cw: graphic depiction of violence, borderline gore
Chapter 2: observing all things, with dispassion, bested by neither snow nor summer heat
The first time his old hag dragged him off to a regional tour, Izuku didn't take the news well.
Actually, 'not taking it well' was an understatement to how it took Katsuki emptying out his entire bundle of dorayaki into a basket to reduce the idiot's crying to sniffles. As Izuku ate up what was definitely the kitchens' whole stock of the said wagashi sweets in between hiccups and teary eyes, Katsuki sat by the ashen bank's edge.
With an arm propped on his knee and hand cupping his cheek, he watched greedy hands reach into what was once a harvesting basket now turned container for whatever Katsuki wanted to give Izuku with every visit. Amidst the kikko ami ash plaiting were remedied patches of bamboo green that, when Katsuki asked where he got the rare plant from, Izuku answered with a dismissive laugh.
(It annoyed him to no end when he was at the receiving end of that but didn't push, letting himself be swept away from one conversation to another)
There must've been around a dozen or more dorayaki in the basket when Katsuki pushed it across the stream, but in a blink, Izuku was already halfway done with the last of the sweet. Some of the anko paste stuck to the corner of Izuku's mouth, lips shining with the wagashi's coat of honey and mirin and Katsuki's fingers twitched at the sight.
(What his fingers wanted to do, he didn't know. But the feeling behind that urge was weird as fuck so he swore to bring more dorayaki that dripped with that sweet rice wine next time)
Plopping the last flour patty filled with sweet adzuki bean paste in his mouth, Izuku sucked on his sullied fingers, still sniffling. Tears built up on his lashes, making them droop and brush against the splatter of freckles on his flushed cheeks.
Looking at Izuku now, even Katsuki couldn't register that the crybaby muttering "stupid Kacchan, liar Kacchan" had hands stinging with scarred and popping blisters from years of religious practice. It was unthinkable to associate this sniffling nerd with the youth who cast shadows on the green bank under the the setting red moon to the rising night sun, his body moving one with each weapon Katsuki brought and taught.
The back of Izuku's hands were bruised and his palms chafed from handling the kusarigama's ball-and-sickle chains, arms straining with every strike and thrust of the jo staff.
These were also the same hands that rubbed away at pine green eyes that bore into Katsuki's own, both of them suddenly caught up in an impromptu staring match.
If Katsuki wasn't afraid of triggering another crying session that'd end with them leaving on bad terms, he would've already snapped and said, "What the fuck are you looking at, you greedy pig? What, didn't get enough of the wagashi I was supposed to eat on the way back, ha?"
(He ignored the fear he had, too, that those rapidly growing weapon-handling skills would be used against him. Still, he kept a subtle eye on the kusaragima lying just a couple feet away from Izuku)
So the (genius) plan was to stay silent, maintain eye contact, and wait for Izuku to make the move.
He was pretty confident in this plan since it worked when, on the times he'd trek back home, he'd encounter those bloodthirsty shorthorn bulls. Katsuki wouldn't blink or pull his gaze away from those blackened eyes, but stay, wait, and watch.
The bull's tail would swish from side to side, front hooves stomping and breaking volcanic ground, and plumes of smoke coming out with every huff and snort through its nostrils. The decision–to strike or to let it go–would fall on the beast's stubbed horns that, in a blink, could turn into twisted spears that tore through scale, skin, muscle, and bone.
Hence, the (genius) plan to stay silent, maintain eye contact, and wait for the shorthorn to make the move.
It would've probably– no, definitely worked on Izuku if the nerd wasn't a stubborn bitchass with green eyes bleeding accusation of Katsuki's betrayal in not keeping the childish promise of never leaving the idiot behind.
It didn't help either that with cheeks puffed out, shiny lips pressed together, and eyes alight with defiance, it was so fucking obvious that Izuku was brimming with things to say and ask but wouldn't.
The staring match lasted for two minutes.
"Agh, dammit! Just spit it the fuck out, nerd!"
(Katsuki did not lose. He was someone who didn't know what the word 'lose' meant and it'd stay that way since no one would ever know how quick he curbed under those goddamn eyes)
Izuku perked up, and immediately scrambled to the green bank's edge, his forlorn and kicked-puppy expression gone. "Where are you going, Kacchan?"
After grumbling curses under his breath about "shitty eyes" and "who the hell taught him that," Katsuki sighed. "To Hokkaidō."
"Where's that?"
"It's where pretentious icebloods live in their shitty ice domes that they like to call castles," said Katsuki as he began rummaging through his nagagi's sleeves and fish out a small pouch. Deft fingers loosened the cord, and it opened to a good amount of pebble-sized misshapen rocks. Vermillion-tinted veins glowed upon meeting Tōhoku's scorching night wind as if purring at the taste of its homeland's air.
As Katsuki sorted through the pouch, Izuku took no notice with his face scrunched up in confusion. "Iceblood…? Oh! You mean the North Sea Road, Kacchan? Ah! Does that mean Kacchan's really going to go around? Really?"
"I fucking said 'tour', didn't I, dipshi–"
Izuku squealed, and it was only thanks to Katsuki's reflexes that the igneous rocks he'd been infusing golden flames into didn't tumble, lost, into the goddamn stream.
(The thought of chucking these ticking time bombs over across and into Izuku's face was so tempting, dammit–)
Unaware of Katsuki's thoughts, Izuku kept rambling, excitement making him trip over his words. "So you're going, Kacchan? To East of the Border, West of the Border, Central Country, the Four Countries, and even the Summer Regions? Really, really? You're really going to go to all those places? Wow, Kacchan's amazing!"
(–But maybe not just yet and not now. It'd be a shame to waste the rocks he'd spent the past days gathering while sneaking away from his stalker-like tutors)
Katsuki snorted, a plume of smoke coming out of his nostrils. "Ha, you sound like the elders when you call those shitty places like that." Even with mocking intent, somehow–just somehow–his words came out fond and in an amused tone he didn't think he could even make.
"Eh?" Izuku cocked his head to the side, dark green curls bouncing, falling, and framing his face. Illuminated by the fire forest's flames, pine green eyes shone openly.
