Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Katsuki woke up with a groan. His back and head were killing him, and warm light was shining directly on his face. He shielded his eyes with his arm, blinked them open, and stared blearily up into the trees. The giant, dense pine trees soared tall above him. He’d never seen one in person before, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was a redwood forest.

He laid frozen for a moment to allow his brain to catch up. It never did.

The light came from the sun above him. It shone through the pines in broken-up pillars. He sat up and tried to make sense of where he was, but the terrain was all unfamiliar to him. The redwoods surrounded him as far as the eye could see. Around the edges of the clearing, he could see patches of clovers and moss low on the forest floor. Hovering above them were thick ferns and some other bushes that he would have to examine carefully to identify. The ground below him was packed dirt covered in a sprinkling of dead pine needles, and there was an unlit firepit to his left.

“G’morning,” a familiar voice spoke behind him. “I like the look. Little familiar, though.”

Katsuki twisted around to see Kirishima standing over him. He wore a bandana around his head just below his spiked hairline, like he’d done so many times before, but that’s where the normalcy of his outfit ended. He had a thick, red and black tiger-stripe scarf around his neck, a gray vest and pants, no shirt of course, and just one glove on his left hand. His dark leather boots went up to his knees, and there was some kind of red half-cape attached to his belt.

He couldn’t help the burst of laughter that passed his lips. “What the hell are you wearing?”

Kirishima pouted and ripped the bandana from his head with his gloved hand. “Right back at you. Come on, you can’t say it’s not inspired.”

Katsuki looked down at himself, and the first thing he noticed was that he was also shirtless. His legs were tangled in a worn bedroll, which he hastily kicked away. He was wearing a pair of dark pants with kneepads sewn into them and a leather belt, which struck him as an odd choice considering the fact that he’d just been sleeping. He had partially detached sleeves over his elbows, and, he realized with distress, a tattoo on his shoulder. It was tribal, but vaguely resembled a heart with the letter ‘K’ in the center. He rubbed at it. “Fucking what?”

He whipped his head around to take a closer look at the clearing. It looked like some kind of camp. There was a second bedroll strewn on the other side of the fire pit. An ancient-looking unlit lantern and a limp, mostly empty backpack stood beside it. Right behind him, above where his head had been, was a pair of gray boots with fur around the ankle, a set of unfamiliar necklaces, and… another fucking cape. It was also red, and attached to a piece of shoulder armor with a giant fur collar.

He looked up at Kirishima, bewildered. “You have no claim over being fucking shirtless,” he said, not quite sure where else to start.

“I think the earrings are my favorite part,” Kirishima teased, causing him to bring his hands up to feel them in alarm. He knelt down beside Katsuki to wipe his forehead with the bandana. He tried to flinch away, until he saw the cloth come away red. “You must’ve hit your head somewhere,” he explained. “I woke up a while ago. There’s pretty much just trees around here. I didn’t want to go too far and get lost, though, so I came back quickly. Do you remember anything?”

He wracked his brain, but the last clear memory he could recall was of going to bed in his dorm. “No,” he grumbled irritably at the realization.

“Me neither,” Kirishima said apologetically. “We should have a look around. Get dressed.”

“God, how are you this awake right now?” Katsuki groaned, rubbing at his face. “I’m not wearing the cape.”

Kirishima grabbed him by the bicep and started to lift him up. “Maybe because I don’t have a head injury,” he snarked. “And, yes you are. I have a… feeling about it.”

Despite his absolute hatred for the articles on the ground beside him, Katsuki realized that he was right. Deep in his gut, he had a feeling he needed them. His gut instincts didn’t usually make a habit of being wrong. He allowed Kirishima to lift him into a standing position and groaned. “What is happening?”

“Let’s figure that out together,” Kirishima said cheerfully.

While he got dressed, Kirishima worked on packing up camp. They didn’t have much, but their bag was small. It didn’t take long for Katsuki to finish his task. As soon as he yanked the last of his ugly necklaces over his head, he helped out by rolling up his pathetic excuse for a sleeping bag. Once they were done, the backpack was full and the two rolls were tied to the bottom. The lantern hung from the side.

