The maw of the dragon snapped, missing its target and nearly catching Shoto in its dive. A buzz filled Shoto's delirious head as the earth churned on the impact of the beast.
The near miss didn't stall them for long and Shoto and Eijiro scrambled back up quickly, looking to each other to assure the other hadn't been injured by the clumsy attack of the young dragon. His red eye was wide on Shoto while the Mage beside him panted and searched out where the Summoner -or rather the man who claimed he wasn't the Summoner- had gone.
"Mage! I'm sorry! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Shoto shook away the dragon's concern now that he saw him getting back up, shaking off the collision like nothing had even happened.
The surrounding darkness swallowed the man back up, but, in the fireglow, a red hue arose from a place more surrounded by darkness than any other and Shoto knew that it was him.
"Quick, we have to stop him before he can get away!" Shoto tried to run and his knee hit the dirt.
Eijiro swung his tail and crushed a few scrambling undead as his muscles tensed with indecision. "Are you hurt?"
Shoto shook his head. "Just drained."
"Shoto!"
His name came from multiple directions and his eyes darted to keep up. Nana came up behind him and immediately helped lift him to his feet while Izuku and Ochako came from his left to group up.
"What happened?" Nana looked him over and lifted one of his hands in front of her eyes.
He jerked it away quickly so that Izuku couldn't see, but there was little chance he missed the creeping darkness on his skin.
"I used all my strength and so did he," Shoto scanned the battlefield for him, searching for that red pulse and the consuming darkness, "But he's stronger… And he's not the Summoner..."
"What?" Izuku gaped.
"Impossible," Nana concurred, "the Honing Stone led us right to him."
"I don't know how either, but we still have to stop him," Shoto used Nana as a prop to move himself forward, heart racing on the multiplying concerns.
Ochako opened her hands and looked around, "But you just said he wasn't-"
"Everyone down!"
Shoto fell from Nana's hold and was caught by Izuku as she shouted, hands throwing out overhead with an inky gray magic bursting from her hands. Crimson tendrils collided with the barrier as soon as it came alive and fell over them,the tendrils rushing past without touching them.
Every breath stopped as the devastating power of Blood Magic washed past them and the screams of the Cohort rattled the battlefield.
"Izuku!" Nana yelled over the effort to hold the magic, "Ward us, now!"
The apprentice's mouth gaped and he looked around, uncertain. He locked eyes with Shoto the longest, gauging his ability to stand on his own and found a confirming nod.
"Okay…"
Izuku pressed his staff tip to Shoto's chest and placed a shaking hand on his forehead, eyes closing as he called on a Synod skill Shoto had never been given the chance to learn. With a twist of his wrist a glyph appeared and pulsed a moment before leaving a gray glow around Shoto.
A nervous breath left Izuku as he looked him over briefly. Shoto nodded to let him know it worked and the green eyed boy rushed to do the same to the others in the bubble Nana had created.
"What is he doing?" Ochako asked while Izuku placed a gray hue around Eijiro.
"Placing wards," Shoto shivered, "To keep him from draining blood from us while we're still alive. All it takes is a small cut and he could devastate us."
"What about the other Mages?" her eyes went wide when Izuku came to her next, but she was met with silence.
The rush of magic around them muffled what was happening beyond, but it was clear that unless they had protected themselves similarly beforehand, the Cohort was a lost cause.
"Can't you do this too?" Eijiro asked, sniffing his paw and flicking his tongue, like he was tasting the magic around him.
Shoto leaned heavy on his staff. "I was never taught. It's something they teach at the Center Magesterium..."
For once there were too many other burning concerns in Shoto's head to experience his usual jealousy over Izuku's experience, but he was sure his mental tone was still bitter.
Izuku finished Ochako's ward quickly and then warded himself last.
"Aren't you going to ward, Nana?" Ochako asked, moving closer to Eijiro's side in a battle ready stance.
"Her staff will protect her," he swallowed, "It's a Blood Mage staff…"
Shoto blinked at the staff that Izuku had given her, lifted in the air, currently defending them from Blood Magic and he felt his head ache with the added questions he had no time or attention to ask.
"We're ready," Izuku squeezed his staff and narrowed eyes in the direction of attack, standing between it and Shoto. Far from wanting to be protected, he glared at the back of Izuku's head, but he didn't move out of the position; he feared he'd collapse if he tried.
"Not a moment too soon," Nana groaned and her hands fell, staff butt hitting the ground.
The glow of light evaporated and the chill of the night and the overwhelming darkness cut straight through them. The red burn of Blood Magic and even the flicking of flames were gone and a still battlefield surrounded them, filled with drained, lifeless husks. The battle beyond them waged on, the Outpost still scrambled with battle cries and clanking metal and the armies warring for the pass were ceaseless in their onslaught. But here, in their own little piece of war, they were all that remained standing. The demons were gone and the remaining Major Demon had turned its attention back towards causing vicious storms over the Pass and those fighting there.
Shoto shook to his bones, not from weakness or the cold, but from horror.
"Izuku… What's happening?" Ochako said in a near whisper.
Izuku didn't answer, how could any of them? Even Nana seemed stricken to silence at the emptiness around them.
A deep, maroon glow flickered back to life in the time it took them to gasp and the heaviness of the ether dropped back onto Shoto in full.
"Nana…" Shoto choked, feeling himself go dizzy again.
"I can't," she swallowed, "He's drained everything around us. I have only my own strength and you've drained the last of yours."
