Chapter Text
Katsuki’s been hunting this shitty dragon through the mountains for almost two days now, and he’s finally getting close. He can feel the magic coming off of it if he concentrates, vibrating in his bones, resonating with the magic in his own body.
He knows these mountain woods fairly well, and the dragon’s path has been leading it towards a dead-end clearing below a cliff that Katsuki knows will be perfect for their fight. He'd already known roughly what it looked like from a description from the ones who hired him to hunt it, but when it comes in to full view he’s still a little impressed by the dragon’s appearance. It stands about five times Katsuki’s height, with a wingspan much more than double that. It has two large horns on its head, with fin-like fans underneath, and its eyes are yellow; the only part of its body that isn’t a bright, crimson red.
Katsuki has never seen a real dragon before, since they usually don’t come out this far East, and they’re rare as it is.
As soon as he sees that the dragon has entered the clearing, Katsuki steps into view, and roars, “HEY! TIME TO FIGHT ME, YOU BIG, RED SHITHEAD!”
He never ambushes his prey with surprise attacks - he prefers to win a fair fight.
The dragon startles, flaring its wings for balance as it spins around to face Katsuki.
“COME ON!” Katsuki screams again, and tosses aside his sword; useless, against those thick, armoured scales. He gathers his magic into his hands instead, feeling the familiar tingling heat as it rushes to respond to his call.
The dragon regards him curiously for a moment, and then seemingly deciding that Katsuki isn’t going to back down, takes a fighting stance. It growls in challenge, bearing huge, white fangs, and Katsuki smirks.
It’s time to go.
Katsuki wastes no time, shooting forward under the dragon’s wings and raising his hands in front of him. The dragon rears back, surprised, and tries to swipe at Katsuki with its foreleg, but Katsuki rolls out of the way and continues to his target. He makes it to the dragon’s side, and then plants his hands firmly on it, screaming “DIE!!” before releasing his explosive magic point blank into those armoured scales.
The dragon roars, but besides smoking scales, it seems relatively unharmed. But Katsuki is already moving again, ducking the swiping tail and rolling underneath the dragon’s stomach to land another blow.
The dragon hops back, trying to get Katsuki where he can strike at him, but Katsuki is still too fast. He jumps, catching a wing at the base, and then swings up to plant his feet down on the dragon’s back. He releases another blast of magic, this time directly into a fragile wing bone, and he hears a satisfying crack as the dragon roars in pain.
Katsuki flips off of the dragon before he can be bucked off, landing in a crouch a few feet away as the creature flails in pain. He darts back in and blasts the other wing, landing a few hits to the dragon’s back as he flips back over to land on the ground again.
Then he waits, and the dragon seems to right itself again with a fresh determination. It takes another swipe with a foreleg, and Katsuki readies a blast, timing for when the swipe comes for him. He catapults himself up and over, and then in mid-air he plants his hands onto the dragon’s foreleg and releases his magic into it. He feels more bones crack, and the dragon recoils with another pained cry.
The dragon is panting now, and clearly in pain, but there’s still fight left in its eyes, so Katsuki stays ready.
It lowers its head slowly, and then in a lightning-fast movement that Katsuki tries but fails to avoid, it headbutts him straight into a tree. He feels his rib crack on impact, and he gasps in pain. Shit.
Katsuki falls to the ground in a crouch, grimacing, and narrowly manages to dodge the dragon’s second head-swipe. He sends a blast of magic directly into the dragon’s face, causing it to rear back and roar.
It's wings are drooping, and it looks exhausted. It’ll be no match for Katsuki now, even with his broken rib. He’s a little disappointed that it went down so easily.
He’s just about to ready his magic for another attack when something shoots out of the forest and covers the dragon with…a net?
Another net lands on top of the first, and then a group of men swarm out of the forest to pound the corners of it into the ground with stakes, securing it before the dragon can wriggle free. The dragon struggles, but with all of the injuries Katsuki gave it, it doesn’t have much of a chance.
“What…what the fuck, who the fuck are you assholes!?” Katsuki shouts, swivelling his head around to glare daggers at each of the men busy with tying down the dragon.
“You interrupted my fight!” Katsuki roars, his magic gathering hot in his palms, “It was mine!"
He stalks towards the nearest man, snarling like an animal.
“Uhh, little help, here, boss?” The man calls frantically over his shoulder, backing away from Katsuki as quickly as he can.
Katsuki hears a “click-thunk” from the forest, so he shoots his gaze over to where the sound came from just in time to get smashed directly in the face by something hard and heavy.
He drops like a stone, and the world goes dark.
“Hey.”
Katsuki groans. His face hurts. He tries to go back to sleep again, but now that he’s waking up, the pain is quickly making that impossible to do.
“Heeey. Hunter man. Psst.”
Katsuki takes groggy stock of where he is as he cracks open his eyes. His head feels like it’s going to explode, his nose feels…broken, definitely, and his rib is still probably cracked. His face is pushed into something hard and gritty…Dirt. Excellent. And he’s lying awkwardly, face-down, his hands held behind his back in some type of enclosed cuffs, with his feet bound together underneath him. And…he’s in a cell. Double fucking excellent.
“Hunntterrr. Psssss-”
“The fuck do you want,” Katsuki groans, rolling over onto his side and coming face to face with his next door cell neighbour, who’s sitting up against the far wall of his own cell with his hands tied behind his back like Katsuki’s. They’re occupying the only two cells inside a small dungeon room, so it must be some kind of manor holding area rather than a true jail.