(They were eyes that spelled a trap that not even the most seasoned warrior could stop themselves from wading into and drowning in its depths)
"Did I call them wrong, Kacchan?" asked Izuku.
Katsuki wanted to say "yes, you've been calling those shitholes by their ancien names that no one uses but old farts and Kansai's snotty historians." He wanted to submit to that urge to prove others' inferiority and his own superiority.
He wanted to see those green eyes he'd been subservient to for too long and for too much, fill with tears of utter humiliation that Izuku would end up turning to no one else but him–
"No," said Katsuki, swallowing the growl that stirred in his chest. "It's just– ugh, yeah, whatever. The old hag's gonna drag me along and leave my old man here since his 'hips are hurting, oh my poor Masaru.'"
(Maybe leaving, if only for a little while, wasn't so bad. Maybe then these degenerate thoughts that ran with mindless chants of mine, mine, mine would fucking stop)
"Heh," Izuku chuckled.
"What?"
"Your mother must really like your father, huh, Kacchan?"
Katsuki raised a brow. "Well, yeah. The crazy bitch–"
"Kacchan! Don't call her that!"
"–chased his spineless ass around and everything. Isn't that how parents are to each other? What, don't know even that, shitty Deku?"
It'd been some several years since Katsuki followed the sound of crying in the dark and, with fire tree seeds in Izuku's frail hands, called Katsuki kind.
It'd been less than that since Izuku, during one of Katsuki's visits, held out a small hand against that pantomimic wall of nothingness and implored Katsuki to do the same because–
I wanted to shake your hand, Kacchan, but… I can't. So this is the best I can do and at least this way I can finally say: Nice to meet you.
Months had turned to years by the time Katsuki's quick temper was ebbed (at least, in Izuku's presence), and Izuku's frailty was strengthened through training—weapons for the body, and tetsuyōsō sewn books for the mind. It was in that span of time when awkward silences that followed the back-and-forth pass of the basket eventually turned into night-long conversations on everything and nothing.
Years had passed since Katsuki came to call Izuku his friend and still, there were times when he'd say the wrong fucking thing.
The soft smile on Izuku's face froze at Katsuki's words. He watched, with horror, as the light in those green eyes dimmed and dimmed until he couldn't see them anymore across the stream.
Forcedly, the corner of Izuku's lips tilted up into a broken smile. "I guess I don't know… that. Sorry, Kacchan."
Katsuki opened his mouth but nothing came out. The rumbling of words and strings of letters in his chest were quiet and still, and what use was his propensity for snappy remarks if he couldn't muster a simple "sorry"?
(It was in times like this that he wished he knew what an apology was)
Katsuki clicked his tongue. "De–"
"So you're really going, Kacchan? To all those places?" asked Izuku and just like that, it happened again. Again, he didn't get to untangle the knots in his mouth, throat, and chest. Once more, the shadow that grew day-by-day over Izuku slinked back to a place he couldn't reach or coax out.
(Not with the stream between them. Not with the distance Izuku didn't want to talk about and which Katsuki didn't realize the severity yet)
Katsuki opened his mouth to stop the farce Izuku was putting up, but… the nerd was trembling. Tanning hands chafed from handling weapons and devouring honey-coated dorayaki were trembling on Izuku's lap.
"Yeah," Katsuki's claws broke through the hardened skin of his palms. "That's what I fucking said, shitty Deku. We're going to fucking everywhere except Chūgoku–you called it Central Country–, and Kyūshū and Okinawa–what your nerdy ass knows as the Summer Regions."
Drops of crimson blood splattered, dropped, and sizzled on the open pouch of igneous rocks in his lap. Their vermillion veins glowing in delight from the meal, and it was only the cover of the night that prevented Izuku from noticing.
(It was frustrating but he would play along because now wasn't the time for it. Not now when he was leaving Izuku for much longer than a few days and weeks.
Again Katsuki ignored the voice that asked, then when would be the time for it?)
"Eh?" Izuku frowned. "Why not? I thought Kacchan's going everywhere?"
"It's… I'll tell you about it when I come back, alright?" Katsuki winced as he seared shut the four punctures on his palm, the scorching night wind thankfully carrying away the smell of burning flesh before it could reach Izuku.
He rolled his eyes at Izuku's pout. "I'll be back soon so stop treating this goodbye like I'm leaving for my funeral, idiot. Just… don't go fucking forget me while I'm away, nerd! I'll fucking kill you if you do, got it?!"
Izuku chuckled, smiling teasingly. "Heh, I don't know Kacchan… it's gonna be so long," He hummed and asked sing-songingly, "How will I remember you?"
It was only right, Katsuki thought, that his parting 'gift' was the same as the greeting 'gift' he'd given Izuku when they first met. It was also pure luck or fate that even with all the grueling training he made the nerd go through, the idiot's reflexes were, well, shit.
"Ugh," Izuku rubbed at his not-broken-but-still-swollen nose, cradling the small pouch of igneous rocks in one hand. "Kacchan!"
"Deku," said Katsuki teasingly.
"Jerk." Izuku muttered and looked to start another lecture (one Katsuki'd heard for far too many times in the past years), but stopped when he inspected the 'gift' closer.
It was just a simple pouch—one of many that Katsuki had too much lying around. The outside's silk was threaded with shed scales that took the brunt of Tōhoku's heat for the delicate fabric. Its inner lining was the same; lacking design as Tōhoku valued practicality over useless embellishments.
It was just a simple pouch.
"Kacchan, this is–" Izuku sputtered, hands shaking as he unraveled the necklace tied around the closing. The young fire tree's burning leaves at his side shone on the ruby-coated fangs and bead-like jewels that swayed in his trembling hold.
Katsuki rolled his eyes and cracked his neck, now bare of one of the few pieces of jewelry he was never without. There were still three resting over his nagagi—all of them proof that above the tradition of lineage, strength was still what the North East recognized.
The ones around his neck were from three instances in his life– fangs from a distant relative on the old hag's side who called him an unworthy heir, claws from an assassin whose throat he tore out, and torn scales from an idiot sowing rebellion.