Eijiro shifted a paw forward and if scales could rise like hackles they would be doing so. A growl, low and guttural faced the methodical approach of the man glowing with Blood Magic.
"I'll tear him apart."
Not only did Shoto doubt that the dragon was capable of winning against a fully powered Blood Mage, but he wanted answers before they or anyone else managed to kill this man. If he wasn't the Summoner than who was he and who was the real Summoner? And he wanted to know, as selfish as it was, how this Fallen Mage knew him.
"You should all leave," Nana opened her hands in preparation for a defensive spell, "This power is nothing to be toyed with."
"We aren't leaving," Ochako said.
Izuku concurred and Shoto glared stubbornly.
There wasn't the opportunity for disappointment from Nana, she had to cast her defenses instead. Green and red clashed before them and Nana groaned on the impact, while everyone else startled and then leapt to action.
The fight itself went by so quickly, Shoto hadn't realized it was happening until it was practically over.
In a rash act, the dragon dove at the Fallen Mage and Izuku and Ochako rushed after him. They were warded from the drain of their blood and power, not from the strength of a Blood Magic attack. The two Mages had to immediately pull themselves from the impact of an entire dragon being thrown back at them and then use the rest of their energy to stop tendrils of Blood Magic from wrending them limb from limb.
Nana's defense was broken seconds after it rose.
Whatever barren strength remained in Shoto pushed him between Nana and the Fallen Mage again and he threw out a meager attack that was easily fended away. Like a giant, living hand t tendrils swung back around and slammed onto them both, pushing them to the ground. Shoto expected to be crushed, and though the pressure was tight, his bones did not crack and, somehow the Fallen Mage did not break them.
Instead he turned his deadly focus to Ochako and Izuku.
"Get out of there! Izuku, Ochako run!" Shoto screamed on a hoarse throat.
A large red body crashed in front of them and took the impact. Eijiro roared and reared, swiping paws down to battle the magic like it was a tangible limb and, though his strikes were powerful, they weren't fast enough.
Shoto's breath was snatched away.
The Magic still managed to hit Izuku, so harshly Shoto could hear something crack over the rush in his ears and the young Mage went flying towards Shoto and Nana. He hit the ground just in front of them and immediately tried to inch his way back up to his feet while Ochako screamed at Eijiro to get out of there.
"Red, run! Stop! You have to stop!"
Pushing against the force did nothing and Nana was struggling to squirm her arms free to aid their escape, but Shoto was dumbfounded, arms weighted with panic as the dragon continued to fight back and the renegade girl frantically tried to protect him.
"Red!" Ochako barely dodged the attacks as she tried to get him to listen, but Eijiro kept going, lifting onto his back legs and flaring his wings in an attempt to crush the Fallen Mage with the full weight and impact of his body.
"He's going to get himself killed!" Izuku choked and collapsed back from his attempts to stand, clutching an arm around his torso, "He's exposing his weak spots."
Shoto's eyes widened and his mind opened on Izuku's words.
"Eijiro! Your underbelly! You're leaving yourself open!"
"I'm- oomph!"
It was strange to hear another person's thought disrupted like a broken sentence, but it echoed in Shoto's head with the verbal growl the Dragon emitted. The living magic had found his weakness and ripped against the soft scales of his belly in a thick bloody cut.
Ochako shrieked fear and rage.
Eijiro stumbled back and dropped to all fours, feebly batting away the magic as pained noises trilled out of his long throat. Ochako put herself between the Mage and Eijiro, but the attack of the Fallen faltered purposefully, hesitated just off of them as he took a few steps closer to them.
A paw as big as a man swiped and missed and Eijiro's groaned whimper slipped from his forked tongue. Ochako rushed their attacker, but he pushed away her magic with the flick of his wrist, the space between them closing to nothing.
Izuku looked ready to explode, but everytime he tried to move, his body forced him back down and ripped a cry of pain from him.
With her magic being so easily beaten back, Ochako swung a desperate fist at him. That too was knocked away just as easily and he took her effortlessly by the throat, lifting her feet off of the ground. The Blood Magic tendrils in his hands poured over the dragon like they did to Nana and Shoto and the already pained beast was forced to the ground and restrained.
Eyes that glowed dark red searched the choked expression of the girl in his hand.
"A creature like this shouldn't be a pet to a pathetic Mage like you," he practically growled at her.
Ochacko's tan fingers slapped and pulled on the taught arm while her dangling feet kicked out uselessly.
Despair had replaced panic in Izuku's eyes. "Ochako…"
"That's not…" Ochako scraped and choked, red faced with low air and rage, "He's-"
The Mage squeezed tighter and strangled out her words. Eijiro roared and pulled on the restraint, mouth gaping and snapping, but nothing more than a spark falling.
The Fallen Mage scoffed at Eijiro's attempts. "What sort of dragon can't even breathe fire?"
Izuku failed again and again to stand, to even conjure a full spell; his teary eyes were blurred with pain.
Nana managed a burst of magic and it did nothing but make the magic hand squeeze tighter. Shoto's mind scrambled. They were powerless… They were going to die. And, if what the man had said was true, this wasn't even the Summoner. Even if they died killing him, they would die accomplishing nothing.
They were failing their world right this moment and Shoto couldn't abide it, couldn't let this be the pathetic end to his already pathetic life.
"Izuku!" Nana snapped with a shudder from her own failing strength and pain, "Izuku look at me!"
His eyes panned slowly, but there was no time for that.
"Remove your ward," she demanded.
Pallor overwhelmed even the pink of his cheeks.
