A/N: So life is not conducive to me being able to actively write throughout the week, but my goal is to get out at least one chapter per week! I hope I'm able to do more, but it relies a lot on my work not killing my spirit which it does constantly. Thank you all for your patience! For those who are reading and enjoying, God bless you! It's very exciting to write this and I love that you're enjoying it! ~

"I'm not scared of you."

Izuku looked Ochako up and down, keeping a skeptical eyebrow raise off of his face while watching her cheeks flush and palms sweat in her awkward hold of his staff, meant to be threatening towards him.

"I told you I'm not a threat to you," Izuku repeated diplomatically "I want to know more about you! Your friend can turn into a dragon and your healing magic is incredible! Why wouldn't I want to talk?"

Ochako glanced to Red and looked back with narrowed eyes, obviously uncertain.

"It's actually the other way around," Red interjected.

"Red shush," Ochako snapped, "we have to be careful what we tell him. He's a Synod mage. Their kind aren't trustworthy."

"So you have something against structure and salvation?" Izuku asked, more indignant than he intended.

"I have something against being ripped from my family as a child for something I can't control," Ochako bit harshly, stilling Izuku in his overpowering need to correct her misguided ways. There was something very deep and passionate in her words that caught him off guard. Not so much like a corrupted fiend out seeking power and to shirk laws and order, but of a young girl simply scared.

"It's not meant to be pleasant," Izuku said sullenly, "of course that part is painful, but this is bigger than us. It's about the common good as well as our own good. We're damned souls. We're tainted by the ether from birth. Through the Synod we have a chance of redemption. Through it we cultivate that power into something good. And unchecked mages bring hardship and disaster to their families. It's safer for them not to know us."

"No disaster ever came to my home until you showed up," Ochako ground her heel, angling the staff.

Izuku tensed, feeling he might have made a bad move being so honest. But nothing shot from his staff to kill him and Ochako didn't come at him. Not because she didn't want to, but because Red moved out in front of her between them, right up to Izuku, and crouched down to his eye level.

It wasn't obvious what his intention was, but Izuku was extremely wary. What his powerful jaws had done to Yo played over in his mind the closer he got and Izuku leaned away cautiously. But when those big red eyes met his greens and they were sympathetically slanted in a curious head tilt..

"They made you leave your family?"

Izuku was a little thrown by the question, but he stumbled through an answer as soon as he recovered.

"Um...sort of," Izuku raised an eyebrow, "my family followed the law and gave me to the Synod when I was a toddler after I used magic for the first time. No one had to force them."

A sad smile pulled up the dragon boy's face. "I don't know my family either. Does it make you sad?"

Izuku studied the boyish, innocent face, a face that had bitten a man in half moments ago and now blinked some strange sort of empathy at him.

"Not really…" Izuku glances to Ochako, who had turned more curious than angry now, "we make new families at the Magesterium. It's hard to miss someone you don't remember."

Red nodded and shot to his feet, moving over to Ochako's side. "I made a new family too."

It was hard not to smile at him, but Ochako wasn't so charmed.

"Don't try to bond with him, Red," Ochako said almost pleading, "Synod mages will never understand people like me and especially not someone like you."

"Try me," Izuku snagged her attention with his upbeat voice and genuine grin. "I've never seen a Synod mages and renegades just talk and listen to each other before. Maybe it wouldn't hurt, right?"

Ochako glared, "It won't change why you came here if I tell you about myself, just like being ripped from your family as a child doesn't make you less of a threat now. And it doesn't change what you'll do if we let you leave here."

The girl shifted nervously, something determined, yet upset in his soft features. The staff went into both of her hands and she jutted the dangerous end out at Izuku to his ultimate fearful disapproval.

"Ochako!" Red's eyes went wide.

"Wait, wait!" Izuku's still raised arms waved in front of his grimacing face, "You don't have to kill me!"

Izuku knew it had been stupid to give them the power in this situation, knew it was stupid to trust a renegade mage not to take the most brutal course of action at any given time… but he'd really hoped he'd been wrong. The girl seemed scared and he was hoping that it meant she could be appealed to, reasoned with. It hurt his pride to see how wrong he was, but in the end his curiosity was insatiable and the overall appeal of learning how she'd become so magically proficient and where her friend had learned to turn into a dragon drew him in.

