"What the fuck is she doing here?" Is the first thing that passed Katsuki’s lips when he steps a foot in the receiving room of the manor.
Izuku smiles sheepishly as Himiko tucks herself against his side. "I'm chaperoning," she says with an eye roll. "You think you could just take the crown jewel of our organization out on a date without me?" She sneers at him.
"He's my fiancé, so it’s fully within my right," Katsuki snaps spitefully. "The lord blessed our engagement, you know this. Everybody fucking knows this or have you lost another screw in your head?"
"Yea, so what?" She snorts indelicately, every bit uncaring. "How do I know your intentions are good? You could be using this chance alone to ravish my beloved Izuku-chan."
Katsuki making a choking noise between disbelief and horror.
"Himiko, don't say that!" Izuku cries out as heat rises to his face. He desperately tries to cover his face but Himiko his holding onto him way too tightly. "K-Kacchan wouldn't do that sort of thing!"
Himiko turns to him and pouts. "I'm defending your honor!" she says. "I don't trust stupid alphas around you."
Katsuki glowers at her, simmering with an untapped rage. "You're also an alpha, bitch," he kindly reminds her, “so get the fuck off of him. I don't want some other alpha stinking up what's mine."
Izuku's heart races even though he knows Katsuki is only saying that to annoy Himiko. He was worry Father had made a grave mistake when Katsuki had shown resistant to their engagement at first. That day, Himiko had happily recalled to him of the fierce argument that had broken out between Katsuki and Father when their engagement was made real in front of the top members of their organization much to everyone’s shock. In a panic, Izuku had quickly rushed out to confront Father in the throne room about it.
Up high on his metal throne, Father sat there looking down on them all like pawns. A menacing figure who can easily overwhelm any room he’s in, his presence alone was a suffocating thing, but Izuku felt no fear then and still no fear now. "Bakugou has proven himself to me, so it's only right I'll give him a little reward," Father had said. "Isn't this what you wish for, my darling Izuku? I only want to grant all your heart desires."
He's All for One. The Symbol of Evil. The Emperor of Darkness. And the Demon King of Japan but to Izuku he's just Father. The man who tucked Izuku into bed every night after a nightmare. The man who loves him enough to remake this country for his only and most precious son. Izuku knows what they say about Father, the kind of monster who rules over Japan with an iron fist and ruthlessly suppresses all form of resistant, but that monster has never shown him a drop of cruelty. So, while he understands that Father's intentions toward him are good, it's not always the kindest things for others. Izuku still has a hard time juggling that fact.
He has nursed a childish crush on Katsuki for the longest time, but he didn't want it like this. Katsuki shouldn't be force to marry him and have his choice taken away. He'd already lost so much when his parents died, so Izuku doesn't want this to be something he'll also regret but father insisted and when father insist even the hardest of steel will bend for him.
Katsuki had no hope of refusing Father’s order, but—but maybe Katsuki doesn't completely hate their forceful engagement after all. This is something that Izuku can work with given time and effort. In some way, he's very much his father's son. Victory through conquest.
Himiko sticks her tongue out at Katsuki. "He's not yours yet, so you don’t have any claim on him!"
"Don't you have some job to do?" Katsuki's eyes narrowed pointedly. "People to murder?" he presses. Instead of having this much free time harassing me and my fiancé on our first date.”
"My job is Izuku-chan," she declares, placing a hand over her heart in a dramatic fashion. "My life and everything that I am belongs to him.”
"How nice," Katsuki says dryly. "He's still engaged to be married to me though."
And Izuku could see the way Himiko’s eyes darken inscrutably that things are about to get serious here. "No fighting," he pleads, fearing that Himiko might just bring out her knives out to play and Katsuki would absolutely entertain her on that. He can already imagine the carnage brought between them if they get into a full-on fight here.
It's not the first time Izuku had seen them butt heads like this, but this is personal. Izuku's engagement is a point of contention for many.
Several members of Father's inner circle weren’t happy that Father had given away his hand in marriage just like that. Tomura-nii was so upset that his office was destroyed during one of his tantrums. Izuku had spent several days afterward trying to calm him down because no matter how angry Tomura-nii got, it didn’t matter in the end; Father’s words are law.
