Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Four of its legs are raised in the air in promising threat, and while the two on the outside come down without harm and only a thundering noise, they give leverage to its smaller manipulation legs to come down with bone-shattering force. The two in the path of destruction at the head of the pack are Bokuto and Iwaizumi.

Before the leg comes down to crush his skull Bokuto swings his oversized war hammer around and knocks it away from him at the joint, a loud crack echoing out from the hit. At the same time Iwaizumi flashes his Arming sword up and slashes off a segment of the leg that was trying to crush him. The spider roars with pain and staggers back.

During this time Noya and Hinata are able to brush off the last of their wispy bindings and pull out their respective iron Quarterstaff and Basket-hilted sword, now ready for battle.

Recovered, the spider hisses lowly and chitters as it rubs its mandibles together, the slime squishing as it coats them and they lift alternatively in rapid succession, flinging the liquid at the champions. They all dodge quickly, the slime falling to the jungle floor and letting out a chemical hiss as steam immediately starts to rise. Asahi, a half-step too slow, only gets half of his body out of the line of fire and the slime splatters over his left arm and shoulder. He cries out in pain.

"Asahi!" A number of voices call out.

Daichi and Noya rush after the spider, Daichi determinedly at the spider's legs with the creature agilely dodging and with that distraction Noya swings his Quarterstaff, charging his emotions with the thought of his friend in pain and the rod lights up with golden yellow sparks. The staff makes contact and the spider screeches as the smell of burnt plant matter and electric crackling fill the air.

Suga rushes to Asahi. "Are you okay?! Here, let me--"

"No. It's fine." Wincing, Asahi rises from where he had fallen to one knee. "I can still fight, I'll deal with it."

"But, you--"

"I don't want you to have this pain, Suga." Suga stares at his friend in shock as he clutches his arm with sweat breaking out over his face. "I'm fine."

"...Fine," says Suga, looking tortured.

"Asahi-san!" Noya comes bounding over, the spider distracted by Kuroo's shadow doubles while getting slashed at by Oikawa. "Are you okay?!"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Oi," The three look over, and Sugawara slaps a hand to his mouth and quickly turns away, shoulders shaking. Asahi looks mildly concerned and Noya grins sheepishly. Before them stands a slightly charred Daichi, hair a bit more on end than usual and expression unamused. "Next time you go to zap someone, please make sure your highly conductible teammate isn't also attacking."

Noya bows his head in shame. "Sorry, Daichi-san."

"Hey! Would you stop attacking us?!" Bokuto leaps out of the way as a leg comes crashing down. "Seriously, what did we do?!"

The spider screeches and Bokuto is too slow to dodge and gets swatted into a tree and flops to the ground with a groan. Akaashi surges forward to distract the spider from further pursuing Bokuto, delivering a few good nicks to its second and third legs with his twin daggers and feeling the blades slice past the exoskeleton as it screeches again. He bends backwards at an almost impossible angle to dodge a swipe similar to the one that bested Bokuto.

Kenma hauls back with a small frown and lets his shuriken fly at the spider. On the shuriken, hanging on for the ride for dear life, are a few crudely constructed leaf-people and when the shuriken embeds themselves into the spider's prosoma, at Kenma's silent order the leaf-people hop off and aim for the spider's weakest spot, its eyes.

It rears up with another screech and swipes at its eyes with its mangled pedipalps, the leaf-people valiantly dodging as best they can while still causing damage, Kenma a safe distance away with sharp cat-like eyes following every development.

Still watching the spider-plant out of the corner of his eye, Akaashi yells out, "Are you okay, Bokuto-san?"

Bokuto groans again, a hand at his head. "Yeah... 'M okay...!" That hurt like hell and my back still hurts but I'm okay. Why didn't it respond to me, though?

"Focus on the battle in front of you, Bokuto-san."

"Oh, right!"

By now the spider-plant has managed to get all the leaf-people off of itself, the last one torn in two and floating to the ground. In a fit of rage it roars and starts to stomp its feet alternatingly on the ground causing the jungle floor to tremble violently underfoot. All the champions have trouble staying upright, except Oikawa who surges forward, mindful of the spider's powerful legs.

Only, the spider sees him coming.

It stops stomping and with a move quicker than the eye could follow Oikawa's Arming sword flies out of his hand and into the air in two pieces. Oikawa only freezes for a second and a half in shock but that's all the opening the spider needs to smash him.

Except, the champions had regained their footing by then and Iwaizumi, the closest, races forward and lops off the leg aiming to crush Oikawa.

The fight goes back and forth like this, both parties gaining and loosing ground but after a significant amount of time it's clear the champions are starting to gain the upper hand. The spider-plant, instinctual organic being it is, starts to sense it's fighting a loosing battle and its attacks become desperate.

And then it spots Kenma, crouched to the side of the web-lined arena fashioning together more puppets out of leaves, back to the fight.

The spider surges forward and Kenma's only clue that something is amiss is the unfinished leaf-person wiggling in his hand, its already finished siblings hopping about and tugging frantically on his clothes. He sloppily tumbles to the side, a few puppets clinging to him while others leap at the spider and simply get swept away by the displaced air caused by the arachnid's speed. Kenma looks up and pales. The spider had predicted his movements and is already hovering over him.

"LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!"

A wall of fire flares up between Kenma and the spider and Hinata materializes out of it, red and orange tongues dripping off of his skin and clothes and hair, arms spread wide in protection and teeth bared at the threat to his fellow champions.

