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Katsuki never feared the battlefield.
He was born a warrior, and he knew he would die a warrior, but when the moment came where his life was moments from slipping away from him, he knew then what it meant to be a coward.
The Ogre Wars lasted for five years, and Katsuki was fifteen when he first picked up his greatsword with the intention to use it, and he was fifteen when his parents called for aid from their elven neighbors from a kingdom away.
They didn’t need aid.
They were a warrior clan, and elves were wizards and herb drinking fools, and Katsuki knew that bringing them in would only weaken their defenses.
But the elves had something he didn’t have, something he didn’t realize he needed until the Ogre Patriarch had him on his back with his warhammer raised, ready to deliver Katsuki to his gods.
The elves had fire.
Hot, searing flames raged across the battlefield, and the last thing Katsuki saw before the hammer crashed down towards him was a wall of ice, shattered only before the chasing flames engulfed his would-be executioner.
He was alive.
His next breath was filled with smoke, but he lived to see another day, his warrior’s death snatched away from him by–.
He didn’t know.
Katsuki soon fell unconscious before he could see the source of the ice or fire, but still deep down he knew.
There was an elf, one who lived within the Fire Kingdom rumored to be half sun and half moon. The elves themselves talked about him like he was a god, but all Katsuki saw was a gangly idiot who took too long to chew his food and never moved his face when he spoke.
Katsuki knew him because they had stood across from each other dozens of times before every time their parents met to renew the Accords. In a way they grew up together, became men together. In a way they were friends in the way that two allies had to be.
Prince Shouto, the youngest of the Todoroki elves, and the one carved out of both ice and fire.
He was the only person Katsuki knew who fought like that, and he had saved his life.
Katsuki woke in a tent in their Alliance’s encampment to Izuku, his childhood friend and most worrisome confidant, wrapping a gash on his arm he sustained when fighting one of the Harpies earlier in the day.
Katsuki winced at it, and Izuku pulled his hands away, giving him a moment to come to his senses before trying again.
“Shouto,” he said, the word half lost in his hoarse throat, and Izuku took a deep breath before setting his tools back down into the bowl of water next to him. It was red with Katsuki’s blood, which only confirmed his suspicions that he had in fact survived.
“Yes,” he says. “He brought you here.”
Katsuki furrowed his brow in confusion as he pushed himself up to sit, Izuku’s hands moving to him to immediately push him back down.
“You need to rest.”
“I need to find him.”
“Katsuki,” he frowned.
“How did he–? How did he carry me here,” he said. “If they let that bastard throw me in a cart, I’ll–.”
“I think he carried you over his shoulder,” Izuku said, and Katsuki’s eyes widened. “Like a sack of stones. I’m not sure, I only saw him drop you on the bed before he turned around and left, but he had blood down the front of his shirt.”
“He–.”
“Yes,” Izuku said.
Katsuki put his head back against the bed and blinked up at the top of the tent. All he could hear outside were the moans of other soldiers and the metallic tinks of hammers. The battle was over. He had fallen and slept through it.
The elf prince saved him from death, brought him here, and the battle raged on.
“Where–,” he asked and paused to swallow, his throat the sorest it’s ever been.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He could be at the war tent with your parents, I guess. I stayed here with you.”
Katsuki shook his head, and it throbbed, but he ignored it. “Where did he go after leaving me?”
“Back to fight, I think,” he said with a frown. “Why?”
“Izuku,” he rasped and reached out for him, giving his arm a purposeful squeeze. “I saw my death.”
Izuku’s eyes widened, and Katsuki turned away, his eyes stinging as a new fear bubbled in his chest.
His people had a law, one he would honor even if he hated it, but without seeing Shouto’s face, without seeing if he understood, he wouldn’t know if he had been discarded.
There was no uglier fate.
Shouto was gone by the time Katsuki could walk again, and Katsuki knew because when he stumbled into the War Tent, only his parents and the Yaoyorozus waited.
His mother looked at him, almost surprised to see him, and her lips curled in at once.
She knew. She had to.
“Where is he,” he asked.
“The Todorokis had to go north,” she said. “Touya and Natsuo breached the Ogre stronghold.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened. “So why are we still here?”