Though Izuku understood the reservation from Tomura-nii’s side because unlike Himiko, who had been indoctrinated in their organization since young and grew alongside Izuku, Katsuki is still a fresh-face recruit but he had quickly risen up the rank and gained Father's attention. He has proven himself again and again what it means to up hold the axiom of their organization; equality under one. Father had paid closed attention to Katsuki’s achievements and it had made him believed that Katsuki can be of a service to their mission.
Father had once told eight years old Izuku that sometime brute force is necessary to break the things that hold us back, and the best weapon are the people we have around us. Even then, Izuku didn’t like the ideas of thinking his friends as tool, and wondered if Father had saw him as a tool too. A less useful one, but a tool nonetheless. He’d never asked, too afraid of the answer to dare.
Himiko hooks an arm around Izuku’s shoulder. "Well, Bakugou should be happy that it's me here today and not Dabi, because he'll spend the entire time glowering at Bakugou and planning a murder in his head."
Izuku sighs, recalling how Dabi was particularly interest in his date and it’s the kind of interest that ends up in smokes and ashes.
"Instead of what? You flirting with my fiancé?" Katsuki adopts the most unimpressed look on his face.
“My heart is pure,” she insists. “What I feel for Izuku-chan goes beyond mere mortal affection. It transcends what you call love. I want to be buried with and in him when I die, so that we become one and the same.” Her face reddens in excitement, the edge of hysteria caught in her eyes. “Only then can my feelings be immortalized!"
Izuku smiles indulgently at her. He heard this many times in their youth. It no longer fazes him anymore. It’s sort of morbidly cute actually.
Katsuki makes a face of disgust at her. "Could you be anymore crazy?" he asks, then turns to Izuku and frowns. "Is there anyone around that isn't a fucking nut job?"
Before Izuku can give that question a proper reply, Katsuki's hand shoots out and he grabs Izuku, hauling him into his arms while shoving Himiko away. "I'm taking him, so you can fucking go away now."
Izuku’s breath leaves him briefly in that moment as Katsuki holds him close, but there’s no time to rest in the comfort of Katsuki’s embrace because Himiko has stumbles back with a sharp smile cutting across her face. It’s all teeth and no bite. A cold sort of smile that he had seen her often displayed before she strikes down any person who come to harm Izuku in bloody mess; the crimson witch they’d called her.
"Bakugou, I'll be careful with Izuku-chan if I were you because are you fully aware of the treasure that you're holding in your arms right now and bear the heavy consequence if anything were to happen to him?" She demands, stepping forward and encroaching right into his space. Her smile spreads even wider, to a length that it seems like someone had chad took a knife and carved it out of her face. It’s unnerving. "The rats having been making a lot of noise lately. They been getting quite bold with their actions and we can't have that, you understand me?”
The silence descends between them is concering. Izuku isn't privy toward the inner workings of Father's empire because Father claimed it will ‘dirty’ him, but he knows he's a high value target for many of his father's enemies that's why growing up, Izuku always been guarded by a senior member of their organization or a nomu. He rarely even left their estate because it was thought to be too dangerous for him. Everything he could ever wanted was provided for him here, but Izuku always felt like the world is passing by him outside while he’s stuck in his own little bubble.
So Himiko's insistence with being with him here for his date today wasn't surprising, but maybe there's more to it than he'd originally thought. "Is this something I should know about?" Izuku asks, more than slightly curious now.
"No!" they both shout at him simultaneously, sharing an equal look of worry and dismay.
"Oh, so you both can actually agree on something," Izuku says dryly.
"It's none of your business," Katsuki sharply retorts.
Izuku frowns. "Even though this seems to concern me." The amount of time he's kept in the dark for his own safety is truly and profoundly annoying.
"Izuku-chan, it's not like that!" Himiko protests, appearing torn between pleasing him and her duty toward keeping him protected and ignorance of the many threats outside the security of his father's enforced bubble.