The one in Izuku's shaking hands now, its red sheen still vibrant even after all these years, held his old man's fangs and the smoothened scales from his nape.
(It was just a simple pouch if not for what other regions would call a crown being used as a cord to tie it close)
The importance of the necklace was something the nerd knew well with the way his hands trembled, unsure whether to hold it in reverence or chuck it back to its owner casually lounging on the ashen bank.
"Kacchan–! You can't just– this is…!"
"Ha? It's food for Pochi, idiot. What, you gonna let that shitty tree die while I'm gone?"
"No, no, I get that, but I'm talking about–" Izuku let out a frustrated groan, clutching the necklace away from the water stream. "A-about this!"
Katsuki stared at him. "I don't see the problem. Plus, you wanted this right?"
"Wha–? I never said–"
"–that you wanted to remember me?" Izuku clamped his mouth shut, leaving Katsuki smirking as he stood up and brushed off the dust off his clothes.
He nodded at the necklace now clutched and nestled against Izuku's chest. "Keep that, you shithead. Sleep with it, bathe with it, train with it– do fucking everything with it so that you don't forget me."
Giving it away would definitely give him a headache with the questions that'd follow–especially from his nosy old hag. To come up with all sorts of excuses throughout the regional tour until he finally came back would be a bother too.
(But the look on Izuku's face was, Katsuki thought, just a bit worth it)
Izuku laughed, eyes lost into crescents. He lifted the necklace, brushed his lips against the glimmering smoothened scales and fire resin-covered fangs, and looked up at Katsuki.
"As if I could forget someone as amazing as you, Kacchan."
(Or not)
Katsuki turned away, the passing wind ruffling up his hair and betraying the flush running along his nape to the tip of his ears. "Ugh, just– don't fucking forget to train and I better see some real muscle by the time I'm back, Deku!"
"Mhm! I'll do my best!" cried Izuku after Katsuki's retreating back. "So come back safe and soon? Okay, Kacchan?"
Katsuki snorted, wisps of smoke coming through his fangs. He looked over his shoulder with a flushed face and cocky grin on his face.
"Whatever, nerd."
The regional tour that should've taken only three months stretched to half a year when nature raged against his every turn and step. A crack in the earth, flash floods, and days-on-end of rigid hospitality were almost enough to make him break.
But the promise to come back and tell Izuku about the generations-long war, see his graceful form wielding the naginata and yari spears, and get back the ruby necklace now rich with the nerd's scent was what kept one foot in front of the other–
To go back home.
"–and since our great leader's here busy with his head up in fumes, we'll set out tonight and leave his ass here for scholars and bards to mock once we win."
"If we win, you dumb blonde," Katsuki looks away from the setting red moon and drills his gaze into yellow ones. "The fastest way to lose a fight is to assume you're gonna win it. Didn't Four Eyes fucking tell you that?"
"Katsuki, I know we skeletals have eyes at the back of our heads but I still have a name."
"And so does Sparky here, but you don't hear me calling a thing like him properly, do you?"
Tenya opens his mouth again, the red-blue glow in his pitch black eye sockets flickering as he prepares for another full-blown lecture. Denki is still at it with his dramatics of angering the 'oh so hot tempered great leader' while at the other end of the rectangular chabudai table.
Stacks of makimono blocks a good quarter of the blonde idiot from Katsuki's view, the scrolls towering over the spread out emakimono image that covers the chabudai from one end to the other.
As Katsuki drones out the soon-to-be-fucking-dead human engineer's babble, Katsuki looks around at the others around him.
Tenya—one of Kansai's librarians and battle record keeper—sits at Denki's left, miraculously not toppling over any of the stacked makimono with his waving arms. Across from his lecturing ass and to the left of Denki's antics is Ochako with a hand cupping her cheek, and a hand creeping towards the plate of daifuku mochi.
True to Katsuki's nickname for her–Airhead–, Shikoku's air nymph head priestess is looking at who the fuck knows what. The stack of washi paper that's for taking down notes have turned into origami shapes of woodland creatures, the little shishin dragon, bird, tiger, and turtles guarding the plate.
Ochako looks like she's avidly listening to Tenya's sudden history lecture on the origin of skeletals' eyes, but Katsuki knows better.
He's willing to bet Tōhoku's land that those brown eyes are looking past Tenya and out the window conveniently situated behind the man.
As if feeling eyes burning through the side of her head and reading his mind, Airhead turns and meets Katsuki's gaze. She blinks, gives him a lazily, cocky smile, and mouths, "Don't be a landless hypocrite, Explody."
Katsuki's hands twitch on the table.
(It isn't like Shikoku's short on priestesses, anyway. Maybe he can still swap out this glutton for Ponytail)
A heavy hand landing on his shoulder snuffs out thoughts of throwing a fire arrow (or two, he's pretty generous).
Out of all the people in the continent who knows about the charred fate that befalls people around him, there's only one idiot who not-so-surprisingly lacks self-preservation.
Katsuki follows the heavily-tanned hand gripping his shoulder, up along sunspots along strong arms to the tattooed black mark under a rugged jaw. It's a simple mark, with six deep bone-branding black strokes forming 自 that's long been part of every pirate-mercenaries' skin in the Summer Regions.
(That shithole in the Summer Regions is exactly that– a shithole)
Eijirō gives him a misleading sharp-toothed smile that carries too much of demonic wildness and overpowers the gentle fire in those red eyes. There's a flash of poorly veiled concern in Eijirō's gaze, and there's an even poorer attempt to brush all of that away under a stilted laugh.
"You know she's just baiting you, man," says the overgrown idiot in a too-loud whisper. "How 'bout we go through at least one meeting where you don't make Tenya cry by burning his precious records, yeah?"
"Or," Katsuki drawls. "How about we go through at least one meeting where you stop playing peacemaker, ha, Shitty Hair?"
"Dude, we practically have the same hair!" Eijirō wildly gestures at that atrocious mop of red spikes on his head mimicking Mt. Chōkai in peak eruption.