“Eyy look at that! You’re alive!” The guy has bright red hair, and his smile is full of pointed teeth. He has a small scar over his right eyelid, and he’s wearing very ill-fitting, dirty clothing. “Wow you look terrible though. Your face.” He grimaces.
What a shitty hair colour to have…he sticks out like a candle in the dark.
“The fuck did they even shoot me with…?” Katsuki grunts, mostly to himself, but Shitty Red Hair answers him anyways.
“They shot a net at you, but they missed. Kinda.” His expression scrunches up in a cringe. “Hit you right in the face with the net weight, it was dead on…”
Katsuki levels him with a glare, and he shrugs apologetically.
“That was one hell of a fight you gave me back there, though. You definitely would have had me even if those net guys hadn’t shown up,” Shitty Hair says with a grin.
“Wait…are you…you’re the fucking dragon?!” Katsuki immediately regrets yelling, as it sends a sharp pounding through his broken nose and into his aching head, but he bites through it to glare in surprise at Shitty Hair.
Shitty Hair laughs. “Oh, yep! That’s me.”
Katsuki just stares deadpan at him. A dragon shifter then. Interesting. He’s only met a handful of shifters before; the most memorable being a sneaky panther shifter that had tried to sweep the basilisk he’d been hunting from him. The bounty on it had been large, so he’d obviously been hoping to wait until Katsuki had weakened it before swooping in for the steal. So he just had to beat the shifter, too.
Shitty Hair suddenly looks grim and thoughtful. “Were you…hunting me for those men? But they captured you too, so…”
“I was hunting you because you killed someone.”
Shitty Hair chokes. “What!?”
“The farmer’s daughter you murdered in Pia Village, Hair-for-Brains.”
“But I didn’t…I didn’t kill anyone! I wouldn’t…” Shitty Hair trails off.
“I was hired by the village chief to hunt you as a murdering monster, so that’s what I did. I have no idea who the fuck those nets guys were.”
“I haven’t hurt anyone, I promise. I don’t even know where Pia Village is...”
“Fuck, I knew something was fucking weird with this emergency rush job!” Katsuki tries to summon his magic, mostly on instinct, but his cuffs promptly zap him and dissipate it. He screams in frustration.
“Uhm…You okay, man?”
“Fine,” Katsuki bites out. Fucking magic-nulling handcuffs. Of course, they would be.
“A-anyways, my name is Kirishima Eiji-”
“Don’t tell me your first name, you idiot dragon. Names have power,” Katsuki snaps.
“Ah, hmm…I guess you’re right. I haven’t really been…” Shitty Hair looks down to the side. “I’ve only been away from home for about a week now, I guess.” He sighs, still staring at the floor. “So ah…do you have a name? Or should I just keep calling you Hunter?”
“Bakugou,” Katsuki grunts.
“Nice to meet you,” Shitty Hair chirps. “You know, you’ve got a real foul mouth on you, Bakugou.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki grumbles at him.
A low, whining growl echoes through the cells, and Katsuki raises an eyebrow at his cell mate.
“Eheh, sorry…I’m starving. Ever since I changed back to human form, it feels like my stomach is trying to eat itself...”
“That happen every time?” Katsuki asks, half interested. He knows that someone will come down to check on them eventually, and after he finds out what the hell is going on here, he can formulate a proper escape plan.
“Uh, actually, I’m not sure. This was…kinda my first time turning into a dragon. I’ve never…I didn’t know I was even a shifter until a week ago…” Shitty Hair says quietly, looking off to the side.
“How the fuck could you not know?” Katsuki snaps.
“It’s…kind of a long story…”
“I got nothin’ but fuckin’ time, Shitty Hair.”
“Shi- my hair isn’t shitty! It’s just…normal-…wait…” He flops his head forward and lets it fall into his eyes so he can see it. “It’s red now?!”
“You don’t even know your own fucking hair colour!?” Katsuki bellows at him, outraged at the amount of sheer stupidity he’s currently being forced to witness.
“No! It used to be black, I swear! I’ve…like I told you, I’ve had kind of a rough week, alright!?” He shouts back at Katsuki, a little hysterical.
“Then fucking explain it to me!”
“Alright!”
Shitty Hair takes a deep breath, and then starts. “I grew up in a small, isolated town in the far west mountain range. We have an uncommonly high rate of dragon shifters born to our village, for some reason. We usually get one every two or so generations, and it’s always a big deal. My generation had Ashido M-…Ashido. She’s…she was amazing, she was even born with bright pink hair and little horns, everyone knew she’d be a shifter. And she was incredible. I…I really envied her.” Shitty Hair glances off to the side, looking slightly ashamed.
“About a week ago, some men…came for her. They started threatening the villagers until they produced her, but it didn’t take long for her to come out and fight. She’s always been brave…She fought them, but they shot something at her that made her shift back and pass out, then they just…took her. And slaughtered anyone that tried to stop them from leaving. I just…” Shitty Hair chokes up for a moment before continuing. “I just stood there frozen…for so long…and watched them kill the villagers that got in their way-…and then just as they were about to leave with her, one of them saw me. He yelled something, I can't remember, and they must have hit me on the head, because I blacked out.”
“And that's all I remember for a long time. When I finally woke up, Mina was gone, and I was here. I had no idea how far from home I was..." He takes a deep, shaky breath, and then continues, “I stayed in this cell for a while, alone, and every now and then someone would come and take me out to the yard in chains and do...things. Sometimes they would throw powder over my head, sometimes they would force me to drink weird potions..." He shudders, "They kept saying they were trying to bring out my latent potential, whatever that means, but eventually I figured it out after one of the potions made me shift into a dragon. I think it surprised both of us so much that I was able to break from my chains and escape into the forest. I was there for about a day, maybe two, I think, I was so lost I was probably just wandering around in circles...And then you found me. And attacked me. And now we’re back here.” Shitty Hair shrugs. “So that’s it.”
