Chapter Text
A clearing. Trees, thick with foliage. A cliff. Sharp and teetering, crumbling its very foundations as the water at the bottom yearned to swallow it whole.
A man. Not just a man — a hunter. Boots caked in mud, blond hair sweaty and dirtied.
Another man. Falling, falling, falling. Who?
A scream.
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Katsuki cursed as his cape snagged on another branch whilst he dodged his way through the forest. Indeed, it wasn’t ideal that he found himself still miles away from his town and in the middle of what some of the locals like to call the ‘enchanted forest’.
Katsuki calls bullshit.
There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about this forest if you ask him. Aside from weirdly aggressive wild boars. The trees were tall and thick, but they didn’t completely steal the sunlight into their withered hands. Upon the mossy ground, flowers bloomed as if they were unaware of the frostiness of early March. From the rich brown, earthen hues of the trees to the glimpses of orange skies above him in the late afternoon, the forest was truly a wonderland for all who were brave enough (and willing) to traverse into it.
As Katsuki continued to walk, his dark boots making a thumping sound against the soft forest floor so woven with ancient roots, he couldn’t help but breathe in the clear air; verdant, crisp, and light.
He soon came across a corpse of an old oak, fallen in a storm long ago. The bark was blackened and charred – likely from the lightning strike that smote it with the might of a god. The seasons clearly hadn’t been kind to it, and yet the creatures that lived within had.
Grumbling due to his stomach’s apparent and very inconvenient emptiness, Katsuki decided to take a rest against the tree carcass. Letting his pack fall to the ground, he crouched beside the tree and extended his weary legs.
He had been travelling home from Yuuei for about three days now. The journey would have been longer if he had heeded his friends’ advice and taken the week-long route instead. When they had suggested it, Deku in particular, Katsuki simply scoffed. Who did they think he was? Afterall, Katsuki had been called by King Nezu himself as a personal offer to join his elite corps for the current war that ravaged much of the North.
It wasn’t exactly surprising seeing as Katsuki was renowned for being the “greatest warrior of a generation.” But after the last time…
Katsuki shuddered.
He cast his eyes to the flora cushioning his aching muscles, letting his fingers spread into the soil as if he was growing roots from his palms himself. He breathed. Slow and deep. The ground was soft, damp, yet his fingers came away dry and speckled with only the barest amount of dirt. Katsuki tilted his head upwards, letting his sweat drip back down his temples. It may have been March but he had always ran hot. Especially if he had been previously chased by a savage boar after accidentally stumbling upon it a few hours ago.
Ok, maybe he lied. There were certain dangers in the forest - like all bloody forests have - but not once had he come across any Itsumade or Karasu-tengu that the village elders claimed they had seen and slaughtered once upon a time.
Katsuki reached into his bag for an apple. His rations were slowly running out but, with hope and confidence in his cartography, he should be arriving home within the next day. Maybe less if he travelled through the night.
Birdsong came in lulls and bursts, the silence and the singing working together as well as any improvised melody. It was an orchestra of Katsuki’s own choosing. Slowly. Very slowly, he allowed a small, contented smile to break out across his tanned face, knowing the only ones watching were the birds on the branches and the sky. The forest felt alive, but not alive enough to make Katsuki feel cramped as much as he did in the big city of Yuuei. It was simply him, the birds, the gentle whispering of the trees.
Until a piercing scream and a splash had to ruin it for him.
Jolting upwards as if he met the same fate tree he rested against once had, Katsuki quickly pulled his dagger from the sheath by his hip. His heart was beating out of his chest and he felt his pulse in his throat, but Katsuki swiftly swung his bag back over his shoulder before creeping across the grass to the sound. He just hoped he wasn’t being lured to his death by an angry spirit. For god’s sake – he needs a strong spirit when he gets back to the village tavern. Katsuki was thankful for the spongy surface of the ground as it masked any potential indicators of his presence. Proving once again why Katsuki is the village’s prime hunter and the country’s best warrior, Katsuki slithered behind trees and prowled around boulders to find himself near a clearing.
There was a medium-sized waterfall northwest of where he was standing, roughly 10 metres tall with grooves of dark stone behind the swirls of water. Water ran down the cliff face and accumulated into a frothing and bubbling pool of murky depths. The plunge pool couldn’t have been deeper than 5 metres and yet the darkness unnerved him. Surrounding the pool were hulking boulders, acting as if they were gates to an enclosure. All in all, the setting didn’t seem too daunting and if anything, would have been a nice rest stop for Katsuki had he discovered this before.
However, most alarmingly, the trees above the top of the small waterfall were smouldering in bright azure flames.
Adrenaline coagulated into Katsuki’s blood.
The scent of burning wood filled the air, smoke wafting across the clearing in thick blankets. It heated the frosty air in a way that should have been pleasant but instead set itches across his skin. It was by no means a forest fire but from what Katsuki could see, there was a path of destruction leading to the waterfall from the woods behind. A burrow - almost like a tunnel - had been carved out of the foliage leaving charred branches and still glowing leaves. It left Katsuki with a bad taste in his mouth. The air smelled like a bonfire while the horizon glowed with the mix of both dying flames and the dying sun - a crimson red beneath the wind-dragged plume.
Who had screamed? Where were they now? Were they the culprit behind the destruction Katsuki was now faced with?