“I don’t think your collar was made with this in mind,” Kirishima commented, kicking at the straps.

Katsuki looked at him, then back to the bag. “You can’t carry all this shit the entire time,” he said irritably. “We could be walking a while.”

He just scoffed. “You calling me weak?” he asked with a grin, picking up the bag easily and slinging it over his shoulder. “And, anyways, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to do it, so…”

Annoyance bloomed in Katsuki’s chest. He was getting the same feeling, again. His gut screamed at him that Kirishima was right. “You realize how fuckin’ weird that is, right? Why are you so relaxed about all of this?”

“You were out for hours, Bakubro. You just missed my mental breakdown. Now, I’m ready to go at this more rationally,” he explained as he turned and walked in a seemingly random direction.

Katsuki jogged to catch up, and moved to walk slightly in front of him. “And your rational approach is to obey the creepy gut feelings telling us what to do?”

“Ignoring it is worse,” Kirishima replied grimly.

Katsuki turned to look at him. His face gave no hints, but he had a feeling that something must have happened when he was still asleep. “Fine. I trust you,” he said gruffly. “So, where are we going?”

Kirishima brightened again. “Well, when I was looking around, I saw a path up ahead. It doesn’t look like it’s used much, but it has to lead somewhere, right?”

Their trek to the path was not a short one, despite Kirishima’s previous claim that he hadn’t wandered much. Still, the walk was nice. It was very clear to Katsuki that the area was not frequently traveled. There was no litter, tracks, or anything that indicated signs of human life. Even so, the forest was far from silent. There was constant chatter from the animals surrounding them, and the low hum of bugs flying through the air.

The trees were awe-inspiring. They varied in age, but all of them were as tall as skyscrapers. The two of them came across one particularly massive sequoia and took a moment to admire it together. Kirishima told a story of his childhood trip to California in hushed tones, describing how the trees had all seemed to be as big as the one in front of them when he was so small.

It was all very soothing. Katsuki could almost pretend they were on a regular hike together. He’d never invited Kirishima to join him before, but after they got home, he just might have to. That is, if they weren’t both sick and tired of hiking when this was over.

By the time they reached the path, they’d fallen in step with each other. They walked side by side in silence for a long time, until Kirishima finally spoke. “Bakugou, there’s something we should probably talk about.”

Katsuki glanced to the side, but the red-head wasn’t looking at him. “Spit it out, shitty hair.”

Before he had a chance to speak, they heard a horrified scream ahead of them. They made eye contact for just a moment, then Katsuki broke into a run. “Bro, wait!” Kirishima called out behind him.

Soon enough, there was a village just ahead. From what he could see through the trees, it appeared ancient, and yet… not. He crouched low in the ferns and peered around for signs of trouble.

A loud roar, followed by more screams, brought his attention to the right. A black bear stood over a woman, surrounded by people who were trying and utterly failing to scare it away. This kind of rescue was simple for Katsuki. He stood to help them, but felt a hand grab his arm to hold him back.

“Bakugou,” Kirishima spoke, panting. “Listen to me for a second.”

Katsuki scoffed, and ripped his arm away. “I can handle this. Easy.”

Kirishima, the rude bastard, looked doubtful, and opened his mouth to speak when suddenly the screams behind them transformed into cheers. They both turned, and were faced with a sight that neither of them could have expected.

The four-eyed class president himself rode in on a white horse with a sword raised over his head. He shouted loudly and swung his sword toward the bear. It didn’t hit, or succeed in scaring it away, but the attention was off of the citizens. The bear stalked toward him with a roar. Iida’s responding shout matched it in volume.

“What the fuck?” Katsuki muttered, watching the scene unfold in front of him.

The horse lifted its front hooves and whinnied, but the movement did nothing to hinder Iida. He stayed upright expertly, pulled the reigns to turn the horse to the side, and swung again with another shout. The tip of the blade barely scratched at the bear’s face, but somehow it was enough. It let out one final roar, then turned and bounded in the opposite direction. The citizen’s cheers grew, and Iida turned and rode his horse through the crowd, asking if there were any injured.

Kirishima gasped. “I think I know what this is,” he said excitedly.