He was the Cat and Ochako was seconds from being Curiosity itself.

"I do," she swallowed, stepping forward, "It's nothing personal...you seem like a nice guy, but we have to protect ourselves."

Red was grabbing her by the arm and forcing her to a stop, shaking his head. "Come on, he doesn't seem so bad, why would he surrender if he was going to hurt us?" he reasoned, "I can protect us."

"Against the entire Synod?" Ochako frowned at him, "Red, you're tough, but you aren't that tough. It's him or us."

"This is really unnecessary," Izuku looked between them, eyes pleading most with the nice dragon boy who seemed to want him to live, "I seriously won't do anything to hurt you. I won't call the Synod here and even if I did, no one would come. There's a war going on out there if you hadn't noticed. Why else do you think they sent a couple apprentices to find you? They don't have Masters to spare."

He saw Red shiver as his nose turned up into the breeze. Ochako watched the red haired boy closely.

"Is that what that smell is?" he frowned, "The air is clogged with the ether. It's been like that for a while and it gets worse all the time."

"You don't know about the war?" Izuku gasped.

Ochako grit her teeth. "I know about the war, I've been watching troops huddle around Tarlson for weeks and there was an entire armada marching East just days ago. But that doesn't change that the Synod could still send more powerful mages after us."

"You knew about the fighting and didn't tell me?" Red was the shocked one now. Ochako pursed her lips, like she could feel the question on his lips before he asked it.

"You're too curious, Red," Ochako lightened her hold on the staff to cup the side of the boy's face in her hand, "If I told you, you would have run off after the army just to see what would happen and then you would have ended up in a fight with demon. That's how you get killed."

Red stiffened his jaw and his eyes dropped, arms folding over his chest. "I wouldn't have died."

Ochako appealed to the heavens and dropped her hand, "It doesn't matter. We have to do what we have to do. Just like we always have. Even if they didn't come for me, they'll come after you. They'll hunt you for sport. That's what they do."

Red's mouth pouted as his eyes fell. His shoulder slouched as he held himself close and finally nodded.

Panic rushed through Izuku. The dragon boy wasn't going to try to defend him anymore. He was on his own and Ochako seemed determined to end his life.

But even as Ochako aimed the staff back to him and Izuku's mind reeled over a solution, a spell that could stop her, the air got thick and an otherworldly smell came on the strong breeze that gusted through the forestation. Red's nose tilted to the air, eyes wide. Ochako didn't react beyond confusion at the sudden change in weather, but Izuku felt it immediately. He knew it well. That sense, that scent. It came from the battle circle in the Magesterium every day. But this didn't feel small and minute like those had. This was large...it had the fresh scent of a storm, edged with corruption.

"Ochako…" Red's voice was tilted to uncertain and she hesitated, looking above as the sky darkened with clouds.

"What's happening?" Ochako asked and then turned accusing eyes to Izuku.

Izuku's caution was to the wind, his hands fell and he spun to his feet, arms open, eyes searching the woods and sky.

"Hey you, wait-!"

Ochako was halfway through her shout when a quick spell jerked the staff clean from her hands, pulling it into Izuku's. It fell into his palm perfectly and his stance turned defensively to their surroundings, paying little mind to the girl anymore.

"I'd run if I were you," Izuku shouted over the winds that were steadily growing.

"No!" Ochako snapped, planting her feet, as Red palmed her arm, "What have you done?"

Izuku turned an intense stare to her, no more diplomacy or good spirits to be found. "Don't you feel that?"

"Ether," Red hissed, brow tightening, and vest already sliding off of his shoulders.

Izuku nodded. "Demons."

Ochako paled and she turned her threateningly raised hand from Izuku to the forest.

"D-Demons?" Ochako swallowed, "How do you know?"