Izuku is not dumb. He knows everything it not as what seems. Father is a man of large stature and larger ambition. In his effort to reshape this world into a place that he calls 'Eden', he made a lot of enemies along the way. A world in which being omega and quirkless won’t mean Izuku will be mistreated and discriminated upon, Father made sure of that. "There's a price for everything, only if you're willing to pay for it," Father said to him, before gently placing a kiss on his forehead. "And you're worth it." Though Izuku doesn't know if this is what he would have wanted in the end, but that's his secret to keep.
"Then what is it?" he presses, stepping out of Katsuki's hold. He glares at both of them, standing tall and resolute like he can channel Father in this moment.
Katsuki sighs, ruffling his hair in irritation. "Why don't you just ask your old man? I'm not about to risk my head to sate your dumb curiosity."
Izuku's lips protrude out in a pout. Well, that's not fair. Father is an unmovable mountain. That’s like chipping away mount fuji with a spoon. A wooden spoon.
"Oh, Izuku-chan," Himoko coos, reaching for him. "It's boring stuff anyway. Don't worry about it. Bakugou and the rest of us are going to take care of it." She clutches his hand in hers. It's familiar and comforting, like the time she had held him as the bodies kept dropping around them. Not your fault, not your fault, she had reassured him. "Just live your life peacefully."
It's a kind thought, but somehow it feels restricting, like he's a butterfly pinned under glass. To be treated so dearly and held up in high in admiration by the people around him, but to never let out of his glass box. He wonders if it’s a fair trade.
"Alright, enough of that mushy crap," Katsuki says, peeved like he wants to gag at their show of affection. "You can come with us to our date but only if you stay twelve feet away. I don't want to see a single strand of your hair anywhere in my view or I’m ditching your ass."
Himiko scoffs. "Fine, but I'm watching you.” She raises a finger toward her neck and makes a cutting gesture across it. “Don't think of pulling anything skeevy on my Izuku-chan."
"With my life on the line like that, I wouldn't dare," he drolls, clearly not amused or taking any of it seriously ,but he's not about to get into another argument with her again. "Now can you let go of Deku, so we can get a move on already? This is already taking too fucking long."
"Impatience." She snorts derisively. "But you'll be taking him on Tora-chan though!"
"What, fuck no! We're not taking an armored truck loaded with military grade weapons into the city. This is a date not a fucking warzone," Katsuki hisses as Himiko gears up for another fight over what is a proper vehicle of transportation.
Izuku tucks a smile between his lips. Even in this glass box, it isn't all bad. He can't say he hates it completely not when all his favorite people are in it too.
The white abominable makes its grand appearance! I’m starting to think that I’m real bad at this thing called summarizing and probably will make my English teacher cry when he ever ends up reading this prose of mine. I swear I used to be better at this…
EDIT: switched from “tantalized” -> “chagrined” for the time being
Last part of this chapter! Good Morning Night!
Summary is in point form, sometimes fully translated.
Just a reminder that I have a masterlist of the things I posted
The link, which you can access in the tab next to submissions.
Weekly translations won’t be listed in this masterlist, but you can find them under the “mha spoilers” or “bnha spoilers” tag in my blog until I delete them. All leak panels are sourced from Twitter.
I’ve thought for some time that Horikoshi is most likely knowingly taking advantage of the fact that most people see BNHA as predictably shounen, in more ways than one. Stories can receive a lot of recognition and acclaim for dismantling tropes outright, but what about a story that pretends to play along? Previously I’ve had a hard time presenting evidence for Horikoshi possibly having hidden motives, but now, after ch 348, I think I have a slam dunk. What used to be little more than my musing about what kind of writing I would love to see has become a subtext so obvious it’s basically just- textual.
Now I can finally lay out how we expected these past few chapters were going to go, vs how they turned out:
Toga + Uraraka + Izuku in a fight together looked at the very least like it would = Izuku finding out about Uraraka’s crush. Even I thought this. I called it “inevitable.” And whether folks wanted it to happen or not, that looked an awful lot like a setup for canonizing them as a couple. It would be pretty cliché and ill-timed, but what do you expect? Of course a shounen would do that. My optimistic prediction was that it would be an opportunity for Uraraka to dismiss the whole thing once and for all, but I knew what was far more likely: Toga acting as a catalyst for Izuku and Uraraka discovering they have feelings for each other, because Toga likes both of them too and of course she’s gonna gush about that and make them flustered.