His expression is powerful enough that it breaks the spider's instincts and his fierceness combined with his heat sends the spider screeching and reeling, reeling so far it starts to topple. It overbalances, legs pinwheeling through the air and gravity causing the liquid in its pitcher plant half to slosh over and out.

Right onto a terror-frozen Sugawara.

His agonized scream is drowned out by the sound of the spider finally falling and cracking open its carapace, killing it.

Hinata stares as the older boy falls to the ground, writhing, mouth gaping, body steaming, and his flames dim as his face falls. "Suga-san?"

The next time he screams it's unhindered by any other noise. It's ear-piercing, heart-wrenching, soul shattering.

"Suga!"

"Suga!"

Daichi and Asahi run to his aid, followed swiftly by the other champions. Hinata remains rooted where he is, flames completely extinguished, and Kenma slowly gets to his feet to stand with him.

Sugawara's chest heaves as he lets out wail after wail of pain. Through the clouds of steam the other champions could see where the liquid eats into his skin in some places and makes it blister in others. He bucks and squirms, each movement making him whimper and yelp at the agitation to his exposed wounds, because the digestive fluid had doused him from head to toe.

Wincing, Daichi's hands flash out to pin one of Sugawara's shoulders and knees to the ground. "He's going to hurt himself even more. Kuroo, get his other side, Tanaka, get his feet." The two do as instructed and when Suga is rendered unable to move a low keening wail begins to tumble from his lips.

A distance away Hinata's horrified eyes water as his lower lip and fingers tremble. Kenma bites his lip as he watches him, Hinata, not Suga, as his leaf-people peer out at the situation from random hiding spots in his clothes.

"We have to find somewhere to treat him," Daichi says, forehead furrowed low over his brow.

Follow the (f/c) fire. I can help.

Asahi's eyes widen and he swivels his head around looking for whoever the voice he could swear was right in his ear belonged to. "What?"

Noya turns to look up at him, all curiosity, "What is it, Asahi-san?" Their interaction catches Akaashi and Oikawa's attention as well.

Asahi is just about to ask them if they hadn't heard or said that when it comes again. Calm, but harried.

Alright, I've found you. I won't be able to keep the trail up for long so you'll have to hurry. Although I suspect that won't be a problem.

"Wait, what? I don't understand..." Noya and Oikawa look at Asahi with concern but Akaashi's eyes widen.

I know, I'm sorry. There's a deep sigh. Akaashi, can you hear me? Go ahead and answer aloud.

"I can."

Noya and Oikawa switch their questioning gazes to Akaashi and Oikawa, bewildered, asks, "You can? Can you clue the rest of us in?" By now the champions who aren't focused on Suga start to listen to the exchange. Akaashi ignores them in favor of the second voice in Asahi's head.

You must convince your fellow champions to follow the (f/c) lights to me.

"And why should we?"

Oikawa throws his hands in the air.

Because it's time for your journey to come to an end.

Akaashi's eyes widen with understanding and even Asahi begins to work up a nervous sweat at the implications.

I'll be able to heal your injured friend but you must get him to me quickly.

There's a (f/c) flash to the South and a line of wispy, levitating (f/c) blobs appear in a line straight to them. When one appears too close to the webs that are still surrounding them, it wobbles in the air and bounces towards the impediment and the webs around the (f/c) orb catch aflame and are burned neatly into an arch that the champions can walk through. The orb by these webs is the last to appear and it wobbles beckoningly to the trail of its siblings behind it.

"What in the--"

"Daichi-san," Daichi tears his gaze from the will o' the wisps to Akaashi who had stepped forward, while still holding down a rapidly weakening Suga who still keens in despair. "We need to follow that trail of light," The rest of the champions, minus Asahi, look at him in confusion and Daichi frowns. "The Sorceress is calling us."

Everyone's eyes widen but something in Daichi's hardened.

He looks down at his injured friend. "Suga? Suga."

Through a haze of pain Sugawara's eyes clear enough to focus on Daichi.

"We're gonna get you to help, okay? But I'll need you to hold on to me."

Gritting his teeth, Sugawara nods slowly, and Daichi nods at Kuroo and Tanaka to let him go. Suga's body twitches when released but he grits his teeth harder and fights to stay still. Daichi leans down and as carefully and as quickly as he can scoops Suga up bridal style, one arm supporting his thighs and the other under his back, his super strength kicking in so he barely strains. Suga bites his lip so hard a trail of blood flows down his chin but he bravely keeps any pained noises to himself as he hooks his arms around Daichi's neck so there's less of a chance of him falling.

Daichi slowly stands and looks to Akaashi. "Lead the way."

Akaashi glances back at Asahi before he nods and runs to the wisps, Daichi following as the rest of the champions spread out to run around them in a protective circle. For a moment Hinata lags behind the others with hollow eyes before he shakes his head and catches up to them, the light in his eyes now burning fierce. Kenma sees all this and watches him a few seconds more before he focuses on running.

As they run to a wisp it disappears and the next closest one wobbles until they get close to that one and so on as they run through the jungle. At the back of the pack, Asahi has his eye on his paler than usual friend, who gets paler by the minute, and he jumps when the voice speaks again, still harried but comforting.

Don't worry. The best thing you can do for your friend right now is to hurry.

And so he picks up his pace.

~

They follow the (f/c) flickers through the entire forest, it seems. Around tree after tree, over hills, through bushes, occasionally loosing sight of the trail until one of them spots another ghostly orb and the chase begins again. The sun is just beginning to kiss the horizon when the trail officially goes cold.