"I don't have any power left to give him, but you do," Nana said, "Do it now, there's no time."
Shoto hated that he understood what she wanted, hated that she was asking Izuku of all people to be complicit to his sins. But they had no choice and a last glance at the angered Mage choking Ochako and restraining Eijiro pushed Izuku past his horror. They weren't dead yet, the Mage was busy taunting them, but they would be soon if they didn't act quickly.
"Izuku, I can't ask you to do this-"
Deft fingers were already moving, creating glyphs that tapped his head and chest. The power dissipated around him and even that effort twisted his body in a way that made him keel back over. All he could do was throw out an outstretched arm towards Shoto and grip his ribs in chopped groans.
"Be careful, Shoto!" Nana warned, but "careful" was for someone with time.
Magic sliced from Shoto's finger and split the skin of his forearm open cleanly. Shoto could practically taste it, the sensations of a Mage's blood in his hands as pure, raw magic to be molded into anything he desired. It's pulse was rejuvenating and the only thing that stopped him from pulling every drop he could get a hold of was the agonized scream of his friend and the tight grip of Nana's hand digging into his shoulder.
The echo of the ether became a sharp clarity and his hunger for power leveled into rationality. He stopped, taking full control of himself and blinked into a red hued world.
The crushing tendrils became a featherweight that flung from him and Nana with a turn of his hand, the surge of countering magic ripping it away and obliterating it.
The Fallen Mage started to shout, but his words were swallowed in the rush of slashing red and cleaving magic trying to shred him to pieces. He had to drop Ochako to defend himself and his tether on the dragon loosened enough for Eijiro to pull free too. But with the mage girl crumpled in a choked ball and the dragon barely able to rise from his wounds, they were the least of the Fallen Mage's concerns now.
The sky cracked in red bursts as red Magic collided, but this wasn't like their fight before. The power in Izuku's blood was nothing he'd experienced before, it was nothing like using his own blood. It didn't offer the same intense power, but it made him sharper, sped up every sense and made every attack fast and relentless.
But his enemy didn't fight back with the same aggression he had fought with before. His magic was careful, much like the magic hand that had held Shoto; it was enough to hold him off, not enough to kill him.
"Shoto, wait!" The Fallen Mage barked over the thunderous cracks of their power.
Shoto was not so inclined.
Attack followed vicious attack and Shoto pushed the powerful Blood Mage to back away, to lose his ground. He shouted again and again for Shoto to stop and listen to him, but all Shoto could see was a darkened, marred face with red eyes that had nearly killed the people under his protection. All he could see was a life he needed to end.
"You have to listen to me!" the Mage said.
Once again ignored, the Mage lost the last ounce of his reserve and patience.
"I said, stop!"
The world split in red around him and the force of the Mage's magic came down on him harsher than ever to wrench the Magic attacks from Shoto's hands and bind his arms in the grip of it's tendrils. Shoto startled at the interruption and gasped when his feet left the ground and he was held aloft by his outstretched arms before the raised hand of the mage. Frustration burned through those intense, reddened eyes.
It was clear now that the Mage had been holding back and Shoto had once again overestimated his own ability.
"I've drained the life of every Mage here, you cannot expect you have the power to stop me with the meager blood of one untapped boy!" The Mage screamed, "Why will you not listen to me?"
"You are Fallen!" Shoto spat, trying with all his might for the Blood Magic still inside of him to weild the strength to fight off the restraints that bound him, "You try to murder my friends in front of me and you want me to sit still and listen to you?"
"They are in the way," The Mage's hand tensed and the tendrils squeezed painfully, "There is so much I have to tell you, still. There was no time before, but now that I control this battlefield you will listen to what I have to say. I need to explain."
"Explain what?" Shoto shouted.
There was a wad of anger gripping at his insides still tinted in the redness he saw the world in. He was curious before, now he felt taunted, belittled by this display of power that held him. He had already been humiliated by his ill begot attack before, but this time the world wasn't slowed to a halt to spare him the onlooking eyes of those he'd failed.
"I need to explain why I know you," The Fallen Mage looked around, like he had to speak in a hurry lest something interrupt them again, "Why I won't kill you."
His rage came to halt for the sake of confusion.
"Shoto, you-"
His words were cut by the cry of a charge and thunder of horses.
A small battalion broke from the battle with the demon horde, galloping towards the Fallen threat with raised swords. Whether it was in an attempt to rescue them or a simple response to the daunting powers that whipped and destroyed everything around them, it didn't matter. For Shoto, it was an instant of hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.
The Fallen Mage dropped one of Shoto's arms and launched the tendrils to intercept his new attackers. Shoto threw a cut of red toned flame with his newfound freedom, but the immense power in just the Mage's one hand caught it and quelled the fire in its place.
It gave the Tarlson soldiers the time and opening to get in close, but it also sent the Blood Magic tendrils in a frenzy to grapple him and pin his arms useless to his sides. He was forced back to the ground and held on his knees, all while the Fallen Mage effortlessly swept away the battalion.
The bulk of them fell immediately, but for the rest the enchantment on their weapons and armor deflected the Magic long enough to get them close. Close enough to swing at him. Close enough for Shoto to recognize the leader as Lord Commander Natsuo.
Holding Shoto from the fight was like an afterthought to him. With one hand he lashed out vicious power that could only end in the complete decimation of the men who had come to stop him.
"Commander, leave, you cannot-"
Shoto gagged, choked on the slither of the tendrils wrapped around his mouth, blocking all but his nose.