Mitsuki glanced at the Yaoyorozus before Masaru guided them out, Momo nodding towards Katsuki before leaving the tent with her parents. “You’re injured, and we still have to reinforce the Southern border. The Dragons will be at the stronghold with the rest of the Snow Elves. Our people are stronger on the battlefield than we are in a siege, you know this.”
Katsuki scowled and turned away. If they were stronger on the battlefield, Katsuki wouldn’t have needed an elf to save him, one who wasn’t even here to look him in the eye and face the consequences.
“Shouto…,” Masaru said, and Katsuki turned towards him. “Told us what happened.”
Katsuki exhaled and nodded. “I didn’t see it.”
“You didn’t see your death,” Mitsuki said, relieved.
“I mean I didn’t see him save me,” he said. “Yes, I saw my death, it came for me, but I didn’t see him. Just his… ice. The ice shielded me, and then he burned the Patriarch. Or at least I assume it was him. It was elven fire, though, I’m sure of it, but I didn’t see him do it.”
“I don’t know if that matters,” Masaru said.
“Katsuki, we raised you with honor.”
Katsuki furrowed his brow and turned to his mother, who looked at him with a kind firmness, twinged with enough worry that it made him sick. “I know that.”
He paused and reached for his ribs, a sharp pain stabbing through as one of the bandages began to soak. Izuku did a terrible job of stitching him back together. He should have taken one of those Harpy talons as a trophy to wear around his neck before charging towards the Patriarch.
But that didn’t matter now.
Only one thing did.
“That’s why I came here,” he said. “My honor.”
Mitsuki nodded and turned to Masaru who looked at them both. “Then we will pray that the gods will watch over him until he returns so neither of you die without it.”
Katsuki titled his head back, taking as deep of a breath as his lungs could manage.
If Shouto died before he could rightfully make his vow, he would lose his soul as a warrior. The only way it wouldn’t matter is if Katsuki was there with him, but he had been left behind, thrown onto the bed like a sack of stones.
“Where is my sword?”
“Where are you going?” Mitsuki asked, horrified.
“To secure the southern border,” he said. “I will have to hold my honor until I see him again somehow, and I’d rather do that fighting our war.”
She let out a breath, but she didn’t argue with him or explain their laws like he didn’t already know them. Five years ago, Katsuki would have fought it, but now…
So his life belonged to an elf, an elf who wordlessly left him behind.
“Did Izuku mend you,” Masaru asked.
Katsuki shook his head. “I told him to save his magic for the injured. I don’t need it.”
Both of his parents looked at him with the fondness he pretended he didn’t notice, and Masaru used his own magic to heal Katsuki’s wounds, enough at least that he could hold his sword again without bleeding.
His lungs still burned from his fire.
His heart still burned with fear.
Death came for him.
He was only 20, and death stood over him as tall as a god, and it laughed.
“Katsuki!”
Shouto’s voice echoed in his mind, a glimmer of a memory, but it was enough to make Katsuki jerk his head away in defiance.
It was him.
He knew it.
Shouto is the one who saved him.
It could have only been Shouto.
“If the gods see fit to keep him alive, I’ll make my vow before the next battle.”
The chance for battle never came.
Katsuki headed south with most of the human forces and many of the Fire Elves who had been told to stay behind while most of their Snow Elf allies joined the dragons and Shouto’s brothers.
For the first time in his life Katsuki fought next to Shadow Elves who seemed to appear and disappear out of thin air with their thin pointed blades and their strange web-like ropes. It was an unusual method of combat, but it was effective, and Katsuki knew better than to think that this war could be won by blade against blade. After all he was a trained tactician, the future leader of his people, and someone who thought that a warrior’s mind mattered as much as his strength did.
But still, every time Katsuki’s eyes caught the flicker of fire, his head jerked like a fool, thinking it was Shouto’s flames, but they never were.
Word came soon that the fortress had been taken, and the forces attacking their southern border fled back into the forest with the Shadow Elves on their trails, vowing to send word by crows if they caught signs of another attack.
The mountains were returned to the Dragons, and the Dragons sent word asking to join the Accords with the humans and elves, which based on the new banners flying in the castle halls, Katsuki could assume their request was granted.