The woods near them shook, the ground rumbling under their feet. Izuku's heart was in his throat and his arms were shaking, something told him this was not going to be just another quick circle bout. But with an even less experienced mage behind him, something in him told him to stand his ground and defend. No matter how many times he had to ask her not to kill him, he didn't want to see either of them hurt. That's not why he was here.

A glance back showed the fascinating and unsettling sight of Red, stripped again, midway through shifting. His body expanded, pulled out of itself in a strangely grotesque way, but in moments maroon wings stretched out to the sky and fangs as big as Izuku's arms protruded from a head larger than a man. This was the first dragon Izuku had even seen, but he was wowed. He'd seen minor demons and Fallen Mages, but he'd never seen something quite like the magnificent creature, so unlike the boy he'd seen a moment ago. Not like a cheery, big eyed kid, but an intimidating force of nature.

Red roared, slit eye scraping the horizon as his massive nostrils took in the strong scent of the ether stinging the air, placing himself with earth shaking footfalls in front of Ochako protectively, facing the direction of the disruption.

He and Izuku met eyes and his fear of the beast was gone instantly, unspoken they both knew the real threat was before them, not beside them.

"Apprentice, what's going on?" Ochako shouted, hand on a massive scaled leg, watching their hackles rise.

Two more shakes of the earth and the trees in front of them ripped wide open with gale force. A mass moved with it larger as the Red or any living thing he'd ever seen. It's body was storm clouds and abyss and its voice crashed over the clearing as thunder.

Izuku felt his legs lock up and every hair on his body stood on end. A Tempest Demon.

There wasn't a moment to waste. Izuku threw a shielding spell as large as he could make it, catching a miniature tornado right before it swept them away. But it held for only a moment before storm clouds had overcome the clearing and rain that cut the air like a whip splintered the ground about their feet. Shards struck Red's scales with little effect but to annoy him, but Izuku and Ochako weren't so lucky as to have natural armor. The girl dove under the dragon's belly, a shocked shriek meeting the clap of thunder.

Izuku turned the shield up to deflect the overhead assault and the tornado came at them harshly without the wall hindering it anymore.

As the mages scrambled, the dragon was the one to think fast. Just before the tornado could sweep Izuku off of the ground, the red beast reared onto his back legs and beat a power flap of his massive wings. The wind pressure, magically strong, countered the swirling monstrosity and it dispersed into nothing.

No one had time to be impressed with the dragon, because the Tempest Demon was practically on top of them, throwing back a powerfully clawed hand to wreak destruction on the three. Red lunged at it, taking off from the ground, colliding with claws and teeth and shaking roars into the Demon.

"Red!" Ochako screamed and scrambled back to her feet.

Izuku was already swinging his staff and conjuring a glyph. It swirled blue in front of his hand and burst into violent shards of piercing blue magic at the Demon, carefully avoiding Red with each strike, but unfortunately doing very little to the ether beast.

"If you aren't going to run then fight!" Izuku shouted to the stunned girl already conjuring his next attack as an abyssal, stormy hand slammed into the dragon and sent the beast flying over the mages' heads to hit the ground behind them.

Ochako obviously wanted to make sure her friend was alright, but the Demon was attacking again and she had no choice but to stand and defend. Izuku burst a fire spell from beneath the beast and it roared in annoyance, barely slowing down. Ochako sent an attack much like the one she'd used on Yo and Izuku earlier when they fought, but again it did very little.

The next thing they knew they were both dodging giant hands impacting the ground with the clapping disorientation of shaking thunder. Ochako covered her ears, but Izuku just let his hurt, pulling on the powerful spell Master Shota had taught him before leaving the Center Magesterium.

Green lightning crackled over his arms and he leapt at the Demon, no thought or fear in his head beyond, "attack, survive". The very punch of his fist was powerful enough to send the Demon stumbling back, but it came at him angrier than ever in response. Luckily Red was diving at it just as quickly. Massive teeth sunk into the abyss of its body, the dragon somehow dwarfed by the size of the Demon, but doing his all to hold his own.

Izuku and Ochako continued to launch volleys of attacks while Red went at it tooth and claw. Adrenaline kept them moving through every spell, but the Tempest Demon was tough. Extremely tough. Nothing Izuku had ever fought in the circle had come close to this. It was hard to believe something like this could even be beaten.