“Huh. So you’re a village bumpkin, then. That explains a lot.”
“Hey, rude!”
“Next you’re gonna tell me you didn’t know your teeth were pointy…” Katsuki grumbles.
Shitty hair laughs weakly. “That I actually did know about. They’ve been like that all my life. My parents thought I might be a shifter too, because of the red eyes and the teeth, but it never manifested…until now, I guess.”
"Didn't know you could force someone to become a shifter...I thought you were either born with it or you weren't."
Shitty Hair shrugs. "They said it doesn't work on everyone, and the trigger is different every time, so..." He trails off when they hear footsteps coming down the stairs to the dungeon. Both of them snap their heads towards the sound.
A silhouette of a man comes into view, but he stays veiled in the shadows as he begins to speak.
“Ah, Hunter. Sorry about the accommodations, but I heard you tried to attack one of our assist crew out in the forest.”
“I didn’t need any fucking assistance, I was winning,” Katsuki hisses.
“I had to take the necessary precautions, anyways. I’m sure you can understand.”
Wait a minute. He knows who that…
“Creepy Voice? The fuck is going on here!?”
The village chief who’d frantically hired him to hunt the red dragon, whose name Katsuki promptly forgot but whose creepy-ass voice he never would, comes out of the shadows of the hall and into the dim lighting from the cell windows.
“We knew you’d probably be able to find this one for us faster than any of our team could, and we thank you for your service. Time was of the essence. We couldn’t let it escape the area to disappear into a city. You certainly lived up to your reputation as a tracker, Hunter,” Creepy Voice says, turning back to Katsuki.
“What are you going to do with him?” Katsuki asks, deadpan.
“Ah, well. Now that you’ve returned it to us, there’s no need for any more explanations, is there.”
None of this feels right. Creepy Voice is wearing completely different clothing; not the shabby, simple outfit he’d been wearing before. Now he’s wearing an impeccably tailored, tight-fitting black suit.
This is no shitty village chief. So they'd just lied to him to get him to get their dragon back for them.
“Well. I had originally come down here to find out if you’d like to join our little operation, since we could always use a man of your particular skill set, but from the look you’re giving me right now, that isn’t going to happen. Shame.” Creepy Voice turns on his heels, then, and briskly leaves the dungeon.
Katsuki spits at his retreating form, but it falls a few feet short.
As soon as Creepy Voice is gone, Katsuki turns to Shitty Hair sharply.
“We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
“Wh-how? These cuffs, I can’t shift with them on, so that means you probably can’t do any magic eith-”
“Just shut up for a goddamn second, will you? I need to fucking think.”
Katsuki closes his eyes.
He’s seen this type of cuff before, but he’s never actually been held by them until now. The cuffs detect and dissipate magic, but they can’t be detecting all magic. Since every living being produces fluctuating, low levels of magical energy as a consequence of life, the cuffs would be constantly zapping them if they were. And since the magic of living beings is never at a constant level, they’d have to be detecting spikes in magic. So Katsuki will just have to go slow, then.
Gathering magical energy slowly is a very difficult skill to master, since magic naturally comes to its user in a rush when seized, but Katsuki is confident in his control.
He takes deep, steadying breaths, letting his power slowly and steadily trickle into his hands. The cuffs don’t react. Perfect.
He lets a little bit more flow through, but it’s too fast – the cuffs zap him and dissipate what he gathered. He swears in frustration.
“Uh…what are you-” Shitty Hair starts, but Katsuki snaps at him to shut up.
He takes a few more deep breaths, and tries again. He remembers forcing himself to learn this skill, what feels like a lifetime ago. With his particular explosive power type it was almost impossible, but he’d been determined to master it anyways. He can almost hear that eager, excited voice, chattering at him in amazement…the thought of it makes him grind his teeth and lose control again, so he makes sure he clears his thoughts entirely the next time he tries.
This time, he manages to keep the slow flow of power going until his hands are hot and buzzing with energy; and still no reaction from the cuffs. Finally, when his full power is gathered in his hands, he pushes out with it, and shatters the cuffs.
“Holy shit! That was incredible! How did you do tha-”
“Shut up Shitty Hair, no time!” Katsuki growls, tossing his smoking cuffs away and digging around in his pants for his hidden pocket.
Shitty Hair blinks in surprise when Katsuki brandishes a lock pick set at him.
“Get your ass over here so I can free you too, you fuck!”
“Right!” Shitty Hair scrambles over to the bars dividing his and Katsuki’s cells, and Katsuki sets to work on his cuffs.
Once all of the cuffs are unlocked, Katsuki quickly looks around the cells and takes stock of their options. Slit windows, with sunlight, so they’re not too deeply underground, then…He could blast the bars open with magic, but who knows what would be waiting for them when they went up the stairs into the main manor, and he doesn’t have enough firepower left in him to blast through the stone wall to the outside…
“Hey, man, uh…I could just shift and smash us out of here?” Shitty Hair says tentatively. “I’m really big when I’m a dragon…”
“Aren’t you fucking new at this? How do we know you can even do it reliably?” Katsuki snaps back at him.
Shitty Hair shrugs. “I think I can do it. Now that the cuffs are off I can sorta…feel it in there, ya know?”