He looked up at his own banner, gold with a blazing sun ringed in fire like an omen to mock him. Beneath it hung a smaller banner of green leaves, the Midoriya Clan pledged to his family since before either Katsuki or Izuku were born. Two more banners hung next to his, other human clans within their borders.
Next to them hung the Yaoyorozus and their allies, more human clans that Katsuki barely cared to know the name of.
“You’ll need to know who you’re allied with.”
“I’ll just wait and see which direction they point their swords.”
The Dragon banners were new to him, but they weren’t necessarily unfamiliar. One clan was red and black, and one was silver and white, and Katsuki was sure he had seen them in books at some point or another.
The elven banners were the most elaborate, twinkling with the magic of the elements that governed each clan.
Katsuki looked up at the banner of the Fire Elves and the flames that danced over it, and he frowned. The Snow Elves’ hung next to it, and naturally snow feathered down from beneath the bottom threads.
He knew they would be here, but seeing them both now, side by side, the proudly displayed proof that the Todoroki family was here made his stomach twist in a knot.
The King of the Fire Elves, and the Queen of the Snow Elves, wedded a thousand years ago, ending their own war, and their four children, four of the most powerful elven mages in the world.
Of course they were fucking there.
Everyone knew who the real victors were there.
The violet Shadow Elf banner flickered just in and out of sight like it was mocking him too, and Katsuki stormed down the hall towards the celebration waiting for him just inside.
His stupid heart pounded a little louder.
He couldn’t believe he had to do this here. He couldn’t believe he had to do this then of all times.
But it had to be done.
Every year since it was founded, the Accords were renewed, and this was the first in Katsuki’s life that it was also the celebration of a victory. The war was over, the alliance was stronger, and for the first time in five years, everyone who could be found inside this building was happy. Katsuki’s stomach churned with nerves.
He should have taken something, asked Izuku for a tonic or anything to soothe him, but Izuku knew too much, and he would have wanted to help, and Katsuki didn’t want to talk about this or process it more than he had to.
Izuku knew, his parents knew, the Yaoyorozus probably knew, but they had different laws and customs, and this probably didn’t mean much more to them than an incidental moment of valor.
Oh he hated this so much.
Katsuki walked through two heavy iron doors into the main hall where dozens of braziers burned and a hundred humans, elves, and dragons gathered to talk, drink, and dance. War drums played alongside flutes and harps, and Katsuki saw so many familiar faces that he almost stopped right there to say a prayer that so many of them survived, but he couldn’t stop yet. His breath was no longer his to take, and that’s why he needed to find him.
It shouldn’t have been hard. Shouto was taller than almost any human Katsuki knew, and his hair was split down the middle, just as much Fire Elf as he was Snow Elf, but Katsuki couldn’t find him.
There was a chance that meant that Shouto never came, which would give Katsuki one more night of peace, but that would be one less day without his honor, and even he couldn’t deny that. He had to get this over with as quickly as possible no matter what.
He found Momo, who would at least know who he was talking about, and quietly asked her if she’d seen him, not sure if he hoped for a yes or a no.
“Yes,” she said. “The upper balcony,”
Katsuki looked up, and there he saw him with a Snow Elf woman with long white hair nodding as she spoke to him. She reached forward and clasped his hands in hers with a warm smile, and his head dipped slightly at the brief display of affection. It’s not a scenario Katsuki particularly wanted to see, but at least he’s not a stone slab to his own mother.
Shouto turned and walked away, and Katsuki headed towards the stairs to intercept him, pushing his way through the crowd without a care for their crushed toes or spilled drinks. He couldn’t let him get away.
Katsuki was half out of breath when he finally reached the top, and he moved towards Shouto, not once taking his eyes off the back of his head so he wouldn’t lose him.
He grabbed his elbow more forcefully than he meant to.
“I need to talk to you.”
Shouto eyed him curiously, but he let himself be led through one of the doors and down one of the halls away from everyone else because frankly, even if the rest of his clan would understand what he was doing, he didn’t want any unnecessary eyes on him.
They stopped at a terrace overlooking the grounds below where more people celebrated, but none of them would be able to see them here except for maybe the top of Shouto’s head.