And Izuku was considering very seriously demanding the others to retreat, for them all to run, but that would leave the village vulnerable. Ochako's family and all of the farmers would be slaughtered in moments by something this power. He couldn't give up.

But then Red took a hit that looked far worse than anything he'd taken before, the hit coming with a gut wrenching crack of bones. His roar was shrill and pained as his shaking body impacted a crater into the ground in front of them. Ochako had fearful tears in her eyes, turning to run to the dragon now struggling to get any footing beneath him. But the Tempest Demon backhanded her, sending her flying behind it.

The Demon sent out a thunder clap that came with a swirling spire forming in the sky, a water and wind monstrosity that sharpened and mimicked the splinter rain from before just over the injured dragon. A kill shot.

Izuku didn't think, just sped to Red's side and threw up his shield. The spire hit like a pound of bricks on bare hands. The strength it took just to hold against it as it pressed with an ever increasing pressure down on the mage and the hurting dragon was enough to knock Izuku to his knees. This wasn't just deflecting a shard of ice, this was actively holding a force from breaking them.

"Ochako!" Izuku screamed over the gusting wind, "Do something! Now!"

It was his only hope. The dragon was barely moving and he was faltering in his hold. A crack was starting to form in his barrier. There was no time left.

Red roared and Izuku's back hit his warm, thickly scaled side. The dragon's very muscles were shuddering with every movement and the air left his body in sharp rasping sparks, but still no flames.

Then he saw Ochako fly through the air. Literally. Whatever magic propelled her, she rose above the Demon's head and with an aggression he hadn't thought possible to ever appear on her soft face, her arms opened and large white glyphs formed all around the Demon. It faltered in confusion and started to lift off of the ground by the magic she employed. Izuku's eyes went wide, never having seen this type of magic before, mesmerized by the power of it.

It distracted him just a moment too long to see what was happening above him. In the same moment that the Demon physically and forcefully launched off of the ground the barrier shattered and Izuku saw blinding red.

There was little other sense but wracking pain and the pulse of his own heartbeat in his ears. His body was on the ground, his head against the flank of the red beast as a sharp cry left his lips.

"Apprentice!"

The voice sounded vague and distant. He blinked through the haze to see Ochako running towards them, but was the last thing he remembered.

"Get on your feet Captain, we can't stay here."

Katsuki's fingers twisted in his blond hair, shock turning gradually to a vicious rage in his distant eyes. Shoto was supporting a lot of Nana's weight, pushing her through every step he took to move away from the stench, the horror, the very nightmare at their backs.

"The Lord Commander…" Katsuki's hands shook, his teeth barring at the destruction.

"Was beyond help long before I took action," Nana said softly, forcing Shoto to stop at Katsuki's side with what little strength she had. "There was nothing but death beyond this canyon...there's nothing that could be done, Captain. Be thankful you're alive."

Katsuki's fist slammed into the dirt and he shouted an unintelligible, broken sound, before turning up a red-hot hate overhead to the mages.

"You've made me a deserter and a coward!" He screamed at her, "You made me run...with your cursed magic! Why didn't you leave me there to fight?"

Nana rolled her eyes, but then turned a sympathetic look down to the young face of the man who'd borne the burden of so many lives on his shoulders while barely halfway through his twenties. Shoto wanted to feel sympathetic like her, but he didn't see the point in wasting anymore time on him and barely saw the value in her saving his life in the first place. The Captain was irrational and wasn't worth the effort to keep alive, especially since he'd come to kill them moments before this had happened. Katsuki could stay here and watch his loved ones burn if he wanted, but Shoto knew it wasn't safe to stay and he wasn't going to wait around if he could help it. If the demons didn't find a way to get past the barrier, then the military reinforcement would be arriving in a manner of days. One would be certain death, the other slightly less certain death.

Katsuki had seen Shoto use blood magic so, rightly, Shoto shouldn't let him live. He should kill him before he's able to tell the army, or worse, the battle mages who would be with them. But that seemed an act too cruel for even his desperation. The only survivor of one of the bloodiest battles in history couldn't be killed in cold blood by the man who'd fought beside him minutes before. Shoto was cold, but he wasn't a monster, no matter what the Synod would now call him for having lost his wits and drawn on a magic that was forbidden.

