One of the good things about living somewhere that was three steps above a wasteland is that you could see visitors from miles away.
Said visitor's included invading armies.
Thus, when the five hundred or so calvary came to a halt in their perfect-ass lines in the dry prairie grass, no a hair nor hide of any of their tribe could be seen.
Katsuki himself watched from beneath a camouflage cloak made of the same grass in the field, listening to his own steady, controlled breaths. Yes, hiding and hoping they'd pass by went against everything fiber of his being, but he also wasn't stupid enough to see how many of his people would die on the metal armor and spears of this army. Iron, after all, was precious for their kind, so most of their armor was made of leather or hide.
"We know you're out there!" called out a man in the front of the calvary, with a long, red tail of horse hair poking out of his helmet. Very Roman. "Fire Dragon Barbarians, we know you have a tamer!"
Every hair on Katsuki's body shot up, hard and electric.
"Give him to us and we shall leave in peace!"
Katsuki clenched his fists in the dusty dirt to hold himself back. Coincidence that these bastards appeared mere weeks after the bonfire? Ha. Like anyone in their tribe would endanger themselves by outing him. It could only be another tribe. Why hadn't his mother thought of that when she chased him out? Probably because she thought they'd had enough tamers to not bother with the one kid they had.
When nothing by empty tents and a hawk circling above could be heard, the red-tailed-helmet man gestured behind him and a soldier, adorned in armor from head to foot, stepped forward, raising a hand only for it to become covered in flame.
"I'll give you to the count of five before my fire user lights the prairie," he cawed. "One. Two-"
"Oi."
He heard his mother's muffled gasp as the camouflage cloak fell off his shoulders. But Katsuki held his chin high, doing his best to look down at the men despite being on a horse.
"What does your greedy ass want with me?"
"Katsuki-" he heard his mother hiss.
The captain-for that's what Katsuki assumed he was-flicked his face towards where his mother hid, but kept his eyes on Katsuki.
"Where's your dragon?" he asked.
"What's it to you?" Katsuki folded his arms. "You said nothing about a dragon. Just a tamer."
"You're going to need to prove who you're-"
An explosion, all light and smoke, lighted off of Katsuki's held out palm.
"Answer the question, dipshit," he growled. "Did all of you come to back crack nowhere for one single kid and his dragon? What, don't have enough of your own?"
But the captain didn't answer him, only nodding to the men on either side of him and giving a loud click of his tongue. The entire front line of horses and their riders came forward, lowering their spears at the lone tribesman.
Katsuki 'tched' and lowered himself, drawing a spear from his back. The feathers he'd so carefully tied about the spearhead twirled in the breeze.
The horses stopped just in reach of him, making a circle about him.
"You will call your beast," said Captain Ponytail. "And will come with us quietly, or they all die."
Katsuki just looked at the shiny, tin-can bastard, something like lava percolating through his veins.
Well…fuck. He'd hoped he'd be able to maybe talk it out once they saw him, because his mother's plan B hadn't accounted for a fire user-were they a mage or a tamer themselves? Weren't these dickwads suppose to have issues against magicians? Probably not issue enough not to use them, tch. God, even in another world he hated people.
Just as he was considering raising his hands in surrender, a sharp whistle pierced the air.
Horses screamed and dropped in mass as their tendons were cut from the grass.
When a gap in the ring around him appeared, Katsuki didn't wait for the other spearmen to run him through, he dove, calling out as loudly as he could in his mind like Ejiro had taught him.
"Damn it, hag!" They couldn't do this! What the hell was she-
Then he felt her claws on the back of his neck.
"Run," she said. "Grab Izuku and run."
"Like hell!"
Men shouted. Horses flung back their heads, eyes rolling. Blades whistled through the air. His tribesmen appeared like magic in the grass, grassy humps that somehow avoided the many stomping hooves. Their goats bleated in alarm, their screams frighteningly human-like.
Her nails dug deeper, drawing blood.
"For once in your god damn life, you will listen to me," she growled. "Get on Eijiro, grab Izuku, and head to the cliff home. We will meet you there."
"You can't be serious-ack kk k! Watch-"
He didn't finish his sentence, diving past his mom to intercept the blade that came towards her head. The force of the metal colliding made his bones shake. His hand went momentarily numb.
Before the man or horse could recover, Katsuki came back around with his other hand full of explosion. The roar filled the sky with heat and his ears rang.
"Don't you dare try to keep me out of this after that," he huffed, unable to hear himself.
His mother had her hands over her ears. She looked up, eyes wide, eyebrows steepled, her mouth already twisting for a wail.
"I can't lose you again," he barely heard through the ring.
Well, shit.
It was the biggest resolution he'd made when he'd realized his parents had come with him to the next life: he was not going to be a fuck up son again. He wasn't going to make his parents live through hell again. He wouldn't make them mourn again.
But god damn it, did that mean he had to live with regret the rest of his life by running away?
Wait, if he ran, wouldn't these metal buckets follow?