Katsuki turned back and gave him an incredulous look. “Enlighten me,” he deadpanned.

“Well, just,” he gestured toward the village. “Look around us. You see it, don’t you?”

He turned and did just that. The village, as he’d thought before, appeared ancient. The architecture reminded him of buildings he’d only seen in history class, or fiction. They were laid with uneven bricks, the rooves crafted with old straw, and the doors were pieced together with poorly split wood. There was a line of stalls to the left, each covered with sheets of cloth for shade, in what looked to be a small, empty market. The counters were all filled with baskets of crops, unmarked sacks, ceramic jars, and more. A well stood in the center of the clearing, which was still surrounded by the crowd of citizens.

Then, there was Iida himself. He wasn’t wearing his hero costume, but instead wore the exact thing it must have been inspired by. It was the full armor of a knight, right down to the chainmail. He also wore a long, blue cloak, which billowed behind the horse he rode.

Yeah, Katsuki could see it.

“What’s up with all the fucking capes?” he grumbled.

“That’s what you got out of that?” Kirishima whined. “Ugh, never mind. Listen. This is like a TV show I used to watch. It’s called Once Upon a Time,” he explained.

Katsuki sneered at him. “Bullshit. That would mean that this is reality and our entire lives are fake,” he said without missing a beat.

Kirishima stared at him, then broke out into a grin. “You’ve watched it?”

It took him a moment to register the mistake he’d just made. “No, I haven’t fucking watched it,” he lied.

“But I didn’t even have to explain anything,” Kirishima said, stepping closer, his grin growing wider by the second. “You already knew. You have to be pretty far into the show to understand that, too. What season are you on? We have to binge it when we get home.”

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Katsuki growled. “I think I’ve had enough of this shit to last me ‘til the next century after seeing Glasses like tha—”

“I thought I recognized the back of that head,” Iida’s voice spoke from directly behind him. Katsuki startled and spun around. He’d gotten off of his horse, which was now tethered to a pole on the other side of the square. As soon as they made eye contact, Iida bowed. “Bakugou Katsuki, Beastmaster. It’s a pleasure to meet with you again.”

Katsuki stared at him. He could hear Kirishima’s barely suppressed laughter behind him. There was absolutely no way in hell he was about to reciprocate the gesture. “Uh-huh,” he said, unamused, squinting down his nose at him.

Iida stood fully, seemingly unbothered. So, he’d expected that reaction and bowed anyways. It was good to know his personality didn’t change all that much. “You know, I could have used your help on that one.”

He sneered at him. “You had it handled.”

Iida’s eyes shone and he puffed up at the perceived compliment. “I’ve incorporated your methods in these situations,” he explained. “It seems to work in most ordinary cases.”

“Right,” Katsuki said slowly, squinting at him. He hadn’t seen any explosives, so he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what that was supposed to mean.

“Anyways, I do have something to discuss with you, if you have time,” Iida said seriously.

Katsuki leaned against the tree beside him. “Go on,” he said in a bored tone.

Iida laid one hand on his sword handle as if by second nature, and gestured with his free hand. “The prince and I were going to attempt to reach you by mail, but I’m sure you’re aware that you are notoriously difficult to get ahold of,” he started. Katsuki’s eye twitched in irritation. Before he even had the chance to complain, Iida continued. “Right, getting on with it,” he said, clearing his throat. “I have a perilous quest to offer you, but only if we can convince the king to allow it. You would be handsomely rewarded. If you’re interested in the details, I can personally escort you to the castle.”

He stared for a long time, until Iida shifted uncomfortably. Then, he turned and grabbed Kirishima by the scarf. “We need to discuss,” he said simply, stomping away.

“Right,” he heard Iida’s hesitant voice reply.

Katsuki brought them around to the other side of a tree, out of sight and earshot, and pushed Kirishima against it. “Why didn’t you help me?” he demanded.

He had the audacity to look embarrassed. “I dunno, man, I felt weird about it. You looked like you were doing fine, anyways.”

Katsuki scoffed. “That was a fuckin’ disaster. What do I say now?”