"It doesn't matter," Nana insisted, shaking her head at his dark red eyes, "Surviving isn't cowardly and, unless you want to see how strong my barrier truly is when the Demons regroup, I suggest you start moving."

Katsuki scrambled to his feet, but it lacked the reason Nana was trying to incur. His sword was back in his hand, not in an attack hold, but in an aggressive stance. There were still tears stinging his eyes and an anguished rage wracking over his unsteady body.

"Fuck you!" he yelled, "This is all your fault! If I hadn't had to chase your sorry ass down I could have been there! We might have been able to hold the line! At the very fucking least my men wouldn't have died thinking their Captain had fucking abandoned them! Damn you mage! Damn both of you!"

Hot air shot out of Shoto's nose and he jerked his head away from the irate Captain.

"We don't need to convince him to come with us," Shoto growled, tugging against Nana's side to encourage her to move, "He can wait for the Tarlson forces. We don't need to listen to him be a pissy ingrate."

Nana planted her feet, enough strength having returned to give her physical resolve. It forced Shoto to stop, to not storm away like he planned. She slipped her arm over his head and pulled away from her support, looking Katsuki head on, standing on legs as unstable as Katsuki's temper. But she looked powerful in that moment, she looked strong...but she also looked hurt, sad...

"Captain," she stretched out her hand and he jerked away a full step.

"Don't fucking touch me mage!" he screamed, "You and your kind did this! It's always you people! The worst a human being can do is nothing compared to the blight you bastards bring! Mages summon demons! People don't summon demons!"

"Mages can cause this but they also fix it," she said in a tender voice, "We always have, but it's pretty obvious this time isn't like the times before. Where's the Magestrate? Where's the Synod's strongest? The Synod are a syncofrantic society of power hungry shitstains, but they have processes for this. You're a soldier of Dawnfell, you learn these things as a matter of principle and you aren't at all suspicious that the Synod is not following its own guidelines for ending an Archdemon infection? You are too young to remember the last time the ether touched our world, but the threat was neutralized in weeks. That's the efficiency of the Synod to the threat of the ether. The armies of Dawnfell are our frontline, your bloodline are the people who stand to defend us when a demon dares rear its head and our people make the undead shudder. The Lordships send their armies, but Dawnfell leads. I'm Dawnfelden too, Captain Katsuki...I know what our people are capable of. You had ten thousand men, an unmatched force...and all but a thousand were lost before I even set foot on your battlefield. Where was the Synod?"

"What the fuck are you saying, mage?" Katsuki shouted.

"The old ways won't work. If the Synod could banish the Archdemon they would have done so a month ago. You know this. You aren't stupid."

Shoto felt Nana's words even if Katsuki was persisting stubbornly not to hear them. The Synod's failure had not seemed so tangible until Nana began to put it into context. He too knew since growing up in a Magesterium that the threat had gone on too long and that something wasn't right about the way the Synod was handling the Summoning.

"I don't fucking trust any of you mages, I've never relied on the damn Synod to fix this or any other problem," the Captain ground his heels, heat ebbing off of his body.

"Then you don't understand how a Summoning works and you have no right to wear the badge of a Dawnfell Captain!" Nana barked, startling Katsuki.

Shoto went still too. Both boy's eyes were captured by the powerful image of a woman who had seen and experienced more than their combined years could ever equate. Even Katsuki was a bit floored. Shoto expected an outlash, something brutish as he tended to prefer, just scream at her that she was a "bitch" for saying something like that about him. But what they'd witnessed today, what they'd been through must have jarred some part of his brain that held a single ounce of rationality to allow actual consideration to surface on his face.

"It doesn't matter what you think of mages, you need them," she spoke with intensity, "Every Dawnfelden knows this. You can't stop the Archdemon, you can't banish him, and neither can your human armies. They will march here with a small cohort of mages, but they will be as ineffective as the last."