But let’s talk about that word, “likely.” Based on what? Not Horikoshi’s own pattern of writing, but of those around him. It’s “likely” because shounen media is always heteronormative, usually reducing female characters to their romantic potential, and generally prone to neglecting the overall narrative complexity of a romance subplot. He’s a boy. She’s a girl. Can Hori make it any more obvious? But if you consider Horikoshi as one individual storyteller, it all falls apart. Suddenly there is no basis for assuming anything. (I have talked about this aspect already so I’m just gonna link to that.)
Now let’s talk about what actually happened. BECAUSE NONE OF THAT^ ACTUALLY WENT DOWN. Bless her, it was Tsuyu who really came through and personified how brutally our expectations were defied. She arrives at the last second just as Toga is about to reveal Uraraka’s crush, which obviously cannot be a coincidence. She’s all like nope! Now is not the time! Izuku doesn’t belong in this fight, and Uraraka can handle it herself. While technically this could just constitute a tease, like, “whoops! guess you’ll have to wait for the big reveal until later!” The dismissiveness of it reads a lot more final. This is self-awareness on Horikoshi’s part, showing us he’s conscious of the cliché. Through Tsuyu, he is telling us that it all ends here. No more coy blushy flirty immature shallow nonsense. No more stringing you along. No more red herring. Because it’s time to show you what’s really going on. This is the chapter that reframes everything.
There’s a whole cyclone of ideas circulating in this chapter and all the other moments it harkens back to, spinning around each of these characters, who are learning from each other. These are the real reasons all of them had to collide in this moment together. They are as follows-
1. A lesson for Uraraka: villains are people worth saving
This idea was first mentioned by Toga, technically, as she wonders in the wake of Hawks killing Twice, whether any of the heroes think of villains as people. Izuku also independently arrives at the idea of saving Shigaraki. Uraraka has a less concrete inkling toward that conclusion, and it is ultimately Izuku’s perspective that gets her to realize she wants to save Toga, and that it’s a valid goal.
2. A lesson for Toga: love is kind
A seed of this idea was most likely planted by Twice, because he cared for her and showed her kindness, and his death broke something in her. But the world has rejected her, so she rejects the world. Her parents never showed her love, so she had to define it for herself based on the desires of her quirk. If Uraraka can find out about how Toga is mourning Twice, she can use that knowledge as a tool for uncovering Toga’s desire to not only become like her loved ones, but to value their wellbeing. Toga also deep down wants someone to value her wellbeing, and to accept her. This could play out a number of ways, and tbh my prediction confidence on this front is not strong so I won’t dwell on it, but I did notice one thing: In the midst of Toga confessing to Izuku and asking him her question, Uraraka is panned over to two times:
ya know, in a Realizing Things kinda way. The first is ambiguous, but in the second, she’s having a flashback to when Toga asked her that same question, noticing that when she and Toga had their confrontation during the first war, Toga approached her in the exact same way. It may seem obvious to us, but perhaps Uraraka here is realizing for the very first time that Toga had romantic feelings for her.
3. A lesson for Izuku: the depths of admiration
Up to this point, Toga’s idea of love has only been explained to Uraraka, because Toga says the two girls are alike in that their love for Izuku manifests in wanting to be like him. Now, Izuku is prompted to look inward and see if he can relate to admiring someone the way Toga does. In the moment, the first person he can think of whom he admires is All Might, but Toga wasn’t talking about that kind of admiration, she was talking about romance. Izuku is currently incapable of conceptualizing the depth of admiration beyond his fanboy comfort zone.
Let’s get into the details of 348 here. Izuku says he “can’t imagine wanting to share the same heart and mind as (All Might).” What a romantic phrase, “share the same heart and mind.” He knows what Toga is talking about, but not who he would apply it to. He admires All Might, but not like that. This shortsightedness is also highlighted at the beginning of the chapter, where a narrator calls Izuku out for being, despite his heroic accomplishments, essentially still (as I heard JP twitter calling him) a virgin otaku (lol). He’s oblivious, awkward, inexperienced, and possibly in denial. The whole narration sounds affectionately chastising, wistful and almost nostalgic looking back from some hindsight.