To his great displeasure, Kirishima lit up like a Christmas tree. “We should go! I want to see it, and it could be fun. Plus, the castle seems like a great place to get information. There’s gotta be someone there who can help us figure out how we got here, right?”

He gave him a deadpan glare. “Sounds to me like you just want to roleplay your dumbass show,” he informed him. Kirishima pouted, but only looked a little guilty. “Fine, we’ll go. Only because we don’t have any other leads.”

“Hell yeah, thanks, bro,” Kirishima said with a grin. He held up a first, and Katsuki reluctantly tapped it with the back of his own. It was surprisingly soft.

He’d have to ask about it later, because their conversation had already run too long. He didn’t want to risk Four-eyes coming to find them, or even assuming it’s a no and taking off. The two of them approached him leisurely. “’ve got nothing better to do,” Katsuki announced.

Iida’s shoulders slumped just slightly with relief. “Your support will be greatly appreciated, I assure you. I didn’t expect this, so I only have one horse. I hope that won’t be an issue.”

Katsuki looked between him and the horse and sneered in disgust. Kirishima kicked him in the shin. “Fine, I’ll share the damn horse with you.”

Iida gave a sharp nod, and made no indication that he’d noticed the interaction between the two. In fact, he had yet to acknowledge Kirishima at all. Fucking rude. “It’ll be a half-day’s journey from here. Did you need anything from town before we head out?”

Katsuki thought back to the time they spent packing the camp. There was one thing he’d absently noticed they needed. He crossed his arms and tipped his head thoughtfully, then leveled his narrowed eyes at Iida. “We’re running low on food,” he commented.

They stared at each other, unmoving. After longer than necessary, Iida finally conceded. “What would you like?” he sighed, pulling a pouch from his belt.

Katsuki smirked and glanced at Kirishima, who was giving him a deeply disapproving look. “Something nice for shitty hair,” he started, nodding his head toward him. For some reason, that caused Iida to sputter indignantly. “I dunno the rest. You’re capable of packing rations for a half-day’s trip, yeah?”

Iida looked moments away from an aneurysm. “I’ll see what I can do,” he muttered, trailing into the market, which was now very busy without the looming threat of death-by-bear.

He turned back and smirked at Kirishima. “Let’s wait by the horse,” he suggested.

Kirishima narrowed his eyes. “Don’t look so proud of yourself,” he said grumpily. “I can’t believe you. You didn’t have to be so mean.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes and started toward the other side of the square. “What’s the point in being nice? This is fake, right? They’re literally all extras.”

He didn’t turn to look, but he heard stomping footsteps and irritable grumbles following him. Katsuki couldn’t help the upturn of his lips. It wasn’t often that he had the chance to witness an angry Kirishima.

They leaned against the wall beside Iida’s horse in silence. Katsuki passed the time by taking in the features of the red-head’s grumpy face. He struggled to call it true anger when, despite the glare of his eyes, he was stood there with his arms crossed, and pouting with his cheeks puffed out.

Iida came back quicker than expected, holding a basket filled with food. “This should fit in the satchel,” he announced.

He handed the basket to Katsuki, then paused, leaning in close. “The fuck are you doing, four-eyes?” he demanded, jerking his head back.

“Ah, I see,” Iida said, huffing a nervous laugh. “I was wondering why you were so subdued. You have a head injury, don’t you? You must be in pain.”

Kirishima stepped in between them. He’d pulled the already bloodied bandana from seemingly out of nowhere and held it up, presumably to clean up whatever he’d missed. “Gross,” Katsuki sneered, smacking the hand away. “I’m not in pain, dumbass. Just open the damn satchel.”

Iida looked far from convinced, but he obeyed the command anyways. “I hope you don’t change your mind about joining me once you’ve come to your senses,” he joked.

Katsuki squinted at him wearily for a moment. If he was considered subdued now, that probably meant he was supposed to be acting like more of an asshole than before. Glasses expected him to. Which meant that by being an asshole, he was just roleplaying. Exactly how Kirishima wanted him to. He turned to send a smug grin at the red-head, who stuck out his tongue in response.

Katsuki, 1. Kirishima, 0.