Shoto's teeth ground. He was a little grated at being referred to as useless by Nana. He never felt like he belonged with the battle mages, but that didn't mean he wasn't good at what he did, that he wasn't effective.

"We fought and we lost people just like they did!" Shoto snapped at her, "We gave our all and I lost everyone long before the Captain did."

Nana turned a calm look to him and he shrunk a bit under it. "I never said the mages who stood to defend our lands weren't noble...but I've met your Master Ferris before. That's no Demon fighter. He didn't belong anywhere near a fight."

It wasn't something Shoto wanted to admit, but Nana had a point. The cohort leader was magically adept, but he was no commander and far from a skilled warrior. And his troops were like Shoto, fresh from the Magesterium, young men who should be apprenticing under battle Masters, not locked in the heat of full scale war with no specific battle training. He already believed what she'd told him before, he was convinced from the things that he'd seen on these frontlines that Nana was their only hope of stopping the Archdemon, that his efforts and whatever the Synod had been doing wasn't going to be the solution and that actions had to be taken...but it didn't make being considered one of the useless pieces any less frustrating.

"Fuck," Katsuki's angry yell dropped to a hissing whisper as his entire body clenched in frustration, "What kind of plan do you have?"

The words slapped Shoto like a tree branch in the face. Was the Captain actually considering what Nana was saying to him?

"We have to find the Summoner," Nana turned back to him resolutely, "If we stop him then I could use my magic to fight the Archdemon…"

Katsuki bared his teeth again. He didn't like that part.

"No," Katsuki growled, "You aren't using people's blood to fight that thing. That's fucking corrupt."

"I won't," Nana shook her head, "I can use my own." She threw a glance over her shoulder to Shoto whose brow furrowed tightly at that. It didn't seem to fall in line with what she'd said before, but he wasn't going to interrupt her now.

"The only thing you're risking is my life," Nana said, "We can do this if you help us…"

Katsuki was still greatly uncertain. The tears he'd shed weren't even dry on his cheeks yet. He was unstable, livid, likely heartbroken, though he'd never admit it. If anything Shoto was surprised he was listening at all and not just outright attacking them. It must have been a sign of how desperate this situation was, how horrible what they'd witnessed while stationed at this encampment had been.

"Isn't the Synod searching for the Summoner already?" Katsuki asked, shifting his hold on the sword.

"The Summoner was here," Nana clenched her fists, "He stood at the Archdemon's back when I fought him. The Synod tracks the Summoner by the unique energy they trace from the ether. Any Master worth his salt could have seen he was there. Ferris didn't notice him and the Synod hasn't been seen anywhere near here. If they're searching for him they're doing a pretty shit job of it. I'm not waiting around for those secondrates to handle it. You don't seem like someone who likes waiting around for others to solve your problems either…"

Katsuki sucked his teeth and cursed, surprisingly shoving his sword into its sheath.

"I like working with Fallen Mages less," Katsuki growled, "But there's ten thousand men down there who should be marching home to their families, not rotting in tainted earth."

A soft smile fell over Nana's face and her shaky, tense pose relaxed some to Shoto's ultimate disdain. He was entirely disbelieving that this was even happening in front of him right now. That Katsuki Bakugo, the most irrational, mage hating man he'd ever met was listening to a Fallen Mage and coming to some sort of a mutual grounding with her.

"Fuck me, I can't believe I'm saying this shit," the Captain grimaced, "But I think you're our best bet right now. This," he waved a hand behind him, wincing at the destruction, "didn't work and I'm done trusting the damn Synod anymore. You at least did something to that big Demon bastard while my men dropped like flies and the mages had their asses handed to them. You want my help ending this hell then fine, I'll help, but you're still Fallen Mages...both of you."

It was Shoto's turn to wince. His heart dropped into his ribs at those words. He still felt the power he'd experience tingling on his fingertips and his stomach turned. He wasn't Fallen. He'd slipped up and tapped into something he never intended to, that didn't make him Fallen...did it?

Katsuki straightened his shoulders, stepping into Nana's space, showing his height, his physical prowess. Nana had to very slightly angle her eyes up to meet his gaze as he fixed her with vicious determination.