Katsuki growls and pinches the hand on his shoulder. He ignores the yelp and whimper coming from his right-hand man and says menacingly, "You take that back, asshole. And it's not my fucking fault you're not like Half and Half here who's prickly and insecure about your mixed blood. Hell, you're even proud of it."
At the mention, the man isolated from the chaos of another one of their meetings sighs at Katsuki's left side. He sets down the self-inking pen (one of Denki's inventions) and shifts to face Katsuki, ice jewels tied into red and white strands swaying with the movement.
Though they all started seated in seiza (sans Katsuki who just carelessly flops on the zabuton), with legs tucked under their knees, only Shōto remains in the position now.
Ochako's already mutilated another one of the cushions with her restless hands. Denki fools Tenya again into giving his to the blonde maniac who, this time, fashions them into a neck pillow. Eijirō acts the same as always and hoards the zabutons from these meetings to take home.
(Shitty Hair acts like there's a goddamned shortage on stuffing and bovine skin with the rate he steals those cushions)
Katsuki, well, there isn't much that needs to be said as to why he isn't sitting on a zabuton anymore.
So Shōto, sitting in a picture-perfect seiza posture, looks like a goddamned idiot amidst the chaos.
"Please don't drag me into another one of your pointless arguments, Tōhoku Leader," He says expressionless and emotionless as all iceblood pricks are.
Katsuki clicks his tongue. "I told you not to call me that, Half and Half."
"And I told you, as I've repeated for months now, that me being half fireborn isn't imperative for me to follow each and every one of your orders," Shōto pauses, his blue eye marred by an ice burn flashing in a rare show of irritation. "Especially not when you deliberately call me something I've told you I… am averse to."
"Just say you hate it and go, Half and Half."
Shōto frowns. "But the meeting isn't done yet. Why should I leave after another failed attempt to teach you basic decency in treating your allies?"
"Oh, snap." Denki whisper-shouts in between bites of the daifuku he and Ochako monopolized to their side of the table.
"The only thing that's gonna snap here is your fucking neck, Sparky. Want me to pull out your shitty tongue too, ha?"
"Eh," Denki shrugs. "It's not like you listened to a single word I said earlier right? Pull my tongue, snap my neck… how about you pay attention to a meeting for your operation, dude?"
That would've been enough, Katsuki thinks, for him to shift his glare from Shōto to the human who's getting cockier and haughtier by the day. He thinks those remarks would've made him gone through with the threat, be stopped by everyone else, risk losing Kantō's technological support, and end the meeting with a scuffle (like always).
It would've been enough if the dumb blonde didn't foolishly mutter under his breath, "If you miss him so much, don't use us an excuse and waste everyone's time, sheesh–"
Denki stops speaking.
Tenya's background-running lecture shuts off as he snaps his skeletal mouth shut, clunky bones knocking against each other. Shōto and Eijirō's faces are unreadable—one stone-cold and the latter hardened.
And Ochako's… shaking. She's trembling but rooted to her seat, her weightless body draped by flowing fabrics of her furisode and its long sleeves is grounded. Air is still around her as she slowly follows where the flash of heat that brushed past her came and went. With the tip of her button nose and the apple of her cheeks tingling with heat, she and everyone else sees it.
There, embedded in the fusuma behind Denki and just mere inches to his right, is a fire arrow.
It's small, barely big enough to be called that, but all of them recognizes it. They know–from the golden flames forming the shaft and fletching, the cracks still spreading from the lodged arrowhead, and the gold sparks on Denki's cheek and the tips of his ear that nicks skin, sizzles flesh, and draws blood.
No one speaks until the licking golden flames sputter, bury itself deeper, spread more cracks in the fusuma, and then– nothing.
Everyone watches until there's nothing left of it but harmless golden flakes on the silvery-ash tatami.
Throughout it all, Katsuki's face is closed off. Gone is the expressive anger, irritation, and lust for destruction that's been their main assurance of his character.
(He's an asshole, but an honest and frank one who they wholeheartedly entrust their backs and fates to)
The hand that swiftly let out the fiery projectile is curled into a fist, Katsuki leaning against it with an elbow propped on the table. His other hand has its claws out, and they twitch against the rolled out emakimono whenever someone tries to move—Tenya opening his mouth, Denki swallowing, Ochako breathing, Eijirō reaching out a hand, and Shōto's hair swaying from the setting red moon's cool wind through the open doors.
When Katsuki's claws twitch, no one moves.
(It's a testament, Katsuki thinks, of how, despite calling themselves allies, it doesn't change the fact that he made them submit first. Fear from power builds the solid foundation for everything else—respect, trust, friendship.
There's only one exception for that)
The moment the golden sparks are carried away by Tōhoku's merciful wind, Shōto speaks.
"You know you– you know that you two couldn't stay in that peaceful bubble forever, right? Because if you did– and if you still do, then you must be as stupid as I thought you once were."
Eijirō hisses. "Shōto! That's going too far!"
"You're not that stupid, I think, Katsuki," Shōto keeps on going because Katsuki's not doing anything to stop him, the fiery man silent and eerily subdued.
Those slitted scarlet eyes aren't seeing anything else but the spread-out map before all of them. Different dyed stones and sculptured figures are spread all over the ink-drawn continent on washi.
(It doesn't take a genius to know just where exactly Katsuki's looking at. It's a place no one but two people knows of and a location both would take to the grave; a curse one despairs, and a blessing one cherishes)
"I don't think you're that naive, Katsuki. You're not stupid or a fool or else I and everyone else in this room wouldn't be here, following you," The hard look on Shōto's face softens, and he sighs. "And I don't think he is, either."
"Shōto-kun," Ochako starts, glazed brown eyes turning sharp. "I think that's enou–"
"We know," says Katsuki so quietly, so softly, and so defeatedly that it takes a moment to sink in. "We know, Shō. We know."
He lifts his gaze from the map and looks back at what made him forget, for far longer than he should've let himself do.
Scarlet eyes follow the sinking curve of the red moon beneath the sea of flames the fire forest makes in the western distance. He follows it until it sinks into the depths of the west and night finally falls.
(It's the time he's supposed to be there beside the stream of water, seeing a galaxy spun of freckles on green everything)
Katsuki rips his gaze away and, with a look, Denki clears his throat and resumes the meeting.
