Chapter Text
Branches swayed above his head like long sleeves of dancing maidens during a festival. The wealth of leaves clinging to them shimmered in a thousand hues of green, some highlighted in golden and red from the approaching autumn. Opening his eyes had been a chore, a terribly hard task, the air too brilliant for his pupils, tears blurring the view above him. But he had managed to blink the tears away, to force himself through the pain of the noon light. Now he could admire the opulence of color and the hypnotizing sway of tree limbs against the background of the sky in the peculiar shade of blue promising cooler weather and strong winds, crisp mornings and warm middays.
The sound of rushing water was soothing too, bubbly and constant. Birds chirped and sang overhead, some alighting on the branches he could see for a time before flying away. Little tufts of feathers, some colorful, some plain brown and gray. Beady eyes glinted in sunlight as the animals glanced down to where he lay, unafraid of his presence.
Not that he could have done anything to them, not even throw a rock. His body was in pain all over, bruised and battered, limbs limp and heavy.
His lower half was caked in mud, bare feet submerged in the water of the river he had dragged himself out of sometime last night. His zori were long gone, his pants in tatters, sticking to his calves and thighs as a cold weight. His upper half wasn’t faring much better, but at least it was marginally less wet, the day’s warmth had dried his chest and arms well enough. Which meant that the mud had become dust that itched against his skin and annoyed the shit out of him. Dried blood on the side of his head and down his left shoulder didn’t help matters much and his insides seemed to pulse with a lament of ache and soreness. His mouth was dry, his tongue appeared swollen and from time to time he felt more than heard an insistent ringing in his ears, like the wail of a pesky insect.
A part of him wished to submerge himself back in the blissful darkness of unconsciousness, where no pain and no thirst reached him, where his brain wasn’t staggering between shards of memories of the last day and night. But he was no wuss, he could do it, he had to get up and find his stupid shitty friends, go home and… But not yet, not for a few minutes more. He needed to take a breath, or maybe two. Then he could jump up and beat the day with a stick if it tried to give him any attitude.
He watched the swaying branches overhead. His eyes blinked slowly, the intervals between every blink growing longer and longer as his mind drifted.
Somewhere between the blinks, he thought, he heard a noise like a careful step against the soft ground of the riverbank. He tried to tilt his head towards that noise and scare away any animal curious about his presence or seeing him as a possible meal.
The next time his eyelids lifted they didn't open entirely, too heavy to reveal more than a sliver of red irises. And all he saw before they fell shut again was viridian green, highlighted by warm, gentle autumn sunlight.
He felt a hand, fingers warm and calloused, brushing his muddy bangs from his forehead, The aches of his body silenced by a soft voice coaxing him to let himself be blanketed by slumber.
.
The next time Katsuki awoke he was no longer in the mud on the riverbank somewhere in the deep wilderness of the forest that span the distance between Musutafu Village and Honsiu Village.
He woke up on the bed of thick grasses, smelling fresh and soothing, the blades separating him from the ground under his back. He was disoriented for a long moment, wondering if he had woken earlier and had moved away, but he couldn’t hear the river anymore. He still could hear the rustling of leaves, like a steady whisper, the birds singing a distance away, a branch snapping under some mysterious strain. The sunlight danced in the treetops, but the area below started to get darker, the afternoon became evening, the sun about to tip over the horizon.
The air seemed to be warmer here, in the clearing he was resting in now. His skin, bare down to his waist, tingled in the wake of a gentle breeze. Somewhere, sometime, he had lost his upper layers and the filth he had been caked in seemed to be partially removed, as if he’d been rinsed off.
He frowned, blinking a few times and trying to piece together a few fuzzy memories into a coherent account, but failing miserably. Then his attention was snatched away by a movement and his gaze snapped to the side.
What met his eyes was a pair of holes cut in a pale mask. He stiffened, glimpsing a twinkle of green within the pits of black staring at him. The mask had delicate lines drawn on it, imitating swirling patterns curling around the black of the hollows, the thicker line of the nose and mouth. On both sides and above the rim of the mask thick green strands of hair coiled and bounced with every motion of the head covered by the mask. The person sitting next to him paused with a hand outstretched towards him, a wet cloth grasped in crooked, scarred fingers. A bowl of water was positioned next to the person, in the easy reach of the stranger who - Katsuki realized - had been wiping his torso and shoulders clean.
The breeze came again, whispering in the leaves, playing with the tendrils of dark green hair, swaying the sleeve of the robe the person was wearing. Katsuki held his breath, knowing deep inside that he couldn’t move – either to roll away or to lunge forward – his limbs were still so weak that moving a finger seemed to be a great task. He was at the mercy of the stranger.
The mask was smiling, but the stiff curve of the mouth appeared unnatural, too broad, forced. Facing that grin he ought to be wary, but Katsuki found that he felt at ease. A strange calmness washed over him, coaxing his muscles to relax, his mind to stop worrying about where he was, who this stranger was, what happened to him. Instead of asking any of the questions that sprang in his mind at the bizarre scene in front of him, Katsuki merely let out a sigh and closed his eyes.
After a moment he felt the rag, held by warm fingers, rub against a spot over his ribs. It was gentle, careful and foreign. He had not been washed by another since his mother had done that.
He looked up again, trying to find the eyes hidden behind the mask, but all he could see were shadows stark against the pale paper.
“Sleep, Kac-chan,” the voice of the stranger was gentle, quiet and oddly familiar despite sounding hollow under the mask.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he mumbled, wanting to stay awake, to inspect his surroundings, to find out who the stranger was. Instead, as if bespelled by the childish nickname,, he fell asleep.