“There will only be room for the two of us on the horse,” Iida said as he started transferring their food from the basket into the satchel. “Can you ask him if he’s okay with walking?”

Oh, so Kirishima wasn’t invisible. This guy was just a douchebag. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Katsuki snarled.

Iida let out a single loud laugh at that. “If I could, what would we need you for?”

Katsuki growled at him. The sound was different than usual. It came from somewhere low in his throat, and seemed almost inhuman. Iida shuddered in response. “Are you okay with walking?” he asked Kirishima through gritted teeth.

Kirishima shrugged.

“That good enough for you?” he growled.

Iida stared at him in wonder. “That truly is a beautiful language,” he said quietly. “Remember not to use it in front of the king.”

Katsuki felt his brain screech to a halt. He hadn’t spoken another language, had he? He glanced at Kirishima, but the guy looked just as confused as he felt. “I’m not fucking stupid,” he replied before the hesitation became an awkward silence.

The four-eyed bastard turned a little red at that. “Right, of course, you’re not,” he said quickly.

They set off for the castle soon after that. It was unreasonably difficult for Katsuki to avoid making a fool of himself in his attempts at hopping up onto the horse’s back. Even worse was spending three hours clinging to the back of Iida’s armor like a child. He made it known that he absolutely hated the position he was in with much more frequency than necessary.

During one particularly quiet hour, as they rode through an endless, golden field of wheat, Iida spoke again. “I still haven’t told anyone about his secret, you know,” he said quietly. He glanced down at Kirishima, then looked forward. “Since we are headed to the castle, I just wanted to say… I hope I won’t come to regret that decision.”

They were all quiet for a long time after that. Katsuki certainly didn’t know what he was talking about, but he doubted Kirishima did either. They would just have to figure it out as they went along.

Katsuki turned his head to look down at him. Kirishima dragged his feet as he waded through the waist-high strands of wheat beside them. He was looking down as he walked, seemingly only guided along by his hand, which was wrapped up in a rope attached to the saddle. Katsuki groaned and pulled on the back of Iida’s chest piece as if it were the reigns. “Stop,” he commanded gruffly.

He did as he was told, and Katsuki didn’t waste a second to hop down beside Kirishima. “Shitty hair’s tired,” he announced. “He’s taking my place on the horse.”

Iida gaped at him in horror. “We’re still far from the castle. Can he not… you know…” He took a moment to arrange his arms, then honest-to-god flapped them like a chicken.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Katsuki asked incredulously. His arms were back by his sides in a blink. “I’m not fucking kidding. He’ll probably just fall asleep on you. Can he sit on the damn horse, or not?”

His face paled, but he nodded. “Yeah, yes, of course he can,” he said, strained.

Kirishima gave him a grateful smile and hopped up onto the saddle with ease. It didn’t take long for him to do exactly as Katsuki predicted. His arms were wrapped around the tense waist in front of him, and one cheek was smushed against the back of his armor. Iida sat there sweating bullets and looked to be about two seconds from puking, but the red-head just smiled contentedly in his sleep, completely unaware of the suffering he was causing.

Katsuki struggled to suppress his grin as he took in the scene. He couldn’t fathom what the guy was so afraid of, but it brought him joy, nonetheless.  

Although the trip was long, it was far from boring. The two of them took turns walking, and Katsuki spent most of the time listening to the animals around and trying to identify them. Surprisingly enough, he seemed to be able to name most of them fairly quickly off the top of his head.

At some point, likely around dinnertime based on the position of the sun, they stopped to rest and eat in a clearing by the river. The birch forest they were travelling through was wildly different from the redwoods they’d woken up to that morning. The trees were sparse, and the ground was covered in tall, light green strands of grass. Katsuki noticed that the leaves were barely starting to turn yellow. It was the first real hint he’d seen of the season.

The river beside them roared, but the rapids he heard were nowhere to be seen. Driftwood and leaves passed by them in the water with dizzying speed. The canteens Iida carried were running low, so they each took turns carefully stepping to the edge and filling a small pot to boil over the fire.