Katsuki drew his sword strapped to his back, and Shouto actually gave him a genuine look of surprise.
“Are you here to murder me?”
Katsuki’s face screwed into a question mark. “No, idiot. What? Listen, just– wait a second.”
And then he got on his hands and knees, laying his sword at Shouto’s feet, grimacing in shame as the words stuck to the back of his tongue.
For his honor.
“What are you doing?”
He hoped he memorized this well.
“Death came for me in battle, and like a coward, I feared it, but you spared me from the endless dark, and from now until I take my last breath, my life, my sword, and my honor belong to you,” he said, eyes locked onto the stone beneath Shouto’s feet. “This is my sacred vow, and if you will accept it, then it can never be broken.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “This is unnecessary.”
Katsuki blinked a few times as he registered his words before he felt his face grow hot with anger. He looked up at him with furrowed brows. “The last battle we fought together. You saved my life, and now it’s yours. That’s how this works.”
“I saved many people’s lives,” he said. “That is my job as a mage to support the warriors. You were no different.”
“I was different,” he said, standing to his feet and leaving his sword on the ground between them. “I saw my death when I wasn’t ready, and you spared me, and that means I have to give myself to you. I am yours now.”
Shouto blinked at him quickly. “I do not think that’s correct.”
“Yes, it is,” he shouted and grabbed him by the collar, looking up at his two toned eyes that both looked like two different paintings of the same sky. “You didn’t just save my life, you spared me from death when I couldn’t face it, you idiot. You called out my name.”
“And that means you have to give yourself to me,” he frowned.
“And my sword and my honor,” he said. “It’s all yours, so take it before I have to shove it all down your goddamn throat.”
Shouto’s brows pinched together. “Is this what you want?”
“It’s not about what I want, it’s about what I need,” he said. “I’m not going to be able to live my life until you take it. It’s yours.”
How was he supposed to understand? This was a tradition that went back among Katsuki’s clan for thousands of years, one that couldn’t be broken or discarded. If he didn’t give Shouto his life, then he would have to spend the rest of it half dead and half alive, and neither part of him would rest even after his body turned to ash.
His life was no longer his.
It was Shouto’s.
And Shouto wasn’t accepting it.
“Please,” he said. “You have to take it, damnit.”
“I don’t want it.”
Katsuki blinked at him in betrayal. “No, that’s not how this works. You saved my life, and now it’s yours, and if you didn’t want it you should have just let me die. Take responsibility.”
Shouto frowned. “I didn’t want you to die.”
“So you spared me,” he said, gritting his teeth. What part of this wasn’t he getting? What did Katuski have to say here? “My life belongs to you because you spared me. Please.”
Shouto turned away, brushing away the hands on his collar, and looked out into the night where four human children climbed up onto a red dragon’s back. “You seem persistent.”
“You could fucking say that.”
“And it’s important to you and your people that I accept.”
“Yes,” he said.
Shouto nodded in consideration. “Alright.”
Katsuki’s eyes widened. “Alright?”
“I have received worse offers from lesser suitors,” he said. “You are brash, but the upper half of your body is appealing, and our union shouldn’t have any political consequences considering our families' centuries long alliance and my status as the fourth born. Yes, that’s alright then. I will accept.”
Katsuki stared in shock as Shouto turned and left, heading back into the castle without another word while Katsuki’s ears rang.
“Union?! Now wait a minute, that’s not what that means,” he called out to him. “Oi!”
Katsuki stopped and grabbed his sword off the ground, working it into its sheath before running after him to fix whatever the hell this was. This damned elf was going to be the death of him.
“And what do you mean the top half?! The bottom half is pretty damn good too! Hey, get back here!”
And so the vow was made, and Katsuki’s honor was restored, and somehow after fighting together for five years against a common enemy, Katsuki found himself betrothed to the youngest prince of the elves, not at all on purpose.
He supposed that was somewhat better than being reduced to a life as a bodyguard, but how the fuck did Shouto get marriage out of that? Hadn’t he ever seen a warrior hand over his sword before?
Gods.
He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to explain this to his parents, but at least Shouto said yes. That had to count for something.
There was no coming back from this.