"As far as I'm concerned you're still dead meat when this is over," he hissed at her unphased expression, "I'm a damn Dawnfelden Captain and I'll do my fucking duty to the last."

Nana smiled knowingly up at him. "I'd expect nothing less, which is why we need you."

"Good," Katsuki barked, "You're my prisoners until this is over."

"Agreed," Nana nodded.

"Wait," Shoto stormed up to Katsuki, "I'm not your prisoner!"

"Shoto," Nana's hand touched his arm gently, "There's a bigger enemy out there than each other. Whatever label the Captain needs to put on this situation for it to work is irrelevant to the bigger picture."

Katsuki crossed his arms at Shoto, that shaken rage replaced by a smug snarl.

"Step off, mage," he challenged, "I don't need to wait until the Archdemon is dead to destroy you."

The tension rose like heatwaves and Shoto's hands opened to fight. But with a stomp of her foot, Nana pulled strong, magic grown vines from the earth to wrap around their ankles and ground the two hot headed boys in place. Both took it with pointed frustration to the mage.

"Stop your bickering," Nana said sharply, "You both want the Archdemon dead. That's all that matters. The Captain can't work with us without us being his prisoners. I'm Fallen and you've used blood magic Shoto...those are the facts. He'd betray his own oath if he didn't consider us his enemies still. And you may not like it, but we need help that only a Dawnfelden Captain can obtain. A Synod mage that's barely an apprentice will be brushed aside without consideration and I'll be killed on sight if anyone discovers who I am. You can hate each other and you can hate me, but we have a common goal. Are you going to fight for it or are you going to doom the world by killing each other?"

Shoto hated every word of it. Every word that told him that Katsuki was important, that said he had to be civil with the man who'd very recently tried to kill them, the man who still demanded that he would kill them when all of this was over.

But Nana was right and Shoto yielded first.

"Fine."

Hot air shot from Katsuki's nose and he shook his head stubbornly, though his words didn't match. "Whatever it fucking takes."

The roots released them both and the two stepped away from each other as Nana stumbled. Apparently that show of strength knocked what little energy she had left from her. Shoto took to her side swiftly, propping her up and getting her feet moving again.

"Thank you, Shoto," she smiled weakly at him, "We need to move inland. The incoming troops will spread word of what happened, but we need to get into the Dawnship...get resources...get…"

"Save your strength," Shoto nodded and threw a glare to Katsuki, jerking his head ahead of them, signalling the Dawnfelden to take the lead into the heart of Dawnfell, "We'll get there, just focus on getting your energy back."

Shoto had never casted magic like what he'd seen Nana create today and he could only imagine how physically devastating it would be. Even if a lot of that power had come from the blood she used the toll it took on her body was apparent.

Before moving out Katsuki undid the fastens of his armor, grumbling frustration as he stripped the heavy metal from his body and dropped it to the ground. His armguards stayed, but the leg bracers fell away too, leaving him in the far more manageable attire of breaches, shirt, and leather chest cover; light armor under his heavy armor.

"It's a long way to go on foot," Katsuki kicked the armor and stomped ahead of them, "Without rations we don't have the energy to spare for any real protection."

The mage shrugged at his explanation and the three began their journey, tense, shaken, angry, and somehow feeling very lost despite their mutually important goal.

Shoto hated that Katsuki was with them. Earlier he'd almost found that he respected him, but now he couldn't stand to look at him. He shouldn't feel that way. Katsuki's reactions had basis, they made sense considering what he knew and what he'd lost. But he wasn't okay with being Katsuki's prisoner and he was less happy about trusting him with their survival. He didn't believe that the Captain wouldn't change his mind after a few miles and decide to just kill them both in their weakened state instead of helping them. He planned to keep a close eye on him for as long as he was around.

"Go easy on him," Nana whispered to Shoto at a low register, "He's just doing his duty."

"It seems like his duty has always been to be an ass so I guess you're right," Shoto growled.

"The first duty of a Dawnfelden soldier is to defend against the ether, Shoto." Nana swallowed and sighed, "That's what he's doing by not killing us right now, by doing something so incredibly risky. He could lose everything just being near us."