“No, I don’t fucking know, I’m not a goddamn dragon, Shitty Hair-for-Brains!” Katsuki screams at him. Shitty Hair just laughs.
“Just let me try, alright?”
Katsuki scowls, and then nods reluctantly.
Shitty Hair takes in a deep breath. For a moment, nothing happens. Then suddenly he’s glowing. It starts slowly, but quickly becomes so bright that Katsuki can’t look directly at him, anymore, so he turns away to shield his eyes. The light intensifies, casting stark shadows along the stone walls of the holding cell - then the world around them explodes as his dragon form solidifies into a space much too small for it to comfortably exist.
“Fuck!” Katsuki screeches, rolling out of the way of the collapsing cell bars and raining debris pelting at him from all angles.
Katsuki hears a growling roar that sounds way too much like a human apology, and then there’s a wing sheltering him. Shitty Hair flicks his huge, horned head and smashes a hole in the exterior wall large enough for him to fit his bulk through, and then he and Katsuki are free.
The hole opens up to a rolling green field, bright green in the morning sunlight. Katsuki looks back and sees the manor, just as he’d guessed, as well as a few horses grazing in the grass.
Shitty Hair ducks his head down and waits, and it only takes Katsuki a second to realize what he wants. He flips himself up onto Shitty Hair’s head, grabs a hold of his horns, and shouts, “I’m good! Let’s get the fuck outta here, Shitty Dragon!”
Kirishima makes a low, offended sounding rumble, before flaring his wings open and taking off. The sudden whipping of the wind is not exactly comfortable, but the rush of flying quickly erases all other thoughts from Katsuki’s brain.
The wind continues to roar around Katsuki’s ears, whipping at his cape, and he’s never felt more alive. Katsuki has used his magic to blast himself up into the air before, but this is something else entirely.
He lets himself enjoy the moment for a few beats, then he looks down and takes stock of where they are. Everything looks different from this high up, but they’re not too far from the mountains where he’d first starting hunting the dragon…there, Pia Village. And there, the river…
Katsuki grabs at Kirishima’s horns again and pushes, shouting “LEFT! BANK LEFT!”
Kirishima complies, and lets Katsuki guide him. There’s only one place Katsuki can think of that’s safe enough for them to go right now…
They fly for about two hours before Kirishima suddenly starts losing altitude.
“The fuck is goin’ on?!” Katsuki yells over the wind, but Kirishima keeps falling in a controlled descent towards the riverbank.
Kirishima lands, stumbles to a halt, and then immediately shifts back into a human. Katsuki yelps as he falls from where Kirishima’s dragon head used to the be, gasping as he jars his cracked rib when he crashes down on top of a human Kirishima. A very naked, human Kirishima.
“The hell was that, lizard-brain!?” Katsuki shouts, untangling his limbs from Kirishima’s as he stumbles to his feet. Kirishima is dazed, and he doesn’t seem to realize the position he’s currently in.
Katsuki crosses his arms gently over his aching rib and waits, pointedly averting his eyes from Kirishima’s exposed body.
“I…I dunno what happened…” Kirishima groans, still sprawled out on the ground. “I jus’…couldn’ hold it anymore…”
Katsuki sighs. “Shit. You’re out of energy. You need to rest and eat. Shifting must take a shitload of magic, and magic takes stamina.” Kirishima sighs in return, closing his eyes and going limp.
Katsuki grumbles a little, and then pulls off his cape and drapes it over Kirishima’s prone form. “Here. Cover yourself up, for fuck’s sake.”
“Oh, right...my clothes don’t come with me when I shift…” Kirishima says, chuckling weakly and struggling to sit up.
Katsuki hauls Kirishima to his feet and helps him over to a tree, then sets him down again so he can put his back against it, with Katsuki’s fur-trimmed red cape tucked around him. He lets Kirishima rest for a little while, until he’s able to get back on his feet again. He doesn’t have it in him to shift back into a dragon, but Katsuki’s goal is only about a half day’s walk away from here, so they head toward it on foot.
“Sorry about that, man. Thanks, again. You really saved my ass today…” Kirishima says as they start walking. He’s still wearing Katsuki’s cape, along with a sort of loin cloth that Katsuki managed to make out of a torn piece of one of his pant legs. He looks ridiculous.
“Yeah, well. Don’t thank me yet, I could be taking you somewhere even shittier,” Katsuki grumbles.
“Nah. I don’t think so. You’re good.” Kirishima smiles at him, and Katsuki flushes and scowls.
“How the fuck do you know!? You don’t know shit about me, I could be a hundred times worse than those shitheads back there.”
“You have a good heart. I can feel it. I just know. You helped me escape that place, and you lent me your cape. Plus, bad people usually don’t go around warning others that they could be bad.” Kirishima shrugs, still giving him that stupid smile. Katsuki growls and stalks a little further ahead of him.
“You really don’t know shit, do you, Hair-for-Brains!”
Kirishima laughs. “I do have a name, y’know!”
Fucking infuriating.
“You decided to trust me pretty quick too…How do you know I wasn’t lying about not being a murder?” Kirishima asks.
Katsuki shrugs. “I don’t. But I know for a fact that fake village chief was lying to me now, and plus, I know I can beat you in a fight if I have to. You don’t stand a chance against any of the people I’m taking you to, either, so if you’re not who you say you are, I’d say you’re pretty fucked.”
Kirishima nods. “Guess that makes sense.”
“Hold on…you’re not wearing any shoes, how are you walking so well right now?” Katsuki says, whirling back around to face Kirishima as he realizes.
“Ah-hmm…” Kirishima stops, brow furrowed, and then picks up a foot to check the bottom of it, only to find it covered in fine, red scales.