The Mage threw his arm and the tendrils turned to blades that effortlessly impaled their horses like needles through fabric. The dying shrieks of men and horses made a horrible symphony as they ripped up through the steeds to rip into their riders and drain them into pale husks.
Lord Commander Natsuo was quick to react, disengaging from his horse, launching himself from the saddle just before the beast was torn into. He avoided the fate of his men, but jarred his head against the ground instead, rattle his skull inside of the helm.
Blood dripped down Natsuo's head as he tossed the helm aside to wipe it from his eyes. He spared not a moment to even gape with horror at the decimation of his men, but swung his sword relentlessly at the tendrils that continued to beat at him, using the many enchantments he had on his armor and weapons to protect him.
In his time at the fronts or in any other engagement since, Shoto had never seen someone fend off Blood Magic in this way, but every place the tendrils tried to impact or rip at him, they hit enchantment only to be beaten back immediately by shield and blade.
Perhaps simply frustrated with the constant defection of his attacks, the Fallen Mage drew back his attack, hovering the Magic nearby, ready to go at him again at a moments notice, but pausing to reassess his tactic.
That's when the Mage and the Lord Commander came eye to eye for the first time and everything truly seemed to stand still.
The crimson over the Mage's eyes remained dominant over the blue beneath, but his expression softened slightly the longer he stared at the soldier wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve and shifting his weight in preparation to leapt back into action.
Between himself and the Fallen Mage, the Lord Commander stood ready to kill. To Shoto's right Ochako was stumbling to the dragon's side as he groaned and cowered away from his severe beating. To his left Nana had dropped to a crouch over Izuku, her hand glowing white against his chest as the apprentice continued to sob on the pain inflicted by both Shoto and the Fallen Mage.
There was nowhere to look that wasn't horrible and terrifying, nothing around him that denoted that same hope he'd felt when the soldiers had first ridden to him.
But then the Blood Magic retracted, pulled back to the Fallen Mage, even releasing Shoto from his intense grip, dropping him into a fit of gasps and coughs as his own swirl of Blood Magic dissipated.
"Fate has taken this day mysteriously in hand," the Mage said softly, head tilting at the Lord Commander as his mouth twisted to a sneer, "Lord Natsuo Todoroki…"
Natuso stiffened and his voice held a tremor when he responded.
"Summoner… I demand you surrender yourself."
The Fallen Mage narrowed his eyes on Natsuo, taking a step closer to him, tauntingly.
"The Lord isn't watching. You don't have to pretend you don't know me…"
Natsuo's sword tilted up, making the Mage think better of his continued approach, "Fight or surrender, now."
"You don't want that. You'll lose."
"Then I'll fucking die doing my duty," Natsuo said, "I say again, stand down, Mage."
The frustration Shoto had witnessed in the Fallen Mage before was rising again and his free hand shook before lashing out a black cut of magic just in front of Natsuo's feet. The Commander stumbled back, but held his defenses, eyeing the warning shot and the man who'd thrown it with disdain.
"I demand you acknowledge me!" The Mage screamed and Shoto couldn't help startling on the broken sound, "Natsuo, don't deny me like everyone else…"
Emotion that Shoto would have believed Natsuo incapable of before this moment, strangled his words.
"I would be disgusted to say I even recognize your face now."
The deep confusion flushed away from Shoto in recollection of what Tensei had told them just hours before and he scrambled back to his feet, still half breathless.
"You're the eldest son of Lord Enji," Shoto glanced between the two for confirmation, "The one Commander Tensei said became a Fallen Mage… the one your father kept from the Synod."
Natsuo arched a look at Shoto that made him take a full step back, "The Commander should know better than to spread the black marks of our family to strangers."
The Fallen Mage's face tightened.
"But I'm correct," Shoto demanded.
"I won't have my family name slandered by association to this monster."
"A monster?" The Fallen Mage's response was disgust and amusement, "Well then I must have inherited it! The true monster is the one who made me this way, the one who betrayed me over pressure from the Synod!"
"You chose your own ending, Summoner" Natsuo hissed, "It's pathetic to blame Lord Enji for your poor decision making."
In a motion that made Shoto shiver, the Mage's head tilted back the other way and the crystal blue of his eyes seemed to burn through the red sheen.
"Has he made a monster out of you too, little brother? Did he break your mind like the rest of ours? Are we a family of monsters, now?"
"I am no monster."
Natuso looked to the mangled shreds of human beings that were left in scraps on the battlefield, already so littered with death.
"Only a monster is capable of this and I'm not, Summoner."
Both went quiet, red tinted blues battled steel-cold grays, but there were tremors in both of their hands, voices on the edge of losing their composure.
"You use these false titles like I am no one to you… Call me by my name!"
The Fallen Mage demanded acknowledgement and it pushed Natsuo to spit his words with the brutality of an axe.
"I have no brother! Touya is dead! You are an abomination that bears the maimed image of his face."
Shoto darted his attention back and forth from them and his injured friends, tuning into the soft crying of Izuku, the chittering displeasure of Eijiro, and the continued coughing and gasping of Ochako. He didn't want to abandon Natsuo to this fight, but from what he had seen, this wasn't a fight any of them had a chance of winning and if there was a chance to get the others to safety he was going to take it.
Shoto got only a step back before the red of the Mage, Touya's, eyes flared up. His hand cut the air and the very presence of the ether in the air seemed to come alive to push him forward. Shoto had released his hold on the Blood Magic, but he saw red again. It was living, not solid like the tendrils, but forceful like hurricane winds.