Shoto looked behind him to the barrier slowly getting smaller as they gained distance. "Seems like he already has."

Nana nodded. "He's a man with nothing to lose…"

"That can be dangerous," Shoto stared hard at the back of the blond head of hair.

"Or invaluable," Nana added, "We'll succeed Shoto...the fact that you're here tells me so."

Shoto bristled a little. "You understood before I did what I was going to do...that I'd help you and join you...how?"

He shifted his arm to better hold her and she cocked her weary head at him. "You freed me out of desperation...but then you used blood magic. Honestly, I've never really known if you had some sort of noble spirit driving you to do the right thing, but what I know is that you're scared shitless and I'm the only person who can help."

Shoto grimaced on the thought.

"You can't change what you did anymore than I can," Nana said tiredly, "If anyone ever hears about you using Blood Magic you'll never have a place in the Synod again. At best you'll be banished to Dracos. I'd say it's a better fate than most since any dragon older than an infant knows mage blood is poison and won't try to eat you, and even better you'll be free of the Synod. But I don't think that's what you want."

"This was never supposed to happen," Shoto whispered.

"Shoto…" Nana took long breaths, winded, "You don't want to hear this, but you'll need to embrace it...I'm going to need you."

Shoto almost stopped short, but kept himself going so as not to fall too far behind the Captain, already storming ahead with purpose.

"For what?"

"I can't defeat the Archdemon alone," Nana said so softly that Shoto barely believed he heard it, "Without a score of dead to draw from, I'll need living blood to match that strength, my own preferably. But it won't be enough. We will need two blood mages to face him… we'll need you."

Shoto shook his head violently. "No. I can't… I'll never touch something like that again!"

The arm around Shoto's neck stiffened as her hand fisted into his robes.

"You're alive for a reason, Shoto," Nana said, "You're powerful...stronger than the other battle mages in your cohort...you accessed blood magic without even trying and it was strong. I've never seen someone do that. The Synod was foolish to send you anywhere except the Center Magesterium. Were I the Synod I would fear you…"

Shoto twisted his face in confusion. He'd convinced himself at a young age that he was destined to be a Synod Master. Izuku mentioned every time their skills were tested that there was something about Shoto's power that spoke Center Magesterium, but Shoto never had a grasp of what that boy saw in him besides his raw power to say such a thing. And he'd been wrong too. The Synod damned him to this post and accepted that bookworm into the Center instead. It had been Izuku's dream as much as it had been Shoto's, but he had a hard time not resenting him for it. While Izuku was apprenticing with the greatest Masters and forming unique skills that would bring him to the top, Shoto was dragging a Fallen Mage from a bloodbath on the heels of the most frustrating man he'd ever met.

He hated to say it, but Nana's constant berating of the Synod didn't bother him like it should. He almost respected her openness to disregard them. Shoto had been raised by them, trained by them, but right now he hated them for this situation. If they hadn't sent him here maybe so much of this wouldn't have happened…maybe...

"There's no changing what brought us here, Shoto," Nana said calmly, like she could read his mind, but in reality she was reading his conflicted expression. "I know you want to end the Archdemon and I'm telling you that you have the power to do it. I won't say it to the Captain because I don't want him any more angry with you than he already is, but if we want to survive this you need to learn blood magic…"

Something like an ice shard jammed into his throat. An awful feeling enveloped him, but a spark of thrill beat into his heart. He remembered the power he felt with the blood magic in his hands, but Nana had been right too, it had scared him shitless.

"Keep up!" Katsuki shouted behind them, his voice strained, suppressing the feelings they were all experiencing over the things they'd seen. The things that were going to haunt their dreams for as long as they lived.

Shoto pushed Nana to pick up the pace a little, but she was clearly exhausted to the point that she wasn't breathing right anymore. He again requested that she conserve her strength for as long as she could, but really it was because he couldn't respond to that statement just yet. His mind raced over the possibility of it, over what such a thing would mean… over the consequences he would be forced to live with.

Could he damn himself for the sake of the world?