Into the night, the human talks and talks until the lanterns along the engawa corridors are lit. Denki talks with a hoarse throat and so do the others, words and remarks flying from one side to another about weapons for the war that'll end wars.
Katsuki listens and it's only the brief moment when the wispy figure of the night sun creeps into the corner of his eye that he wonders if Izuku's waiting and bleeding by the stream.
Bloodshed and injury was something Katsuki grew up with.
From an early age where the smell of burning and burned flesh filled his nose until he could no longer distinguish it from pure air, violence was a part of every fireborn's life.
Whether they were born of fire and graced to live in Tōhoku or not, only those who managed to breathe in the scorching air, walk without cushion on volcanic ground, and bathe in bubbling lakes of lava could truly live in the North East.
And yet.
Only when, after waiting for hours for an unusually late nerd, did Katsuki realize he didn't know pain. It was only when the crimson glow of fire trees revealed Izuku's bloody forms stumbling against cypress tree after tree, did Katsuki realize he didn't know what the hell suffering was.
The red moon had set long ago. The night sun was still rising from the east, and the forest's flaming leaves rose as if to blanket the sky.
(Whether the land knew it was too gruesome of a sight for any wandering eye to see, Katsuki didn't know but he was grateful nonetheless)
Izuku's mouth was moving, neck straining and chest heaving to get words out but Katsuki didn't hear any of it.
He didn't fucking hear the pacifying words meant to quell the flames racing from his clawed hands and feet that threatened to turn the water stream into nothing more than rising vapors. He didn't hear the soothing cries for his name or see the panic etched on Izuku's face when he realized that Katsuki was turning the ground beneath into a sea of flames.
Katsuki didn't hear or see anything else but the sight before him bathed in the cruel brilliant light of fire trees.
It'd been just the other fucking day that Izuku's arms moved under the red moon, his muscles tense with every swing of the katana, throw of the kunai dagger, and twirling thrust of the naginata. A sheen of sweat had–just the other day–covered the smooth, tanned expanse of skin that Katsuki taunted as still too skinny, weak, and lacking of scars.
(Why the fuck did he say that? Why the fuck did he say that? Why the fuck did he–)
"Kacchan," Izuku's voice was hoarse and wrong and grating against Katsuki's ears. "Kacchan, it's okay. I'm fine, so please calm dow–"
"Who?"
"–…What?"
Katsuki took a step forward. Then another. And another until he's rushing through the stream, steam violently erupting and hissing with every step. He ran, pulled his arm back, and rammed a fist against that damned inch-thick wall of nothing.
"Who–" Katsuki pulled back a swelling fist and rammed it again. "–did that to you, Izuku? Fucking–" A leg reared and kicked, burning soles sputtering against the block. "–tell me who I should kill, Izuku!"
Every punch he delivered against nothingness gave him broken brones, split tendons, and tingling nerves that popped like explosions between skin and blood. Muscles strained and burst from the constant push and pull, and his body cried for him to stop but Katsuki fucking won't.
(He won't, he won't, I won't, I fucking can't–)
Another kick sent vibrations racing along his leg, the shock popping one joint from the other. Instead of a cry of pain (because it was painful, so much more than he knew he could bear), he gnashed his teeth together, fangs filling his mouth with tasteless iron.
Katsuki stumbled, about to fall into the cold, dry soil of the stream, but the sight of Izuku again stopped him. Every breath he'd take and swallow was like scraping needles clinking and down his throat, and he didn't remember how to fucking breath it out.
So the needles built up into a lump that'd tug and pull at the flesh of his throat, lungs, and heart with every breath.
But Katsuki doesn't fucking care.
Blindly–desperately–, he dug the clawed feet of his ruined leg into the ground and he reared up again because he still had another leg, right? He still had arms for a punch, ten fingers for a scratch, a goddamned head for a bash, and nothing–fucking nothing was working.
(How does someone beat the unseen, kill the nonliving, and break past a jail with its jailor the willing prisoner?)
"Kacchan," Izuku sobbed. "Kacchan, please stop."
Katsuki kept on throwing his body against the pantomimic wall of nothingness, his bruised and purple arms bleeding from the inside hanging uselessly at his side. They swayed and dripped with gushing blood (from where, not even Katsuki knew anymore), and still he didn't stop.
"Kacchan…! Kacchan, please."
Only one of his eyes was working now, with the other swimming with blood of a popped vessel and the flowing wound from the head he kept bashing against that damned inch of a distance. Katsuki didn't know if he could blink and distinguish if his stinging eyes poured out blood or tears because–
He could still see it.
As his mind swam and darkness crept along his vision, he still saw it– Izuku's injuries.
Now on his knees on the green bank, Izuku looked like he was praying. His white samue shone immaculately under the rising night sun's bloody glow, the red and blue accents at the hems gleaming like pseudo-gems on holy garment.
(He only needed wings to be the creature of myth that descended from skies to save the pure and slay the damned)
Izuku looked like he was praying but how could he pray– how could the shitty nerd clasp his hands together when both his arms were bruised, wrung, twisted, and fucking oozing wounds in places where blood burst from pressure?
How could he– how could the idiot still cry for Katsuki's unrelenting attempts in breaking down this nothingness that'd been preventing them from running to each other?
(Izuku could and he would because that was the man who Katsuki was willing to spend the rest of his life suffocating from wounds for. This was the man– the only person he'd lose every limb for if it meant he could get just a finger past that inch of a distance)
Izuku's arms were twisted, joints long disjoined from each other, and bones crushed into white powder that flowed with blood. His once healthy skin was purple, nails cracked and turned dark, and fingers twisted from one direction to another. With every heaving breath, these wrangled monstrosities swayed and Katsuki could've been fooled that they were simply dyed sleeves of Izuku's jacket.
So this pain Katsuki was feeling? This supposed agony his mind was trying to tell him to stop dealing on himself?
These prickling needles he breathed in and never breathed out, building up more and more in his throat and filling his chest? The disassociating numbness through all of his bloodied and broken limbs, and the fog threatening to drag him under?