“Woah! Check this out!” Kirishima exclaims, excitedly hopping over to Katsuki to show him his foot.
“Huh. That’s actually pretty useful,” Katsuki says, a little begrudgingly.
“Ashido never had anything like this, either, as far as I remember…”
“Guess you need shit like that if you keep shredding your damn clothes every time you shift,” Katsuki says with a shrug.
“Yeah, I guess…I haven’t really had the chance to see what happens to my clothes…I’ve been kinda…busy, every time I’ve shifted so far…” Kirishima says thoughtfully. “But I don’t remember Ashido shredding hers when she did it...”
“Well, don’t shift in my fucking cape, you bastard,” Katsuki growls, and Kirishima laughs.
“I won’t, I promise! I’ll toss it back if I feel the urge,” Kirishima says brightly, and then, “Why are you still helping me, anyways? You could have just left me as soon as we landed on the riverbank…right?”
“Cause I…fuckin’…” Katsuki trails off, and then Kirishima lifts his finger into the air.
“Ah! I got it. You feel guilty! You feel bad for wrongfully hunting me, and you wanna make sure I get to real safety before you leave me!”
Katsuki just growls under his breath.
“Hah, I knew it. I knew you were good,” Kirishima nods to himself, as if satisfied that he’s confirmed his theory.
Katsuki rolls his eyes, and they continue walking.
“Bakugouu…” Kirishima whines. “I’m so hungry…I think I’m gonna die…”
“You’re fine, Shitty Hair, just a few more hours and we’ll be there.”
“Nooo…I’ll just die here, it’s okay…you can just leave me…” Kirishima slumps his shoulders dramatically, his steps turning into shuffling as he falls further behind Katsuki’s relentless pace.
Katsuki grinds his teeth in frustration. “I said I wasn’t gonna leave you, and I’m not fucking gonna, so get your ass moving!” Katsuki’s rib is aching, his face is throbbing, and he is not in the mood for this bullshit.
Suddenly, Kirishima starts sniffing. At first, Katsuki thinks he’s crying, which, considering all the shit that has happened to him recently it’s probably not too off the mark of a reaction, but then Kirishima exclaims, “Hey! I think I smell food!”
“You what?”
“Food. I smell something good. It smells like…mm…cookies, actually,” Kirishima says, lifting his nose in the air and sniffing again.
Huh…Katsuki lifts his nose and sniffs…then he smells it, too. “Well. That’s fuckin’ weird, considering we’re in the middle of fuck-ass nowhere and at least five more hours away from the nearest town.”
Kirishima hums, and then starts following the smell with renewed vigour. Katsuki sighs, resigned.
When they come up to the source of the smell, Katsuki thinks it’s just a regular old cabin at first, but as they get closer, something seems kinda…off about it.
“Should we…go knock?” Kirishima asks hesitantly as they regard the strange cabin from the cover of the surrounding forest.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, Shitty Hair, you’re the one who brought us here. You go knock.”
“Alright, alright, here I go…” Kirishima takes a deep breath and gathers himself for a moment, then he stalks towards the cabin with determination. Katsuki is way too curious not to follow him.
When they get closer to the cabin, Katsuki suddenly realizes-
“It’s made of cookie. It’s a fucking cookie house. What the hell is going on,” He says, deadpan with disbelief. Kirishima stops, tilting his head at the cabin wall and taking a closer look.
“Woah. You’re right. What the hell…” He sniffs it, and then opens his mouth wide to take a bite of it before Katsuki yanks him away by the hair.
“Do you actually have hair for brains, you stupid, red lizard!?” Katsuki hisses. “This shit is probably magic, don’t fuckin’ eat the magic cookie!”
“But it’s just cookie!” Kirishima hisses back, shaking his head and trying to free his hair from Katsuki’s grasp. "And I'm so hungry..."
“Don’t just trust any old magical shit you find in a forest! It’s bad enough that you’re trusting me-”
“Help!” A voice suddenly cries from inside the house. Katsuki and Kirishima snap their heads around to meet each other’s eyes and freeze.
“Di-did you…?” Kirishima whispers, before the voice clearly calls again.
“Help me! Is somebody there? Please!”
Katsuki narrows his eyes. “Baba Yaga…” He says quietly. Kirishima looks at him, confused, and Katsuki shakes his head. “Not sure, but it could be. Child eater,” Katsuki whispers. Kirishima’s eyes widen, horrified.
“Please! I heard you out there! Please help me!”
“Well…we gotta at least try to help, man! We can’t just leave them there!”
“You just wanna eat the fuckin’ cookie house, you massive red moron!” Katsuki snaps back at him in a quiet hiss. “She’s just baiting us. And you’re basically naked anyways, the hell are you gonna do like that, huh?”
“I’m going. You can help me if you want,” Kirishima says, steel in his determined eyes as he pulls away from Katsuki and heads for the front door of the cabin.
“Mother fu- alright, fine!” Katsuki snarls, stalking after him.
In the center of the room they see a man tied up to a chair.
He’s large and muscular, wearing plain clothing and an apron. He looks haggard, like he’s been there a while. The rest of the cabin is a mess, with fine, white powder strewn over most of the surfaces and the floor that looks like flour.
“Oh, thank god you’re here, please, untie me before they-” The man shouts frantically when he sees them, but he’s interrupted by a strange snarling sound coming from the hall.
“Is that…” Kirishima says, his eyes snapping to the direction of the sound.
