The world fractured into a scream of tearing light and a pressure that threatened to pulverize bone into dust. Katsuki Bakugo knew the feeling of being hit, of explosions too close, of air sucked from his lungs by overwhelming force. This was different. This was disintegration and reconstitution, a violent, nauseating wrench that yanked him from one reality and spat him into another with the brutal indifference of a cosmic whim. He slammed onto packed earth, the impact jarring up his spine, stealing the breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. Dust, acrid and unfamiliar, filled his nostrils, and for a disoriented moment, all he could register was the ringing in his ears and the throbbing protest of every muscle in his body.
He pushed himself up, grit scraping against his palms. His U.A. graduation uniform, the one he'd worn with such fierce, hard-won pride only hours – or was it days? years? – ago, felt stiff and alien against his skin, now scuffed with dirt. The air here was…wrong. It carried scents he couldn't name: a cloying sweetness mixed with damp earth and something else, something faintly metallic and wild. The light, too, had a different quality, softer, more diffused than the familiar Japanese sun, casting long, unsettling shadows from trees that were gnarled and strange, their leaves a shade of green too vibrant, too lush.
His crimson eyes, narrowed against the unfamiliar glare, scanned his surroundings with a predator's intensity. He was on the edge of a narrow, rutted road, the kind that spoke of infrequent passage by wheeled vehicles. To one side, a dense forest loomed, its depths impenetrable and silent. To the other, the land sloped gently downwards, revealing undulating hills covered in tall, swaying grass that rippled like a verdant sea. There was no sign of the cityscape he'd been in, no echo of urban clamor, no familiar landmarks. Just this…emptiness. This overwhelming, infuriating otherness.
A guttural snarl ripped from his throat, low and dangerous. "What the actual FUCK?!" His voice, raw and laced with the familiar rasp of barely contained explosions, shattered the unnatural quiet. He wasn't one for panic, not Bakugo Katsuki. Panic was for extras, for the weak. What surged through him was a torrent of pure, unadulterated rage, a volcanic pressure building behind his teeth. He'd earned his place. He'd fought, bled, and clawed his way to the top of U.A., silenced the doubters, proved his strength. Graduation wasn't just a piece of paper; it was a goddamn declaration. And now… this?
His gaze snagged on something out of place amidst the roadside weeds – a folded rectangle of flimsy paper, looking ridiculously mundane in this alien landscape. He stalked towards it, each step heavy with frustrated power. He snatched it up. Newsprint. The ink was smudged, the paper cheap, but the text was, impossibly, in a script he could read. Not Japanese, not English, but something…else, yet comprehensible, as if the knowledge had been slammed into his brain along with the disorienting journey.
The headline, bold and stark, screamed nothing of consequence to him – local agricultural yields, some minor noble's tedious pronouncements. But then, a smaller article, tucked away near the bottom, caught his eye. A map, crudely drawn but clear enough. And words that made the fury in his chest tighten into a cold, hard knot. 'Kingdom of Fiore.' Below the map, a small caption: 'Travel advisory: Magnolia town, a half-kilometer east, remains a bustling hub for trade and… peculiar guilds.'
Fiore. Magnolia. The names meant nothing, yet they were a concrete reality in a situation that felt like a goddamn nightmare. He crushed the newspaper in his fist, the fragile paper crumpling with a pathetic sound that was entirely unsatisfying. Half a kilometer. Towards a town. In a kingdom he'd never heard of.
"Damn it all to hell!" he roared, the sound tearing through the quiet air again, raw and furious. His hands clenched, sparks threatening to crackle at his palms, a familiar heat itching to be unleashed. He wanted to blast something, to reduce this whole damn place to smoking cinders. U.A. The graduation. His future as the Number One Hero. All of it felt like a distant, mocking dream, snatched away by this… this isekai bullshit! He wasn't some pathetic loser looking for an escape; he had a life, a purpose, a damn destiny he was forging with his own two hands.
A shudder of pure, visceral frustration wracked his frame. He wasn't going to stand here screaming like an idiot. Anger was a tool, a fire. It needed to be directed, focused. Wasting it on the empty air was pointless. Magnolia. That was a direction. That was a target.
He threw the crumpled newspaper to the ground, grinding it under his heel with a vicious twist. The slight crunch was a small, inadequate release. He took a breath, the strange, sweet air doing little to cool the furnace in his chest. His crimson eyes, burning with a resolve as fierce as his temper, fixed on the eastward direction indicated by the pathetic excuse for a map.
With a grunt, he began to walk, his strides long and aggressive, eating up the distance. The road was uneven, loose stones shifting under his boots, but his balance was impeccable, his movements economical despite the rage thrumming through him. Each step was a hammer blow against the injustice of it, against the sheer, infuriating absurdity of his situation. The sun climbed higher, casting a weak warmth that did nothing to dispel the chill of his fury. The forest to his left remained stubbornly silent, the rustling grass to his right a monotonous whisper. He ignored it all, his focus a laser beam on the unseen destination. He'd find this Magnolia. And then? Then he'd figure out how to blast his way back to where he belonged, or make this new world regret the day it ever crossed Katsuki Bakugo. The thought was a grim promise, a spark of familiar determination in the overwhelming chaos. He was not a victim. He was a force of nature. And he would carve his own path, here or anywhere else the universe dared to throw him.