This was nothing to the crushing hold that Izuku's tears had on his flaming heart.
This was fucking nothing.
(This had to be nothing. This can't be anything)
Katsuki swayed on his feet, and his steps that once made the still-flowing stream turn to nothing but vapors now made mere splashes. Flames running from his clawed hands and feet sputtered weakly– still there, still trying, but just barely.
The cold of the water seeped deep into his bones, and the thought of closing his eyes for just a bit wouldn't be so bad, right?
"Kacchan!"
–But he can't because Izuku was still there on the other side of this goddamn wall, barrier, block– whatever the fuck he could call what'd been keeping him from his friend, rival, comrade, lov–
"Please, please, please," Izuku stood on wobbly feet and waded into the stream. He cried, sobbed, and whimpered as he stumbled closer and closer to Katsuki's raging form.
Katsuki was back to shoving his shoulder against the wall by the time Izuku reached him. He didn't register Izuku's presence, eyes hazy and half-blind with blood and anger. His mouth was open in a snarl, fangs snapping on teeth and air, growling out a crazed mantra of "who, who, who, who."
Bathed in sputtering flames, he looked like a beast that'd listen to no one and see nothing but blood and carnage.
(Pain was something Katsuki's body and mind brushed aside. When a bone broke too harshly, and a joint popped out too suddenly, it was Izuku's bloody form stumbling past the line of cypress trees that spurred another burst– another punch, kick, scratch, shove, bash, and anything)
The iron tang of blood filled his mouth briefly before pouring from his half-open mouth. It dripped down his lips, chin, jaw, and rained into the flowing water threatening to make his broken knees buckle and fail.
Katsuki stumbled and reared back, readying himself to try again and again and fucking again until he couldn't anymo–
"Katsuki," whispered Izuku. He leaned closer, forehead resting on the spot that had reduced Katsuki to a broken state. "Katsuki– You can… you can stop now. Please."
Izuku let out a shuddering breath and his chest hitched from sobs he couldn't control. His eyes, heavy with lashes carrying tears, opened to see Katsuki's; pine green to scarlet, scarlet to pine green.
Then he gave a smile and Katsuki couldn't do anything else but stop because–
(It was when Izuku was in the most pain that the idiot smiled. And at this moment, it was Katsuki who was the goddamned source of it)
The next time Katsuki's head hit that space of nothingness, it wasn't with another futile bash but with the soft thump of defeat.
He was still panting, fangs and claws out. Golden scales that forcibly broke out along the sides of his face, forearms, and feet still dripped with blood, the ever-flowing stream carrying away all red.
Katsuki was still half-blind, mind throbbing with the alluring mantra of destruction and revenge, but sane enough to stop.
They spent some time like that, both of them wrung, wrangled, wronged, and leaning against each other. In that time, all Katsuki could think about were the 'what-ifs.'
What if their foreheads, now an inch apart, could touch? Would Izuku's warmth chase away the cold of the water seeping in the broken spaces of his body?
What if their arms weren't uselessly hanging and swaying at their sides with every breath? What if, instead, they were strong and whole enough to reach out and finally map out each other's fates in their palms?
What if there was no inch worth of a distance between them?
(It was foolish to keep thinking of 'what-ifs,' but it was only through them that Katsuki could make himself believe–just for a goddamn moment–that, with his forehead leaning against Izuku's, they were really touching each other)
By the time the burning leaves of fire trees died down into nightly embers and only the faint glow of the night sun sailing to the west was left, Katsuki finally spoke.
"What the fuck happened to you, Deku? Who–" He paused and swallowed down the growl that almost slipped out. "Who did this to you?"
(Katsuki had no pleasure in killing anyone, but he thought that he'd smile as he tore them limb from limb. He'd smile withhis mouth filled with the flesh of their torn throats, and nose breathing in the stink of their writhing, burning bodies)
Izuku smiled.
"No one, Kacchan," He said softly. "No one did this to me."
"Bullshit."
Izuku shook his head and the thump of his forehead against the wall drew Katsuki away from the drowning waves of insanity threatening to drag him under again.
Izuku was looking at him, but at the same time not. Those pine green eyes pinned down slitted scarlet with a strength and hardness Katsuki knew had been there since the day he found a green-haired crying boy.
"It's something I've lived for– no… something I am living for, Kacchan." Izuku said this with an absolute finality and the words felt like another shackle that bound Katsuki to a place.
He was trapped again, the cold declared truth digging as a collar into his neck and manacles into his wrists and ankles.
(But truths were only that until the believer stopped believing)
"Living for? Living for?" Katsuki snarled, fangs snapping against teeth in Izuku's face. His head made a loud thud as he answered Izuku, scarlet eyes imploring to make those hardened pine green eyes break.
"This isn't living, Deku," His brow split from the bash and blood poured over his still-seeing eye, and with it the Izuku in front of him was drenched in red.
"This isn't fucking living, Deku! This is dying, you goddamn idiot!"
Flames that'd been sputtering since the first arm fell uselessly at his side erupted again. Brilliant gold flames raced across his body—from bruising, bleeding arms and legs, to the sharpened jaw of young adulthood and tips of his gold-platinum hair.
The fire rose higher, brighter, and hotter than any other fire tree could do. Its flames licked and raged at the inch worth's of nothingness Katsuki was leaning against.
The flames hurt.
With every golden spark that came out, his heart of fire stopped. The fire that came and snapped against this goddamn distance pulled and squeezed out whatever his heart could give. It raced across every inch of him, and Katsuki knew it wouldn't take long until his bloodied scales would crack under the heat and burn him.
(And that was alright)
But Izuku didn't flinch. His forehead still leaned against the pantomimic wall of nothingness, and his eyes–his goddamn eyes–were still hardened with the resolve of a dying warrior.
(There was no fear of being burned because the shitty nerd knew nothing would ever get past)
There was an inch between their foreheads, but even then it seemed like Izuku could read his mind. Even with that unmoving and impenetrable barrier that didn't budge against the onslaught of sweltering heat that would've reduced a forest into ashes, Izuku knew what Katsuki was thinking as he did this.