He could tell the lack of conversation was killing Kirishima. They still hadn’t had the chance to discuss his silence around Iida, other than the vague statement that he ‘felt weird’ about it. Katsuki was convinced that there had to be more to it than that for him to have kept his mouth shut for so long, especially with the pinched look of discomfort on his face.

After some reluctant coaxing from Katsuki, Iida quickly filled their silence with stories of his adventures, which Kirishima listened to with rapt attention. Iida’s yet unexplained intimidation at being watched so closely by him was evident, but it didn’t slow him down in the slightest.

He wouldn’t shut up for the rest of their trip, much to Katsuki’s displeasure and Kirishima’s delight. Through his stories, though, they discovered more about the politics of the kingdom that they were in. Magic, which existed obviously, was illegal in this place, but not everywhere. The king was known to be ruthless in his dealings with magic users. Public executions and village burnings were regular occurrences. Needless to say, he wasn’t well-liked, but Iida seemed to begrudgingly respect him.

Through context clues, Katsuki was able to learn more about himself, as well. Apparently, his life was very intertwined with the world of magic. He still couldn’t quite understand what his role in that was yet, but Iida mentioned his ‘magical contacts’ and ‘top-secret quests’ on more than one occasion. He also discovered that he was somehow distantly related to royalty, and that was the only reason why the king tolerated the grey area of legality that only he resided in.

Katsuki wasn’t all that excited to meet the guy. The hesitance in Iida’s tone whenever he mentioned him was enough to indicate that their relationship must be strained, at the very least. The sun barely hovered over the horizon when they reached the lower town. Katsuki was trailing beside the horse on sore calves, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and Kirishima sat once again on the back of the saddle with his eyes trained on the castle in wonder. The knight pulled on the reigns and came to a stop beside a group of guards. He spoke to one of them directly.

“Tell the king I’ve brought a guest. The Beastmaster.”

The guards’ eyes flickered over to Katsuki and widened with horror. The one who’d been addressed bowed and mumbled a quiet, “Yes, sire,” then turned to run full speed toward the castle. Katsuki wondered briefly if he should be preparing for the guillotine. He hoped Kirishima thought it was worth it for their stupid roleplay.

Iida took his sweet time guiding them up to the gatehouse. Katsuki could understand that maybe he had good reason to stall, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. He watched with narrowed eyes as he stopped just inside the gates to speak to another guard in hushed tones. Then, they meandered across the bailey, and the sound of hooves hitting stone echoed above the voices of those around them.

They passed right by the steps that led to the keep, and continued toward a second set of steps in the back-right corner of the courtyard. Right in front of them stood a tall metal statue of a man on a horse, with two figures to its left. Katsuki finally got a good look at the king he’d heard so much about. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” he muttered under his breath, too quiet for the others to hear from above.

Endeavor stood with his arms crossed and chest puffed in a pose that was all too familiar. That’s where the similarities ended. He was wearing a suit of armor which was intricately etched in gold, with a tiny red cape hanging over his shoulder. A simple golden ring sat around his forehead. The most disturbing part of his look, in Katsuki’s opinion, was his lack of facial hair. He was aware of the baby-face that the man hid behind his flames, but to see him stand in a pose meant to be intimidating while his face remained bare was laughable.

Beside Endeavor, though, was an even worse sight. Todoroki Shouto stood, in all his apathetic glory, in the most ridiculous Disney prince suit that Katsuki had ever seen. Complete with puffy sleeves, a long blue overcoat with a frilled collar, fancy-ass boots, and, of fucking course, another short red cape billowing behind him. He wore a smaller golden ring around his forehead that matched his father’s.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” Endeavor growled in lieu of a greeting. “So, you’ve come to assist us with our problem?”

Katsuki sneered at him. “We’ll see,” he replied. Kirishima squeaked behind him in surprise. Endeavor’s glare hardened.

“We appreciate that you’ve come to hear us out,” Todoroki said coolly.

He looked him up and down again, taking in the sight. “You look fucking stupid,” he announced.

Todoroki’s lip twitched. “I’m well aware of your wardrobe preferences,” he said. His eyes flickered pointedly toward Katsuki’s chest. “Or lack thereof.”