“Is that a fucking cookie man!?” Katsuki screeches. The cookie man in question stands about waist-high on Katsuki, and it looks…aggressive. As aggressive as an icing-decorated magical cookie face can look, anyways.
“Rude, man, it could be a cookie woman! You don’t know-” Kirishima starts, before the man in the chair shouts, “Please! Don’t underestimate them! They’ll-”
He’s cut off again by the snarling sound the cookie…person makes as it dives towards Kirishima.
Kirishima jumps backwards with a strangled “Woah!”, narrowly avoiding being impaled by the kitchen knife its holding.
“What the fuck!” Katsuki screams again, grabbing for his sword before he realizes…It’s in the forest. Where he’d tossed it aside to fight Kirishima. Fucking great.
Using his explosive magical attacks here in such a tight proximity to his ally probably isn’t the best idea, so he casts around for something to use as a weapon and comes up with a fire poker. He grabs it and joins the fight with a feral yell, smashing the head clean off of the cookie person as it’s about to go for another stab at Kirishima.
The cookie person explodes in a shower of white icing.
Kirishima blinks. “Wow. Somehow that’s kinda…”
“Morbid?” Katsuki answers, grinning at Kirishima.
Kirishima picks up the knife to use as his own weapon, brushing off the cookie bits and preparing to wipe the icing off of it with Katsuki’s-
“Not with my cape, you bucket of assholes!”
“Well how else am I supposed to get it clean!? I need a weapon, dude!”
“Just- fuck, I don’t know, here,” Katsuki grabs it, wipes it off on his pants, and then hands it back.
“You and this cape, man…” Kirishima shakes his head with a little grin.
“Don’t fucking talk about my cape!” Katsuki snaps.
“Okaaay! Sorry, jeez!”
“Uhm, I hate to interrupt, but…” The man says, his eyes going to the door that must lead into the kitchen.
Three more cookie people crowd into the living room from the kitchen, all brandishing some form of cooking utensil as a weapon.
“Well, let’s get to it, then, Shitty Hair,” Katsuki says with a savage grin, hefting his fire poker.
“I told you, my name is Kirishima!” Kirishima shouts as they charge towards the sentient cookies.
Katsuki swings first, but Kirishima comes up behind him, and in the small, constrained space, they collide into each other.
“Shitty Hair! Fuck outta my way!” Katsuki snaps, shoving at Kirishima and pushing him aside at the same time as he stabs his poker clean through the cookie person.
“Sorry, sorry!” Kirishima calls back, his brow furrowed in concentration as he hurries to find a different target.
Katsuki rips his poker out of the one he’d stabbed, breaking the cookie clean in half as he does it, then rounds on the next one. Kirishima has his own to fight, and they finish them off quickly after that.
“Three out of four, I win,” Katsuki sneers, and Kirishima huffs and rolls his eyes at him.
“Is that the last of them?” Kirishima asks the tied-up man, slightly out of breath.
“Yes, it should be…unless they’ve figured out how to make more of themselves,” He chuckles ominously.
Katsuki scowls. People and their stupid humour…
“Dude…you’re really an amazing fighter, though!” Kirishima says to Katsuki.
Katsuki grunts. “You’re…not terrible either, I guess. Surprising, for a farm boy.”
“I’m not a farm boy, I’m a builder’s apprentice! And I used to spar all the time with Ashido’s uncle!”
“So, what exactly…happened here?” Kirishima asks as he gets to work cutting the man’s bonds.
“Well… my mom and I lived alone in this cabin for years, occasionally selling my skills as a mage, but last year she died of a fever…” Kirishima looks stricken, nodding in sympathy, “So, I thought I would try something…you know, to help me out around the house. My magic has always been for food-based enchantments, specifically baking, so I thought, why not make some living helpers!”
“What the fuck were you thinking, sourdough for brains, everyone knows you can’t-”
“Bakugou! Don’t be so rude, he was clearly distraught!” Kirishima cries, levelling Katsuki with a stern look.
Katsuki crosses his arms over his chest and huffs. “It’s a simple principal of Artifice magic. If something wasn’t meant to be alive in the first place, don’t fucking animate it! It always ends badly.”
The man nods, looking admonished, before answering, “In this case, he’s right…I honestly thought it would work out…I figured since cookies are fairly harmless and small, I could always just destroy them if they turned into something ugly. But when I drew the runes and activated them with my magic, they grew larger. And at first, they were fine! I let my guard down, and then a few weeks later…I woke up like this,” He sighs.
Katsuki blows out a breath, but it comes out as more of a growl. “Alright. Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to give you a temporary seal. You pack up all the shit you need, travel about 25 miles down the forest road, and you’ll come to a Door. It’s hidden, but there’s a post, and it’ll open if you press the seal to it.” Katsuki reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a scrap of leather with a circular seal burnt into it, then hands it to the man. “They’ll take care of you there. If you can bake like you say you can, the Inn will probably hire you on as a cook.”
“Bakugou…” Kirishima whispers, smiling tenderly.
Katsuki glares at him, then brandishes a finger up close to the baker's face and adds, “And don’t try anything fucky when you get there, they’ll tell me, and then I’ll find you and beat you to a fucking pulp!”
“Aaand now we’re back to regular Bakugou. It was so short-lived…” Kirishima sighs, and Katsuki smacks him on the arm.
The man just clears his throat, rubbing at the back of his neck, and then says, “Well, anyways…thank you! My name is Satou Rikido, and I am forever in your debt. Is there anything I can do for you before you go…?”
Katsuki opens his mouth to decline, but then Kirishima’s stomach makes an audible growling sound, and he chuckles sheepishly.