"ZUKU!" He thundered. "ON ME!"
Izuku appeared like magic beside him, grass camo cloak still tied about his shoulders. As a dragon's roar cracked the air, the boys ducked as one to either side of an oncoming calvary man and sliced at the horse's legs. All those boring hours of training made the two move like a well oiled machine, ducking, weaving, and slicing to a beat as though dancing.
Eijiro landed in a plume of dust and grass.
While not the size of a house like many of the other dragons had been, Eijiro had reached the height and length of a semi-truck. Spears and arrows slid off his scales, though Katsuki didn't miss the red hole one arrow punched through the leather of his wings. Neither did Izuku.
Even so, he still scaled up Eijiro's side with Katsuki and settled in the long, extra-large leather saddle they'd worked jobs for months to get the blacksmith and tanner to make.
"We can't fly like this," shouted Izuku as he beat back an arrow.
A shout of pain snapped Katsuki's attention to one of his tribesmen falling beneath a flurry of hooves and spears. His heart went cold, even as his mother charged into the horses side to burry her sword up the rider's rib cage.
Izuku shook him. "Kacchan!"
This couldn't be happening. His second life was suppose to be good. Easy, even. Who said these fuckers could come in and start smashing up his family?
Red rimmed his vision. He could feel Eijiro beneath him responding in kind, flaming spittle dripping from his maw. Dry prairie grass caught fire like tissue paper.
"KATSUKI!"
His mother was just beneath his foot, blood splattered across her cheek and neck. He couldn't tell whether it was hers or not.
"Fly! We'll take care of the archers!"
Sure enough, arrows and stones of their own flew from those still hidden in the grass, hitting helmets, breaking arms, or completely knocking off riders entirely.
Izuku slapped Eijiro beneath him. "Fly, Eji!"
Fucker was his damn dragon, not Izuku's, but Ejiro spread out his wings. The force of the air to get the dragon up flattened everyone within ten yards of them. The dragon's eyes were to the sky, but its thoughts were on the ground, echoing in their minds.
" We can't just leave them! "
"We aren't leaving them!" Katsuki screamed above the wind. "We're leading the enemy away!"
Even as he said that, the fire Ejiro had set off grew larger, eating an ever widening ring through the legs of shrieking horses. The smell of burnt hair rose with them.
But Eijiro still wasn't quite large enough to ignore the weight on his back. His rising was slow.
From the back, a spear flew true. It pierced through the tender membrane at the base of Eijiro's right wing, causing it to tear from his side.
Their world tilted. Eijiro's pain filled their heads. Even gripping the saddle horn as hard as he could, Katsuki went flying. He hit the ground hard and saw stars.
The thunder of hooves and feet vibrated his already ringing skull. Smoke clouded the blue sky in a black haze.
A dark haired man dropped beside him, sword held out to the side.
"Dad?" But Katsuki couldn't hear himself over the noise.
His dad's mouth was moving, even as his fingers checked Katsuki's neck for a break. Behind him, a dismounted soldier raised his sword high.
Katsuki's hand flung out, even as more pain made his eyesight go white. Somewhere, EIjiro was being torn to pieces.
The sparks on his palm sputtered.
The sword came down.
A wordless roar and a streak of blinding green burst between them. A body thudded feet from Katsuki and his father.
The soldier about to decapitate his father shrieked, writhing and jerking as what couldn't only be archs of electricity danced across his limbs.
They dropped like a dead bag.
Katsuki and his father didn't have long to stare before two soldiers had filled the fallen one's place. His dad slashed through the staff of a spear.
Izuku caught the blade of the other, his arms and sword arching with brilliant green lights. His eyes were a luminous, electric green.
"What the hell, Zu!" Katsuki ignored his screaming head and forced himself to his feet, palms crackling, back aching. Best he keep his sword at his hip for this.
"I think I found my magic!" Izuku shouted.
"No shit!"
The fell back into the fight. Izuku focused on the riders, covered in metal that attracted his clumsy, new found magic, while Katsuki went for the horse's legs. A surge of relief nearly made him pause as he sighed Eijiro back on his feet, breathing fire and snapping his jaws at anything in reach.
Foes went on forever. A hoof managed to land on his back, snapping something that made raising his left arm agony. But then Izuku pulled him up and they continued, Izuku at a rider, and Katsuki at his horse. Black smoke from the burning plains clouded their eyes and burned their throats.
And, just as suddenly, Katsuki found himself standing in an expanse of corpses, picked through by the rust-splattered remains of his tribe. Blood sprayed armor reflected the dying sun back at him. A dead horse nearby had it's tongue splayed out of its mouth. Katsuki never knew horse tongues could be so long.
Izuku wheezed and coughed next to him. It took Katsuki a minute to realize he too was making a racket struggling to breathe.
"Zu," he rasped. "Your leg."
"It's fine," his friend gasped back. "Shallow." He winced. "I'm a little more worried about my back."
Katsuki didn't wait for him to turn. He roughly grabbed Izuku with his leaden, right arm and flung him around, catching him when his friend tipped dangerously.