Izuku knew and with a sad smile, a shake of the head, and a lone tear slipping down a freckled cheek, declared all of it futile.
For someone who apologized for every little thing, why was this something the idiot couldn't say sorry for? Why was it this, of all things, that Izuku stood strong for with that damned resolute sense of duty?
Just why, why, fucking why?
(Why not for me– for us, instead? Why the fuck not?)
Daybreak cracked over them and Katsuki had already turned his back when Izuku spoke. Katsuki stopped, breathed deep and looked over his shoulder.
"Living, dying… there isn't much of a difference for me," whispered Izuku.
(He should've just went on. He shouldn't've looked back because–)
Katsuki saw Izuku with a smile that'd haunt his sleeping moments from then on. Under the red moon's rise, the sight of those tear tracks on blooming freckles would haunt him.
That, he knew, was a truth that wouldn't break.
Katsuki turned away.
"Living, dying…" Izuku laughed and sobbed. "I don't have the luxury to choose between those. I never have and I never will, Kacchan."
The meeting ends once Shōto slides the fusuma shut behind him.
Katsuki watches from his seat, the slink of the Hokkaidō region leader's shadow through the door's shoji panels. There's the click-clack of nanmai zori on the engawa, the swish of nagagi against hakama, and the creak of fading steps on volcanic-coated wooden floors until Shōto's gone and Katsuki's alone.
'Alone.'
"Why don't I just give you a photo so you'll burn your eyes through that instead, huh, Shitty Hair?" Katsuki clicks his tongue. "And stop fucking fidgeting or I'll send you home to Raccoon Eyes, a one-legged idiot."
"Please don't call my mate that, man," Eijirō sighs, but his jittery legs stop. Instead, his hands over his lap begin fidgeting, a few fingers showing a hint of claw. "You know she hates that nickname, Katsuki."
"Why do you think I keep calling her that, huh?"
Eijirō lets out another exasperated sigh, but it shows how much of a frequent occurence this argument is with how he doesn't say anything further.
(Katsuki would've preferred if he did– Shitty Hair finally snapping, lecturing, and maybe tackling him through the fusuma. It would've been fucking better if they tumbled through the open garden, and their clothes soiled by volcanic ash)
Eijirō's crossed legs aren't jittery anymore. He isn't burning those red eyes into the side of Katsuki's head either.
But he's still opening and closing his mouth like a fucking indecisive idiot who can't choose between one thing and another. There's this tension that strings Eijirō's shoulders up and a pressure heavy enough to crack on the always-happy, always-positive expression on his face.
It's fucking irritating.
Katsuki grumbles, a plume of smoke coming out his nose and wisps coming through fangs that drip red with the floor lanterns' tinted light. "Look, if you're done doing your weird post-meeting reflection, then fucking go–"
"Can't you do it, Katsuki? Ask?" Eijirō lifts his gaze from his clasped, twitching hands and dares to meets Katsuki's eyes.
When red darkened by demon blood meets pure blazing scarlet, Katsuki's instinct screams. It stirs, jolts, and rushes through every part of Katsuki's body–from the tips of his fingers to the depths of his mind and heart–scattering hissing stings.
Leave, it says. Look away, run away, leave, leave, leave, it chants and drowns him with the war-tune of his drumming heart.
(He says fuck you and snuffs out that pathetic thing that dares call itself a part of him, calling for retreat)
Katsuki's tongue is heavy, and his jaw pops and cracks from forced stillness when he speaks. "Ask what?"
"You know what, Katsuki."
He snarls and leans closer– looms over Eijirō who keeps looking and keeps speaking to him as if he's something–someone to be pitied.
"No, I don't fucking know, and if you're just going to keep running your mouth without getting to what you want to actually say, then fuck off."
A clawed hand whips out and throws the rolled-up emakimano in Eijirō's face. The idiot doesn't flinch as it hits his cheek and the image rolls open out on the floor.
Bit by bit, it shows the blackened regions of Chūgoku, Kyūshū, and Okinawa. The dark ink is seeping upwards, already creeping on Shikoku's isolated edges and Kansai's ancient doorstep.
"In case you fucking forgot," says Katsuki. "We're preparing for war, Eijirō-taichō."
Shitty Hair doesn't say anything until Katsuki's already gone from his seat and is sliding the fusuma open, a clawed foot's halfway past out the room.
"…I know. We know. You–" Eijirō's voice cracks. "–of all people know. Which is why you of all people should know that if– if you're ever going to ask, then it should be to end this, Katsuki."
(Instinct clamors again but he snuffs it again because this is something– the one thing he can't run away from)
Katsuki gets past the lump in his throat and hides the tremor of his hands through digging his claws into the fusuma's stygian wood.
"This?"
"The war," says Eijirō and because he's weak he doesn't run away. No… Katsuki doesn't run out to the engawa and slide the goddamn door shut.
Because he's weak, he stays and turns to see his right-hand man, confidant, and friend's betrayal.
"Ask him– ask Izuku to end the war, Katsuki."
Since his parents' death in a campaign, he thought he's already used to what a knife in the back feels like. Katsuki thought, like a goddamned idiot, that he already knows, already expects, and is used to the bitter taste of it on his tongue and the scars that ache in his sleep.
(He doesn't know shit)
Katsuki laughs hoarsely and says to the man he thought was on his side, "Go die."
"We are going to die!" Eijirō's fist hits and shakes the chabudai. He's trembling, and his voice is still cracking but still, he keeps driving and twisting that blade deeper. "You, me, them– everyone's going to die and I can't let that happen to Mina and our–"
He stops, bites his lip, and tears his gaze from Katsuki, ducking his head.
Oh, Katsuki thinks. So that's why.
(To whoever told him that betrayal for the sake of family is justified, he calls bullshit. They have never been told, in the cruelest way, that he's someone who doesn't fit into Eijirō's definition of 'family')
So with the shattered pieces of the picture of having a 'brother'–a family–, he watches the man crumble.
Katsuki uses the cast of shadows drawn by red-tinted light of shoji lanterns to don a mask that won't crack. He holds it tight and suffocatingly against his face so he won't fucking show what the asshole doesn't have a fucking right to see anymore.