“Uhh…any chance you…have any food I could have?”
“Oh, jeez…I’m sorry. Those cookie people were devouring everything in sight for days, I don’t think I have anything left…”
“What about your fuckin’ house made of cookie?” Katsuki barks, gesturing sharply to the house around them.
“Oh man, no, that’s so stale by now, I’d hate to subject you to that! You might even be poisoned, it’s really just a house, now.” He shrugs, smiling helplessly, and Kirishima slumps with a deflated sigh.
“Guess it was worth a shot…”
Katsuki punches him lightly on the arm. “We’re three hours away from the town, you’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
“Goodbye, Satou! I hope you find peace wherever you end up!” Kirishima calls, waving to him as they leave the cabin.
“So, uh…what’s with your cape, then, hm? Why’s it so important to you?” Kirishima asks as they continue to walk through the forest, grabbing a fistful of the red cape in his hand and looking at it.
“Why is talking all the fucking time so important to you, huh?” Katsuki snaps.
“I just wanna get to know my travelling buddy!” Kirishima beams at him. “Plus, I’m seriously losing it with how hungry I am, I need a distraction.”
“My cape…” Katsuki starts, “My hag mother made it for me. And that’s all you get, now shut up.”
“Hag!? That’s such a rude thing to call your mom, what!” Kirishima exclaims.
“Shut up! She is a hag, you don’t know anything!” Katsuki snaps, clenching his fists.
“Okay, okay! You clearly have a complicated relationship, I get it! You treasure the cape, though, so that’s nice…”
“Alright, here we are,” Katsuki says when they reach the gate.
“Uhh…this just looks like more forest to me…?” Kirishima says skeptically.
“Idiot, it’s magic,” Katsuki snaps, pulling off the seal he keeps around his neck and pressing it to the small, unadorned wooden post beside him.
The air in front of them shimmers for a moment, and then the town materializes, sounds and all. It’s not a large town, but it’s completely magically shielded from the outside world, and only those with the correct seal can make it appear. Katsuki’s never been too fond of Artificing himself, but even he can admit that this is an impressive work of magical engineering.
Kirishima gasps. “Woah! Look at that!”
There’s a cluster of houses and fields up on the cliffs on the left, and a sort of main street area down the center of the little valley, complete with smithy, tailor, various other shops, and a large inn at the end. The streets are full of greenery, and hung with large, dangling lanterns, which are already lit, as it’s firmly evening now. Sort of too bad that they’d missed the twilight, it would have been funny to watch Kirishima gawk at the fireflies…
“Welcome to Yuei, Shitty Hair,” Katsuki says, leading them towards the inn.
“Ki-ri-shi-ma,” Kirishima reminds him, but Katsuki ignores him.
Katsuki leads them around to a back building behind the inn, marked with a little red cross above the door.
“Oh, Bakugou, my dear. What have you done to yourself this time?” A tiny old woman admonishes as soon as they enter the room.
“Shuzenji,” Katsuki grumbles in begrudging greeting, wilting slightly under her reproachful eyes.
“And who’s this? Red hair, hm? Very strange, very strange…” Shuzenji shuffles her way over to Kirishima and grabs him by the edges of the cape to pull him down to her level.
Kirishima blinks at her. “Uhm, hello, ma’am, my name is Kirishima E- uh. Bakugou says I can’t tell you my first name, so…”
“Oh, psh. There are no fae here. Hunters like Bakugou are just overly paranoid. But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine by me, dear. My name is Shuzenji Chiyo, and I’m the healer of this village.”
She spins around and points a finger at Katsuki. “You, lie down over there, now.” She gestures to a small cot in the corner of the room. “And you…hm, you don’t look like you need much more than a bath and some food…and some clothes, my goodness…so…just wait here a moment.” She leads Kirishima over to a chair, and he plunks down into it stiffly.
“Shitty Hair,” Katsuki calls, and Kirishima looks up at him. “She’s alright. You can relax here.” Kirishima visibly loosens his tensed muscles and nods at him, tentative trust in his eyes.
“Uh…what about, you know…money? I definitely don’t have any and uh…” Kirishima stammers, wringing his hands together on his lap.
“Don’t worry about that,” Katsuki snaps, but Shuzenji smiles.
“Bakugou has done more than enough for this inn, anything within these walls is on us.” Kirishima just blinks, and then nods.
Then Shuzenji turns back to Katsuki with a fond smile. “Now lie down, you horrible gremlin. You really did a number on your poor face this time…”
Katsuki sighs, but does as she says. Shuzenji leans over, presses her lips to his forehead, and then he knows nothing more.
Katsuki wakes up slowly, pulling in a deep, sighing breath as he opens his eyes. The healing room is dimly lit with a few candles and some faint light from the street lanterns filtering in through the windows, and he can hear Shuzenji bustling around somewhere nearby.
She must hear him moving around, because she pops her head around the corner to look at him. Katsuki yawns at her, dragging a hand over his newly pain-free face.
“Ah, you’re up. Excellent. Go find your wayward dragon boy, he’s probably finished his bath by now and is charming all of the kitchen girls into giving him extra pie with those big, puppy-dog eyes of his.”
Katsuki blinks at her. “How did you…?”
“I’m a Healer, boy. I can tell. Now get going.” Then she turns around, reaches for something off the counter, and comes back with his cape. “And take this with you.”
“Uh…thanks…” Katsuki grumbles, hopping off the cot and snatching the cape from her, swinging it back over his shoulders and doing up the straps.
Katsuki makes his way into the main area of the inn, and as soon as he opens the door, he’s assaulted by light, sounds, and smells. And then he suddenly realizes that he’s actually pretty hungry himself.