It dragged him towards the Fallen Mage and when Shoto swung his staff to defend himself it was wrenched from his hands and thrown away. It placed him face to face with Touya and then dispersed.
"Shoto," he whispered, getting uncomfortably close, red pulsing hand lifting, threatening, but not acting.
Shoto grit his teeth and the hand turned to fist at his side.
But he hesitated and the harsh red started to ease from Touya's eyes, the persistent anger he displayed, easing away into something pained. The look shook and trapped Shoto and he couldn't grasp why.
The ground trembled and the already shadowy, darkened sky was blotted with the immense shadow of flaring wings and the poised body of a dragon stepping into what was surely about to be a fight.
"A dragon…?" Natsuo gasped, more frustrated than fearful as the sword swung out defensively towards Eijiro.
Seeing the futility in this and the blur of Ochako dashing behind him towards Nana and Izuku, Shoto saw the diversion in Eijiro's actions. His wounds weren't fully healed, but they were patched enough for him to be moving, to escape if need be, but he was in no fighting condition.
"Come with me Mage, we need to get away from this man."
Touya didn't even look at the approaching beast, but his hand lifted threateningly again and Shoto had no choice but to step in.
His palm went up, a silent demand, stopping Eijiro in his tracks as he called through his mind.
"Eijiro, wait! Stay back."
"But-"
"Trust me... "
Eijiro's muscles tensed with the rattle of his scales frilling like raised hackles, as a low growl rumbled up his throat. He obviously didn't like the order, but he was showing his faith in the Mage by listening to his order.
"How did you-?" Natsuo marveled at the dragon who had seemingly responded to a mere gesture from Shoto.
"Incredible," Touya looked between him and the dragon, "I knew I couldn't have been wrong."
Personal space diminished as Touya took a visual assessment of Shoto and it twisted his gut when the blackened fingers came a breath away from the skin of his face. It wasn't threatening, just fascinated, amazed.
"Don't you see it?" Touya said, "The scars don't hide that much. There was never a child that looked like he did."
Shoto shivered when Touya's index finger tapped above each of his eyes. The tone of Eijiro's growl deepened.
"One for him and one for her."
"You're spouting nonsense," Natsuo hissed, taking cautious steps away from the dragon to refocus on the Mage.
Shoto didn't understand what Touya was saying either, but he already felt that he didn't like the meaning. The recognition was uncomfortable from a face so strange to him.
"This color too, I've only seen this once," Touya's finger went up to brush quickly and lightly on the two toned part of hair, "Never on anyone else. None except one… I thought I'd failed… But here you are, my proof."
"Proof of what?" Shoto barely managed to speak, frozen with fear at Touya's proximity.
"Proof that I was right," Touya met Natsuo's stare, "That the act that I was called a monster for was good… That it wasn't wrong..."
"You are a monster," Natsuo insisted, "We all know what you tried to do… We also know you failed and that being successful wouldn't have changed anything."
"It would have changed everything!" Touya shouted, "And if father had just trusted me and not betrayed me to the Synod everything would have been different! I was successful, Natsuo! Father deceived us."
The hand that had touched so delicately before, turned violent and before Shoto could think to fight him off, Touya had taken his shoulder and his hair in a fist and spun the younger Mage around to face Natsuo.
It was useless to try and pry away the magically imbued hands that had taken him, but Shoto fought futilely anyway, even as he mentally shouted for Eijiro to stand his ground and not intervene. Shoto hated this position, the touch of a Fallen hand and the helplessness he felt versus his enemy's strength, but Touya's words denoted that he was not intending to harm Shoto, even if his scalp burned with the pull of his hair and his neck ached with the way Touya held him like he was restraining prey.
"This is him!" Touya produced a pained hiss from Shoto when his grip intensified, "This is what I did! This is why I was exiled from my home."
Natsuo's nose crinkled, his eyes narrowing on the young Mage he was being forced to look at. He watched Touya's finger tap that same birthmark he had been so fascinated with before.
"That is a mark of the magic I used," Touya said, "This…this is him..."
Shoto's heart raced. "What do you mean...?"
"I don't believe you…" Natsuo's voice became a whisper, but his tone was not so obstinate as simply upset.
"You don't believe I could do it?" Touya scoffed, "You see what I've done to this field of battle and you think I'm incapable of resurrecting a stillborn child from the grip of the ether?"
Shoto went cold in his hands and his disposition to struggle died in shocked confusion. The longer Natsuo stared and the more his upset turned bitter on his face, the more panic rose in Shoto's chest. He didn't know why. He wasn't even quite sure what they were saying.
"Stillborn…?" Shoto said it breathily.
Beyond where Natsuo stood, Ochako and Nana's faces were lifted from Izuku to stare, to gape. Shoto's gut was in his feet under the inspection of every eye, including the enormous red iris hovering close and cautious.
"You expect me to believe you recognize this Mage from a few moments you knew him as an infant?" Natsuo's face was marred with disgust and skepticism.
Shoto could feel Touya's fists tremble as he spoke.
"She named him Shoto. I remember that clearly… Natsuo, I could never forget it! How could I forget that she finally looked happy? Another of her children entered this world in death, but she cradled him and smiled. You know she never smiled. She couldn't see that he was merely a corpse, lost to another insane delusion,and she named him in front of me. She named him Shoto. You and I are so plain, but you know our brothers and sisters were not so. Even if they lived but a day, we saw children unlike any other. Even Fuyumi dulled our features in comparison. I have never forgotten them and I know you have not either. I especially could not forget the lifeless stare of silver and blue that looked up from my mother's arms that night or the perfect balance of fire and ice on his pale head."