Before he could ponder and switch his dagger between his sweaty palms anymore, bubbles from the pond caught his attention. They rose in a ring as if something was trying to climb out - which was highly likely at this point. Katsuki was all the more happy to turn in the direction from where he came, but a tugging in his gut prompted him to shuffle to the edge of the water. Red eyes scouring the depths, he caught side of weak thrashing and a pale hand that twitched every few seconds.
He cursed very suddenly and very loudly . Why must his conscience work against him?
Throwing his bag to the mossy floor and slipping off his cloak and boots, he jumped over the closest boulder, lowered himself into the frigid waters and held his breath.
He hoped to god there were no akkorokamui waiting to rip his arms off and force them down his throat.
It didn’t take long for Katsuki to scoop up whichever sorry sod found themselves literally drowning in a puddle. He swam down, looped his arms underneath the shoulders of the figure - a man - and kicked his legs out to swim to the surface. Cold air hit his face and nipped at his nose as Katsuki tilted the man’s head back against his shoulder and swam to the edge of the pool. It wasn’t too hard to drag the man up and over the side of the pond as the man seemed lighter and less built than Katsuki, but he was evidently taller as the man’s limbs dangled in the water when he attempted to pull the rest of his torso out.
Once the man was fully out of the water, Katsuki pressed two fingers against his pulse.
Nothing.
Katsuki took a deep breath and tried to recall the lessons his mother gave him as a child. He quickly laid the man out flat on the grass and placed the heel of one hand on the centre of his chest, aligned with his armpits, and the other hand on top. Katsuki started his compressions, pumping rhythmically in time with his own beating pulse, and counted under his breath. After Katsuki deemed the compressions to be enough for the time being, he leaned over and pinched the man’s nose closed and placed his mouth over the other’s, forming a tight seal. Blowing steadily into the man’s mouth, he watched his chest rise and fall.
The man beneath him choked and spluttered causing Katsuki to abruptly pull back. He pushed the man onto his side and allowed him to spew water across the forest floor (luckily not reaching Katsuki’s dry bag and cloak). When the man was finally done retching his guts out, Katsuki leaned over and placed his ear directly over the man’s nose and mouth, waiting to feel warm breaths of air. Katsuki paused for a few seconds before an icy breath was released, causing him to startle back. How peculiar. He shook his head lightly before he pressed two fingers against the side of the man’s pale neck. Katsuki felt a sluggish pulse pushing at his fingertips and let out a subtle sigh of relief. It would have been a waste to save a dead man.
Katsuki dragged the man further away from the edge of the pool and manoeuvred him so the man’s head rested on a mossy pillow in a convenient bed-like gap between a tree’s roots. The tree provided decent enough cover and a comfortable surface for the man to lie on.
It would be so easy for Katsuki to leave. He could grab his bag and continue through the wooden pass like nothing happened. But the sun had now set and Katsuki always considered himself a half-decent person of sorts. He couldn’t just abandon an unconscious man next to the body of water where he had nearly drowned.
Sighing and running a hand through his dampened locks, Katsuki turned to his stuff to pull out dry clothes and a spare blanket. The cotton felt fuzzy against his soft skin and seemed to emanate warmth. Facing the man once again, Katsuki draped the blanket over his body and went to the outskirts of the clearing to find firewood.
Once gathering enough wood, he assembled a good enough pyre and produced a box of matches to light the pile, striking once, twice, three times. The birds had stopped singing a while ago and the night brought such a silence that the crackle of the campfire was all that could be heard. Katsuki let the flames grow and caress his face, embers dancing into the sky above. He poked at the base of the fire in an attempt to force it to grow stronger. The smoke, so much different from the angry fire previously, twirled heavenward, charming his worries away.
Katsuki got to work slowly heating up a pot of soup that had been stored in his flask. He wondered if the man would be awake for dinner or if he should count this as a win and keep as much food for himself as possible.
This turned his attention to the unconscious man.
Katsuki’s heart fluttered in his chest when he finally saw, in no uncertain terms, the face of the man he saved in the light of the fire.
He was by far the most beautiful man Katsuki had ever seen. He had the kind of face that stopped people in their tracks. That had men and women alike swooning and fawning over him. That had made princes jealous and kings amazed. The man’s face was slender with high cheekbones and unblemished skin aside from a large mark over his left eye. His closed eyes were adorned with long, thick eyelashes, dark enough to consume the light of the flames. His hair, weirdly enough, was split into two colours: red and white. Had the hair belonged to anyone aside from this man, it would likely look ridiculous, but somehow he managed to effortlessly pull it off. Katsuki’s previous assessment of the man’s build had been correct as the man wasn’t as muscular as Katsuki, instead flaunting a more slender figure with long, seemingly graceful limbs. Plump and a soft pink colour, Katsuki immediately averted his eyes from the man’s lips as he felt a blush rise on his cheeks.
Deciding that was enough ogling for a lifetime, Katsuki poured himself a bowl of soup and sat against his own tree stump. He pulled out a very small, novelty book from a pocket in his bag and began to read. Katsuki had purchased the book when he was in the city and had looked around the market. It came in handy for moments like this where he just needed a reprieve from the world and didn’t want to sink into any spiralling thoughts.
Despite reading not being his favourite pastime, Katsuki quickly found himself enraptured with the pages as the fire flickered in the background.
It could have been hours that passed before a deep voice broke the silence.
“Hello.”