Ears is playing her music on the stand, as usual, and the tables are bustling with customers eating, drinking, and laughing. He spots Kirishima almost immediately due to his eyesore hair, sitting at a table in the corner surrounded by a ridiculous amount of food.
“B’k’gou!” He says brightly, spraying crumbs everywhere, his cheeks puffed out like a squirrel and his eyes wide and excited.
“Fuck, don’t talk with your mouth full, were you raised in a damn barn?” Katsuki snaps at him, sliding around the table and slipping into the bench seat beside him.
Kirishima’s hair is damp and clean, and he’s wearing a fresh set of plain clothing that’s a little bit too tight across his muscular shoulders. He laughs and swallows the food in his mouth before he talks again.
“Sorry, sorry! I was just excited.”
Katsuki grunts, and then grabs a bread roll and stuffs it into his own mouth.
“You okay, though? That looked kind of intense, back there, the healing stuff…” Kirishima asks, turning to burp politely into his fist and then shoveling a spoonful of potato mash into his mouth.
Katsuki grimaces. “Yeah, I’m fine now. When you’re really drained of energy her healing hits hard.”
Kirishima nods with a hum. “And what exactly did you do for this place that they make everything free for you, huh?”
Katsuki waves his hand around dismissively. “That old bag is being dramatic. I just beat up a bunch of bandits and saved Ears over there.” Katsuki gestures at the bard up on the stand. “They all act like I’m a fuckin’ hero or something, even though the bandits were weak. Barely even a challenge.”
Kirishima just smiles at him. “Kinda sounds like you’re a hero to me, dude,” he says, then stabs a full sausage onto his fork and uses it to scoop mashed potatoes into his mouth like a savage.
“The hell did I say about table manners, asshole!”
Kirishima just cackles and shoves more bread into his mouth.
A few minutes later, Katsuki sees a familiar figure approach their table out of the corner of his eye.
“Ahh Bakugou. You’re here again. I’d know that belligerent yelling anywhere,” A flat, croaky voice says from slightly above them.
“Frog Face,” Katsuki greets with a curt nod.
Kirishima blinks between them, swallowing his current mouthful of bread before he speaks. “Why do you always give everyone such mean names, man? Thank you so much for the food, by the way, Tsuyu, it’s amazing.”
“Already know each other, huh,” Katsuki growls, picking up some meat off of one of the plates and taking a bite of it.
“Kirishima was kind enough to help us clean up some of the lunch dishes in the kitchen to thank us for feeding him. It’s rare that you bring anyone by my inn that can brighten the foul mood you always carry around you, Bakugou,” Frog Face says, impassive as always.
“Whatever,” Katsuki says, scowling at his bread.
“I’ve set up a room for you, but unfortunately we’re a little busy tonight, so you’ll have to share with your friend.” Katsuki glares at her sharply, and she adds, “Don’t worry, there are two beds.” She places two keys down on the table, and Katsuki stares at them, keeping his face carefully neutral.
Katsuki finishes his own food before Kirishima has even slowed down, so he snatches a room key off the table and stands up. “I’m going to take a bath.”
“M’kay!” Kirishima says, with his damn mouth full again.
The inn has its own bath house attached to the back, next to the healing rooms, and it’s one of the few perks of having to come back to this shitty village, Katsuki thinks.
It’s a wooden room, with ceramic-tiled bathing tubs and wash buckets. The water is heated with a complicated system of pipes and magic, and the tubs are large and empty at this time of night, so Katsuki takes his time relaxing in the hot water. He has a few weeks’ worth of dirt to scrub off himself anyways.
When he finally manages to heave himself out of the water, he finds a towel and some fresh clothing laid out for him. His weapons, trophy necklaces, earrings and the rest of his gear are all laid out neatly beside them, wiped clean and sparkling. He checks them, but like always, they’re all accounted for. This damn place is way too soft, it’s almost creepy…
In the main area of the inn, Ears is packing up her musical instruments, and the majority of the guests are now gone, either home or to their rooms. Kirishima is nowhere to be found, either.
“Lost your sword, again, eh Hunter?” Ears says, giving him a sidelong look.
“Shut. Up.” Katsuki growls at her.
“Shoji’s gonna be piiisssed! Well, as pissed as he gets, anyways, guy’s a saint.” She fiddles idly with the stretch-piercing in her left ear.
Katsuki just grunts and moves to leave.
“So. Who’s the red dude, hm?” Ears says.
He spins around to face her again, and she raises her eyebrow at him.
“Fuckin’ nobody. Just some idiot.”
“Didn’t seem like ‘just some idiot’ from where I was looking. You ate dinner with him. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you made yourself a friend. For once.” She smirks, her eyes half-lidded and teasing.
“You don’t know shit about anything, Ears, so just shut it,” Katsuki snaps, turning around to storm away from her and up the stairs to the rooms.
“Uh huh. Keep tellin’ yourself that, dingus. And I have a name, asshole!” She calls after him.
Katsuki pushes the door open to their room to find two twin sized beds, as promised, one on either side of the room. Kirishima is sprawled out on his back on the far bed, only half under the covers and fast asleep. And snoring, because of course he is.
Katsuki heaves a deep sigh as he stalks over to his own side of the room. He’s cursed. That must be it. Something cursed him, and now he has to deal with annoying idiots wherever he goes.
He leans over to blow out the candle that Kirishima left burning in the lamp on the wall, and then flops down on his own bed, trying his best to block out Kirishima’s damn snoring long enough to fall asleep.