Natsuo's face drained and Shoto's gut lurched. He couldn't be upset that every gaze had turned to horror on him when he felt so much of the same sickness.
"You were born dead?"
"No…" Shoto responded out loud, startling at the dragon's voice in his head at a time like this.
"I put that mark on you!" The Fallen Mage's shout made Shoto's ears ring and his chest tense, "I wrenched you from my mother's arms and called on the darkest powers I could reach. I pulled your wandering soul from the edge of the ether and forced life in your flesh by the blood of my own body."
"Necromancy and Blood Magic at once?" Natsuo hissed.
Shoto blinked rapidly. "That's not possible… Is it?"
In all his years learning at the Magesterium, he had never heard of such a thing. The Fallen Magics were all talked about in distinction, even if a Mage had committed more than one in his life. Of course, Shoto couldn't rightly say it was ever considered to be impossible by the Synod… Just that it was never really considered at all.
But he had never considered that he might find the unsettling nature of his origins among strangers on a battlefield that reeked of death and ether either.
It was easy to accept that the man who they had tracked in hopes of killing the Summoner might be the brother of the Tarlson Lord Commander, but to think himself a part of this familial mixture was enough to break the seams of his sensibility. Reality didn't feel like itself anymore and the echo of the ether was becoming less an ambient sound and more a pulsing headache trying to drown him.
"I was right when I called you an abomination." Natsuo spat disgust.
"For saving our brother's life?" Touya's cry rippled around him in a dark shudder that made the dragon's claws dig deeper into the earth.
Brother?
Something about that word seemed like it was fictitious, made up on the spot, or part of a language he'd long since forgotten how to speak.
"Who are you to decide life and death?" There was a fidgetiness in Natsuo's stance and his hand started to weld itself to his sword.
"If you could have prayed and willed every one of our brothers and sisters back from the dead would you really have hesitated to do so? If not for them, for the sake of our mother!"
"That is not- it…"
The Lord Commander was stuck in an incomplete thought, darting glances between the two Mages until finally he said, stiffly, "I would not have resorted to Fallen Magic."
"Liar," Touya bit, his impatience winning over his plea for his brother to listen.
Red crawled back up his arms and into his eyes as he threw Shoto towards Natsuo and opened his arms wide, reengaging the magic that warped through him.
Shoto stumbled between them and took a frantic look between the Mages and the overhanging dragon, just waiting for the order to strike. Natsuo was more than ready to make that happen and Touya was rising to the challenge splendidly all while Shoto sat in the center of it all, hardly grasping his own existence, but knowing he was all that stood in the way of another bloodbath.
"Wait!" Shoto held up a hand to Touya and one to Natsuo, demanding them be still, "You've said we're family…"
"We are," Touya's eyes lit up, moving in closer to Shoto again. The younger Mage backed a step away on instinct and it forced Touya to a disappointed halt.
"Then there is no need for all of this bloodshed," Shoto said, "The Commander is your brother and I see in your eyes you don't wish to kill him, just as you have refused to kill me. My friends shouldn't be subject to this wrath either. We came seeking the Summoner and if you are not the Summoner, then our war is not with you…"
"Not the Summoner...?" Natsuo frowned.
The thin line of Touya's lips twisted on them and the knot of anticipation in Shoto's chest tightened.
"Your war is still with me, little brother," air sucked through Touya's teeth, "But it doesn't have to be."
Shoto shook his head. "Then you lied to me? You are the Summoner after all?"
"No," Touya groaned, "But I support his mission…"
"I don't like this." Eijiro bared his teeth.
Shoto felt his legs quake under him. "Me either…"
"You found me using a Honing Stone, I'm assuming," Touya moved in a slow pace, semi circling his brothers and moving away from the Dragon, "No guiltless man can be found with such a device."
Shoto gasped. "You were a decoy."
The grin was confirmation enough. Shoto threw a look to Nana, hoping she could hear what was being said and the blanche in her face said she did.
"How? That shouldn't be possible."
"It shouldn't be possible to combine Necromancy and Blood Magic and breathe life into a stillborn infant either, and yet…"
Chill seeped through Shoto's already dampened exterior to his very bones and he even felt Natsuo bristle behind him.
"I'm a failed Summoner," Touya's mouth twitched, palms opened, "I reached into the ether and it spat me back… Not without marring me for the attempt."
Blackened hands touched his similarly tainted neck and ran down to the dark of his clothes.
"Why?" Natsuo hissed, "Why would you even try such a horrible thing?"
"Why do you think?"
Touya stopped and drug his red coated eyes from Natsuo to Shoto, where they softened to something pained.
"You will never know what it is to be cursed, Natsuo," Touya took in every detail of Shoto's face, "What it is to be born damned… If the void is all that awaits us, then why must our time alive also be hell? We are either apostates, fearfully fleeing our Synod masters until they hunt us to death, or we are the equally imprisoned hunters. We don't even get to choose that piece of our miserable fates."
"There's a reason for that and you're living proof," Natsuo's tone started to match his impatient stance.
Touya snarled, but ignored him, focusing on Shoto. "Natsuo is too sullied by the words of his father to think for himself, but you…"
Once again Touya reached out and once again Shoto shirked back from it without even thinking. He expected a brash reaction, but the Mage only sighed and nodded.
