan.”
“So?” Katsuki scoffed at him. “We’ve got the cellphone and they’re gonna plant it in the Tsukasa Empire. Then you can recruit as many of Tsukasa’s people as you can before the fight or whatever. I still think you’re wasting your time. A villain’s a villain, just take ‘em all down and revive people who aren’t murderers.”
Senku took a small, but audible breath. “That doesn’t interest me one millimeter, Katsuki.”
Katsuki peered over to him, but couldn’t see his face in the dark. “If ya wanna win, just use your science to make weapons. It’s not that hard. Gimme five minutes with the old craftsman on a hot day and we could make a crap ton of grenades.”
“No.” Senku said, his voice firm and deathly serious for once. “We’re doing this to prevent bloodshed. No one from the Kingdom of Science or the Tsukasa Empire is going to die in this battle. We’ll use science to bring people together, that’s what it’s for. Labelling people as villains and never giving them a chance to see all the exciting things we can bring back from my time? Not happening.” He put back the rocks he had in his hands and brushed his palms off. “There’s no justice system in the stone world and I’m just a scientist who wants to revive everyone and bring back what modern humanity has to offer. I’m no hero or cop or anything like that and I’m not interested in playing that role.”
Katsuki mulled over what he was saying for a while. “No bloodshed, huh?” He looked at his palms again, calluses finally starting to form along the skin. All he had ever done was train his quirk to be powerful, to make sure he was capable of doing the maximum damage as humanely possible. Bloodshed was just a symptom of hero society. It was unavoidable on both sides.
There were even special crews that would show up in hazmat suits after some fights to clean up blood and viscera if a hero or a villain had gone that far. Most of the time heroes would just knock out villains or restrain them, but as humankind was getting stronger with the generations, it was too easy to shed blood and still be praised at the end.
Even All Might, whose fights were often featured on television, didn’t hesitate much when it came to injuring an enemy. Or anyone, really. Katsuki still remembered what it was like to get slammed around by him in the final exam. It was just a test and yet both Katsuki and Izuku had walked away from the fight with moderately serious injuries.
There was no room in a hero’s life to even consider pacifism. But in Senku’s Kingdom of Science, that was the goal. And it was just as weird to Katsuki as their quirklessness.
At the same time, though, he couldn’t help but be curious if a plan like this would work. If there was such a thing as resolving conflict between two groups with strong ideals without bloodshed. “Fine, whatever.” He said. “I’ll play along with that for now, but the minute your plan fails, I won’t hesitate to do what I gotta do to beat anyone in my way. Especially Tsukasa and the other boss villains.”
“It won’t come to that.” Senku said. “Just wait and see.”