From his left shoulder to the bottom of the right side of his ribs was a deep, bloody gash. A glint of bone could be seen from his shoulder blade.
"Shit." He felt nauseous.
Izuku just wheezed, then dropped to his knees.
"Don't you dare pass out, you little shit!"
"I've lost…blood, Kaachan, don't-don't be so mean." His voice grew weak.
"How the hell do you tourniquet an entire back-no! Damnit, Deku!"
But Izuku's had flopped bonelessly against Katsuki's legs.
Katsuki groaned, coughed, then threw his head back, fighting for air through his burning lungs.
"Damnit...Eijiro…"
" I'm here," came the weary response across his mind.
"Help me with this fucker before he bleeds out."
" What? How? Oh my god, Izuku, is he- "
"His mom, dipshit! She should be in the bush with the children!"
" Oh! Oh, oh yeah. I'm com-oh shit. "
"What?"
". ..I…I almost stepped on your mom . She's not moving, Kats. "
His mom was dead.
Half the fighting force of the tribe had been wiped out along with her, which was a miracle considering they'd been outnumbered and outclassed. Having a whole-ass dragon probably had something to do with it.
But Katsuki couldn't find it in him to care. The entire tribe could have survived and he'd still be kneeling next to her, waiting for her to turn her head and yell at him.
But she didn't. Probably a good thing too, as her organs had to be pushed back into her and her stomach banded up for the funeral.
His father kneeled next to him, heavily bandaged, especially around his head.
Izuku would have been on his otherside if he wasn't still unconscious from bloodloss and half-way dead himself in the tent for the wounded. Inko, his mother, had passed out soon after going past the limits of her healing magic to at least heal the worst of the injuries.
A single woman, the fat one with the mole, worked over his mother's body, painting it with fine scented oils and dried wild flowers. Her face was wet with tears.
Katsuki watched her hands work, a thumb rubbing on the fabric of the sling of his left arm.
"I'm sorry…" his father whispered.
"What fucking for?" They both sounded like smokers from the prairie fires, which still burned on in the distance. It was a second miracle that they'd managed to save so many tents and supplies from the flames.
"I should have protected her."
A thousand words rose in his throat then clogged into a clotted lump against his closed teeth. Forgiveness, comforting, agreement, and anger. None of it would do.
Truth was, he should have given himself over. Better yet, he should have flown off when they'd seen the men in the distance. But his mother had shot him down, refusing to let him become a possible target. It had always been a possibility that the men were coming for him and Eijiro. It was the only reason they still sought after the barbarian tribes of the north anymore.
Suddenly, a rage of fury washed over him, molten and thick.
"It was her own fuckning fault," he snarled. "I was ready to give myself up, I was fine being the target, but she," he clacked his teeth down hard when his father's hand fell heavily on his sore back.
"No mother would send their child out to die," said his father.
"Like hell I'd-" his smoke-abused vocal cords stuck, blocking his air. He coughed and hacked, and each one jolted his broken shoulder blade and ribs.
"It would have been five hundred calvary to two teenagers and their half-grown dragon," said his father. "You're strong, but it only takes one lucky arrow to fell a man." He sighed and took his hand back. "I should have made the smith make you that dragon armor."
Katsuki scowled down at his hands, his eyes burning. There would be no dragon armor now. The smith had gone down too, with his head cut clean off his shoulders.
The remains of his nausea curled in Katsuki's gut. The moment he'd gotten Izuku to his mom and turned to start hunting down those still alive among the dead, he'd vomited all over his shoes. Had hurt like hell to. Who knew a broken shoulderblade and some ribs could make every damn freaking movement hurt so much.
Katsuki looked back up at the fat lady with the mole, carefully painting his mother's face. Her thick bottom lip was raw from being chewed and he couldn't tell how she could still see from how squinted up her eyes were from crying.
He wasn't the only one who'd lost his family.
It just made him more angry.
"She was the chief," he rasped. "She was suppose to do what was best for everyone, not just me. Fucking selfish."
"Perhaps," said his father.
Tears finally bubbled up to Katsuki's smoke-burned eyes.
"Worst fucking chief ever."
His father hummed. His cheeks were wet.
Katsuki continued swearing through his abused throat, not caring that it made it harder to breathe and the pain in his back worse. His mother's face still looked so peaceful. Maybe he hadn't seen her gutted on the ground. Maybe she had just been injured.
No. He'd made the wrong choice. He gets a second chance at life and he already screwed it up at fifteen.
That night, eleven pyres set up in a circle around his mother burned the bodies of the dead. No one slept, and not a face ran dry.
Katsuki didn't leave his mother's side, even as he roared and stomped and raged and threw dirt on the fire roasting her past recognition.
When the morning sun finally came, Izuku found Katsuki still and cold on his knees, his vocal cords torn past use and his gaze set dully on the ashes in the dirt. His father sat besides him, just as still and quiet.
Izuku dropped beside him and embraced him hard.