"You may have been raised by the Synod, but you have already proven your readiness to defy them," Touya sounded hopeful, "Either you have accepted your fate for your sins and follow them despite it or you are trying to leave them and Fallen Magic is your recourse."
Shoto wanted to shout that it was the former, dispel the second as being false, but the first wasn't completely the truth either. It held him in hesitance that caused Touya to rethink his argument.
"Or perhaps you're trying to prove something," a smile quirked the corner of his mouth.
Shoto's stomach dropped.
"It's nothing to be ashamed about, Shoto," Touya opened his arms, so welcoming and decrepit, "It's a family trait. Natsuo has to prove to father and to himself that he's better than I was, that he won't fail the Todoroki name like I did. Father must prove he's as capable as any other Lord, as capable as the King. I'm sure my little sister has her own demons. And I am determined to prove that I wasn't wrong in resurrecting you… That Mages deserve better than to be trodden under foot for something they have no power over! I aim to prove that the Synod is wrong, that every one of these infrastructures is corrupt! What moral system strips an infant from its mother's arms? What good organization removes your family name from you and takes your birthright?"
Natsuo scoffed loudly. Touya continued, ignoring him.
"Think of what the Synod has deprived you of! Think of what you've endured at their hands! Wouldn't you have preferred to feel the love of a mother, rather than be raised by the cold walls of Gracestone?"
While the very thought choked Shoto, he could feel the Dragon at his back shift backwards and a wordless feeling slip through the link of their minds.
Mournfulness. Empathetic sadness.
"All of that could change today," Touya kept pushing, kept driving his point further and further into Shoto's every insecurity, "Today you have at least one brother. You have a family who wants you. I am that family. Had I known you were alive I would have emancipated you from that hell long ago! But all of that is behind us and I want you at my side from here out, I want you with us when we reshape this misshapen world… Shoto, think about what I'm asking of you, don't just spit back Synod drabble."
In all the time he'd spent as the least experienced at the fronts, the most in need of formation among other Mages, he had never felt like a child than in this moment. He wanted to look to a parental figure to tell him what to do, what to think, but the closest he had was Nana and she seemed as stricken as he did and was too far out of reach to hide behind.
He didn't want to be asked to consider these things, because he knew he wasn't certain of much anymore, but Touya seemed so equally right and wrong at once. The plea in the blue eyes was so genuine and intense, it was truly begging Shoto to choose him. It didn't matter if Touya was somehow wrong about everything, he believed wholeheartedly that Shoto was his brother and that fact seemed to mean more than any other consequence.
"You want me to trust you over the people I have trusted with my entire existence since I was born? If… if it's true, if-if I'm, I don't even know what I would be, an undead, a living corpse, then the Synod had no reason to allow me to live. They are my saviors whereas this family you speak of is nothing I've ever known and nothing to me."
The distance left between the two Mages was shrinking more and more and Shoto kept a constantly darting look back to Eijiro to simply comfort himself that perhaps Touya would rethink getting too close if it meant getting within biting distance of a Dragon.
"Choosing not to kill a living thing is not saving it! You are alive, you are not some abomination, you are not one of the shambling corpses that I have conjured! Those are bodies of dead men, inhabited by spirits of another realm. Their souls are gone. Your soul is your own and your life is the life you were born with. You merely drifted in the ether a time before you were reclaimed to this life. Anyone who would call you less than human is not human themselves! The Synod would call it mercy to let you live, like it would be called mercy not to murder this dragon for it merely existing! You know it's a living creature with a conscience, but it's closeness to the ether tells mankind it's a monster. That is how they think of you. But I don't! They have harmed you, but I wish to liberate you, validate you, show you your true potential. Trust me. That scar on your face was not from me, not from your family; trust the one who gave you back life, not those that sent you into harm's way."
The sentiment of amazement echoed between Mage and Dragon, both taken aback. It all bounced like living chaos in Shoto's mind, but the drag on his heart was real. He didn't know Touya, he didn't remember him as Touya remembered Shoto and yet what he said stabbed a part of his heart with a sensation he was unfamiliar with. This person he didn't know was affirming his value, not just as a powerful Mage, but as a person. It was something he always wanted to feel from his caretakers in the Synod, from the Masters in the High Circle.
"Don't listen to this madness," Natsuo broke the spell with the venom in his voice, "He points to your scarred face and says to blame the Synod, while he also points to another scar and takes pride that he created it. That nasty gash happened at the front, didn't it?"
Shoto remained staring at Touya but nodded.
"Then he did put that mark on you all the same. If he is in league with the Summoner, this whole war in some part is his responsibility. He and the Summoner much each take blame for every scar, every wound, every one of the thousands of deaths. He is no savior to your sorry lot in life, he is the curse to everyone else's. Just look around you; this is the future for all of Gaetha, Mages and the untouched alike!"
The world around him went out and then back into focus briefly and all of the devastation they had so easily stepped over while Touya had filled their ears with rhetoric became clear again. The dead soldiers by their mangled horses, the score of Mages now drained husks, already turning to rot, all not a hundred yards from the ongoing onslaught of the Tarlson and King's armies struggling for victory against certain evil.
Touya's inherent appeal slipped from Shoto as easily as an eel through slicked fingers and the intense anger he'd felt over what the Fallen Mage had tried to do usurped the purring warmth of recognition he'd derived from Touya's heartfelt words; the appeal of the Fallen Mages attention on him was tainted easily by the reality strewn about their feet.
"Shoto," the red in Touya's eyes flared like flames, "Give me a chance, I know I can make you understand."