Now… the question on everyone’s mind: if this is a gag meant to point to how Izuku is oblivious of and/or awkward about Uraraka’s feelings (assuming that all of this was supposed to lead to them being a couple, as was our expectation), then why, oh why, was the phrase “kuso nado” (translated in officials as “damned nerd”), used by the narrator? That’s Katsuki’s phrase, obviously. So Katsuki is the one calling him oblivious to someone’s romantic feelings, almost as if this is something Katsuki already knows about him, from previous experience, and it is relevant to their own relationship? This is what I was talking about with speculation turning into blatant subtext. There really is no other explanation for this. It’s just. Right there.
So anyway, the whole All Might comment reiterates how Izuku is really out of touch with romantic feelings. Uraraka could relate to wanting to “share the same heart and mind” with someone, but Izuku says he can’t. And yet, that is not exactly the crux of the irony, or else Uraraka would have been the narrator at the start of the chapter, maybe referencing how she originally called him plain, not “damned nerd.” I swear, this is so cut and dry. Actually, when you think about it, Izuku’s obliviousness has never been a source of dramatic irony for Uraraka’s crush in the first place, like, ever. It’s never, “ooooo if only he knew~” it’s just, “ooooo you like him~” and that’s it. On the contrary, Izuku never knowing about her feelings can hardly be his fault considering Uraraka intentionally shoved down and ignored them.
On the flips side, obliviousness and misunderstanding have always always ALWAYS been a part of Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship. Oh boy, let me count the ways. From when they were little kids and Izuku tried to help Katsuki up out of the river and Katsuki mistook it for being looked down on, to the bullying, to Izuku having to tell Katsuki about getting his quirk from someone else, to Izuku having no idea how All Might’s forced retirement was weighing on Katsuki, to Izuku being embarrassed to admit he saw Katsuki as his image of victory (*ahem* a level of admiration more personal than what he had for All Might!), to Izuku hiding the fact that emotions related to Katsuki triggered Black Whip, to Katsuki being unsettled by Izuku’s self-sacrifice, to Katsuki sacrificing himself, to Izuku running off to fight alone again anyway, to Izuku being shocked by Katsuki’s apology…. every. step. of. the. way.
I feel like a broken record but seriously everything is all so obvious now. There is nothing tongue-in-cheek-shipping-brainrot about this. This isn’t rivals being accidentally homoerotic, or a female character being neglected by a misogynistic male author. I practically have no choice but to assume that Horikoshi has been planning a complete 180 fake-out and Izuku and Katsuki are about to be canon instead, or at least left open. I truly do believe now that this whole time, narratively speaking, Uraraka has been masquerading as the heroine/love interest, while Izuku and Katsuki have been playing rivals, all in service of Horikoshi leading us to expect this manga to turn out like any other shounen. But now he’s finally starting to show his hand. It’s like a trope-defying plot twist. I know a lot more of y’all can feel it now too. I bet even the homophobes are about to jump out in a big way, from the sudden insecurity. It’s. I’m. I dunno what to say, man. This is really wild and I can’t believe we’re here.
Folks, the end is nigh. I can’t wait.
…And that’s all the hyper-analyzing of quotes I got in me today, yep. No more. That’s definitely it.
(major spoilers for Blue Flag/Ao no Flag under the cut)
i needed to put all of these links in one spot so that some posts could have only one link in them so that the posts will show up in the tags
BY THE WAY, be forewarned before clicking on any of these links that there are flashing lights in many, if not all, of them that could be uncomfortable at least, and unsafe at worst. i’ve done my best to remember to tag content warning for flashing lights and epilepsy trigger warnings, but i may still have missed them, so do proceed with caution.
(and i aplogize that im not able to rectify these things in my GIFs, i use a software that, while cool and does the trick for me, has limited filters and capabilities. if anyone has any simple suggestions to help out with this, im very open to them!)
origamiaround
blakekathryn
vaporwave
gummygunk