The hulking figure of the red-haired man seems small now, with him looking down on Eijirō's shaking body racked by sobs. Hands with their fair share of scars from living as a pirate-mercenary in the lawless Summer Regions are clasped together on the chabudai in a joke of a prayer.
(Who, in this world long-abandoned by the gods, is he praying to?)
Gone is the man who grinned in his bloody defeat in the downpour of rain under Katsuki's overpowering figure. The man who brazenly offered his nape, friendship, and an army of the continent's rejects at Katsuki's clawed feet is nowhere to be found.
Instead, here's Eijirō who asks, pleads, and begs in between wrecking cries and sobs.
(It's pathetic. The half-demon half-fireborn who's throwing away pride, and Katsuki who's craving for those tears to be shed over him too)
"Please," says Eijirō. "Please, please, please, Katsuki. Plea–"
"Do you know what you're fucking asking for? Ha?" Katsuki strides over and pulls Eijirō by the collar of his nagagi.
He snarls and snaps his fangs in the man's face that's dripping with hot tears. The burning tears drop and fall on Katsuki's skin, sizzling and turning into steam and vapor trails.
He shakes Eijirō. "Do you fucking know what you're asking for, you idiot?"
"Kats–"
"No," Katsuki snaps. "Don't answer that because I know you fucking do. I trusted you, told you– told all of you and still– fucking still, you dare ask me this, ha?"
"Yes!" Eijirō grips Katsuki's hands and it's him now who won't let go.
It's him now whose claws are wrapped around Katsuki's wrists, tearing through the sleeves of the blonde's haori. There are still tears that fall and fall from the glistening red eyes of a man unyielding to move.
"Yes, I fucking dare because I want to live long enough to carry my child on my shoulders in a world where there'd be no– where I wouldn't have to train my– our kid how to kill in a war that never seems to end."
Neither of them knows since when the war's been going on. Katsuki, Eijirō, Shōto– every being that's born in this world, open their eyes, and let out a grueling cry already live in the middle of it.
The books they hold tell of grievances older than their parents, telling them– ordering them to fight and lay their lives as duty.
(The day Mitsuki and Masaru's kozane-gusoku armor and bloodied weapons were the only things that came back from the campaign, Katsuki knew it was his turn)
Katsuki smiles and Eijirō freezes.
The ever-burning flame in slitted scarlet eyes are snuffed dull, turn freezing, and his lips are curled too much and too wide.
"And do you know," asks Katsuki sweetly. "That if I ask for a future where there's no shitty war, then I'd be asking for a future where demons don't exist?"
He moves his hands from Eijirō collar, and his claws rake lines against the hardened skin of the man's neck. They draw black blood from the tattooed mark, and he watches thick black beads roll over his claws and seep into Eijirō's nagagi and haori.
(To comfort, warn, threaten– everything's the same)
With cold eyes and a twisted smile on his face, Katsuki watches and waits for the words to settle in. He sickeningly watches everything– from Eijirō's eyes widening, the sudden slump of his shoulders like a bunraku puppet with its strings cut, and the utter despair that spills from him.
It's pathetic.
Eijirō jolts and his hands twitch, torn between struggling out of Katsuki's hold or clinging onto skin that burns. "Ka–Kats–Katsuki, that–"
"It's going to be a future like that because you and I– everyone knows it's those shitheads from half your bloodline who started this mess," whispers Katsuki before pulling his hands away, shaking off bloodied claws. The black droplets splatter all around, some landing on the grayed-out region of Chūbu in the emakimono.
Katsuki looks down at Eijirō's shivering form. "Ask him to end the war? Then you're making me ask him for a future where you won't get to even have a goddamn kid or a lover waiting at home."
It's with hard-cut coldness that he watches the man he thought of as a brother crumble. It's with the shattered pieces of trust between them digging into Katsuki's flaming heart that makes him step all over the crumbling pieces of his best friend.
(Vengeance, hot or cold, leaves a bitter curse in the back of his throat)
Katsuki's halfway out the room and Eijirō's whimpering and clutching at the omamori charm Mina gave him when he stops. Past the winding trees of the zen garden, he takes a moment to look at the sight before him.
It's Tōhoku's twilight sky where shades of sunrise red and midnight wine mix, swirl, weave into a picturesque tapestry; the movement of wispy clouds sinking into the western sea and rising from the eastern lands; the waking embers of the fire tree forests to the edge of the west where he knows hides a stream parting two banks, two worlds– two hearts.
"I…" Katsuki lets out a shuddering breath that makes the fury, hurt, and cold seep out from his body. "I–…can stain my hands in the blood of thousands and still come back. I can hold thousands and millions of souls that'll drag me to hell, Ei, and still come back."
He doesn't know if Eijirō's even listening, but he hopes he is.
(Because despite the twisting blade of betrayal and the crunch of shattered trust under his feet, the idiot's still his goddamn friend)
Katsuki's eyes sting and the swathe of colors over Tōhoku's sky blurs into indiscernible shades. He looks down on his shaking hands and it's them that catch the tears that fall, drop-by-drop. It doesn't take long–just a blink–for drops to turn into a torrent and there's a pool of it in his palms.
He chokes, sobs, and says in a small voice, "But to stain them with his blood? To live and die knowing that I'm carrying the goddamn idiot's soul with me? To know that it's me who kills him?"
Katsuki laughs but he thinks it's a cry and a whimper mixed into one as he says, "I can't."
Anything but that.
He curls his trembling hands and the tears spill out on the floor, mimicking the stream of water that's mocked him time and time again.
He's sliding the fusuma shut behind him, tear streaks dry and pulling at his face, when he hears Eijirō's whisper.
It's a small thing and he almost misses it, but it stubbornly slips through the closing gap of stygian wood.
"You mean he won't let you and you won't let him."
(The door clicks shut, his feet pads along the engawa, and Katsuki pretends he didn't hear it)
AN:
I made a playlist for this fic :
playlist/7Ff3c6WN8sOPEbzcD4tnbq?si=cbdbfc5070de48a2