"I think you've said enough," Natsuo spun his sword in hand and adjusted the grip on his shield.
Touya huffed, unimpressed, disdainful towards his brother. "You are already defeated, what fight do you expect to have with me? Even your dragon is weakened, his wounds are barely healed and the power Shoto has taken from this Mage is nothing compared to what I have consumed. Destroying you will be a small effort if you force me to do so. You cannot hope to kill me."
"We don't have to kill you."
Natsuo was pinned with a sea of curious eyes and a skeptic frown from Touya.
"We only have to delay you a bit longer."
The thrum of the ether still pulsing in Shoto's ears made everything around him register a bit slower than to the others and the turn of their eyes Southward was his only clue that something was happening. First, he saw Touya's expression fall and then, finally, he heard the echo of a horn and the rumble of galloping feet. The shuddering ground told how close they were and the blurred shadows on the horizon moved into distinct shadows.
"Bastard!" Touya's hand whipped and a tendril cut across Natsuo's quickly raised shield, "You were stalling?"
Natsuo straightened confidently from his defense, a stark lack of anything in his face, "I'm glad it was you here of all people. You've always been easy to distract with a good argument."
Eijiro tensed and began to growl at the Fallen Mage growing steadily more enraged. "I don't think I like your brothers, Shoto."
Shoto cringed at the words in his head and prepared for the situation they had all been delaying to come crashing down in a hell fury.
Red wrapped up around Touya's arms, gripped into him and flooded out of his palms as pure light twisted into gruesome glyphs. Shoto reached within himself to pull up the little that remained of his own power, praying it would be enough to keep them all alive a few moments longer.
"Death is too good for you!" Touya screamed at Natsuo.
"The First Cohort will not be so unprepared as these," Natsuo completely ignored his anger, "Headmaster Keigo will not be so easily defeated as these when there's an entire well trained Cohort at his back. Don't begin to think I fear you or your displays of power."
Touya looked back and forth between the three that stood against him and the approaching army.
His confidence faltered.
The red in his hands flickered and then suddenly it disappeared.
It was a single moment of calm and quiet, followed by the rock and crack of the earth around them.
No enchantment could withstand the pure force of the rippling magic bursting around him and Natsuo and Shoto collapsed. The dragon's claws dug into the ground, but even he was drug backwards despite forcing down his wings to not catch wind.
Shoto blinked through dirt and wiped away his face to see Touya, unshifted and panting. His teeth were grit in the bitterness of perceived betrayal towards the still oncoming reinforcements.
"I still have faith in you, Shoto," he said, taking a step back, "Think about what I've said. Find me if you change your mind… There will always be a place for you with me. There won't be with them. You'll see."
Gasping back his lost breath, Shoto choked on a response that never broke his throat.
Darkness like no other swallowed everything around them and Shoto suddenly understood how Eijiro would say the air could taste like the Ether. The density, like a fog, was tangible to every sense, but it lasted only a moment.
It fell away and swept into the night as Shoto leapt back to his feet.
But Touya was already gone.
The weight of the ether went with him, remaining only as a flicker on the wind, a light pulse from what remained of the enemy army, falling swiftly to ruin, and a hollow echo from the gruesome mess left of Tarlson's Second Cohort.
The Tarlson reinforcements were nearly upon them, but they would find very little left for them to attack. The clamor of their hooves was loud, but Shoto noted the silence from Izuku, his pained groans having accompanied the surroundings from the moment Shoto had bled him. But hands from two mages were over him, glowing with white light, soothing and healing the damage they had done to him.
Natsuo arose as the army came upon them and suddenly Ochako's shout snapped Shoto back to a reality he'd forgotten.
"Red, get out of here!"
It was easy to forget in the heat of this mess that a Dragon was a kill on sight enemy to the common man and, while the approaching forces were a relief to them, they were an immediate danger to Eijiro.
"But I can't leave you all here…"
"Go, we'll be fine!" Shoto mentally screamed.
A displeased growl sent a tremor down Shoto's spine and then the Dragon was leaping into the air with a gusting force that made both standing men stumble.
"I'm not going far," Eijiro insisted, "I won't leave Ochako."
Everyone tensed as a battalion of horsemen split around them in a full-on charge to the enemy forces at their backs.
Through the middle of the focused charge, one small group remained moving head long towards them as the bulk of the force rushed to finish the battle. The words of the Fallen Mage struck Shoto to a stiffened, drawn stillness when he recognized the elaborate armor of the leader and the stern, scarred face beneath the battle helm.
The same sort of apprehension ebbed off of Natsuo, nothing like how he'd acted when seeing Lord Enji earlier in his Grand Hall. But whether either of them wanted to think on or believe Touya's words or not, it didn't lessen the poignancy of seeing the man here, the man the Mage had said to be all of their father; the focus of Touya's deepest hatred.
Stone cold blue eyes, the same shade of Touya's stared down Natsuo and Shoto as his small party came to a halt in front of them and the rest of the reinforcements galloped on.
Natsuo darted glances at Shoto uncertainly and the Mage hid his hands behind him, praying that Natsuo would not speak on what he had seen, on the magic he had likely witnessed Shoto using…on the things Touya had told them.
"Lord Commander," Lord Enji barked in urgency and Natsuo straightened like a soldier to his superior.
"My Lord, we are-"
"Natsuo."
The Lord's son flinched at hearing his name on his father's lips. Shoto startled too, the Lord's next works breaking any delusion that his attention was on either of them at a time like this.
"Natsuo, where is the king?"