Katsuki growled, the same animalistic growl from before. Suddenly, Iida was off the horse and standing beside him. “Perhaps we should head inside. I haven’t given him any of the details yet, your majesties.”

“Yes,” Endeavor gritted out, looking seconds away from murder. “Let’s.”

The king turned and stomped up the steps with purpose, Todoroki following close behind. Iida nodded his head toward them to indicate that Katsuki should follow. “I have to send word of the meeting to the knights. I trust you can follow without causing more trouble?”

Katsuki scoffed in disgust. “I’ll do what I want,” he said, turning to stomp up the steps after them. He saw Kirishima in the corner of his eye, frantically hopping off the saddle and jogging up to walk beside him.

Before he knew it, they were standing in the center of a grand hall lined with pillars and flag-like tapestries. Kirishima was just behind him to the left. A throne stood at the far end of the room. Endeavor stalked over to it and sat leisurely, leaning an elbow against the armrest. Todoroki trailed to stand behind him silently.

Somehow, Katsuki had the thought that he could have found this room whether he’d been guided to it or not. In fact, he could probably map the entire layout of the castle. The whole place gave him an odd sense of deja vu, like it was pulling at some kind of deeply nostalgic memory.

“We’ll wait here for the court to arrive,” Endeavor spoke, still unhappy but notably calmer than before. “Your visit is unexpected.”

Katsuki gazed around the room. “So, it can’t even wait until morning? Must be desperate,” he commented.

Endeavor’s anger escalated instantly. His nostrils flared, and he glared down his nose at the two in front of him.

All four of them were silent as the knights and advisors filtered into the room. Katsuki was only a little surprised to see All Might, in his deflated state, move to stand behind Endeavor on the side opposite Todoroki. Much more surprising, however, was Yaoyorozu, who drifted past them in a sleeveless, floor-length dress of red silk, with her hair pulled back in an intricate braid. A thin golden band was wrapped just below her hairline, and disappeared into her hair. She stood just a few feet away from Todoroki.

The knights all wore matching suits of armor, and the same long blue cloaks which dragged across the floor behind them. Most of them were vaguely recognizable, but definitely extras. Along with Iida, though, were four more familiar faces. Jirou and Sato were there, as well as two members of class 1B. Kendo and Tetsutetsu, if Katsuki recalled correctly. Kirishima lit up further at the sight of them, if that was possible. He was enjoying this all too much.

Other faces he recognized were of Recovery Girl, standing off to the side next to the pillars, and the blond creep from 1B, Monoma, who stood just to her right. He was certain that was the last of them until, at the very last second, a familiar tuft of green hair snuck in to stand on the other side of the old lady. Katsuki couldn’t control the squinting glare he sent in his direction. Deku squeaked and stepped behind Recovery Girl, as if to hide behind her despite her size.

Once everyone was in position, Endeavor finally spoke again. “We’ve been made aware of a threat to this kingdom,” he started. The shape of the hall caused his voice to boom around the space. “A prophecy has been brought to my attention. Only a portion of it was found, but it mentions ‘The Destroyer of Worlds.’ We have reason to believe this threat is imminent, and we need as much information to prepare as we can get.”

Something pulled in Katsuki’s gut. It was the familiar feeling to blurt something out. That obviously wouldn’t be a good idea in the situation, but Kirishima had said that ignoring the feelings would be worse, right? “The fuck do you need me for?”

The room filled with gasps and whispers. Endeavor held one armrest in a white-knuckled grip and ground his elbow harshly into the other as he leveled a piercing glare toward Katsuki. “Perhaps this was a mistake,” he hissed through gritted teeth.

“Father,” Todoroki spoke up calmly. “You promised to give it a chance if we could manage to bring him here. We’ve done our part.”

When they first spoke, Iida had mentioned that the prince was involved in planning to get a letter to him. It only registered then that he must have been referring to Todoroki. Yaoyorozu cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “I understand your hesitance, my lord. We simply have no other options. This is the only chance we have to learn the rest of the prophecy.”

“Very well,” Endeavor snarled. “I understand that you’ve been in contact with the masked magician.”

Katsuki felt a taunting grin slide across his face. “And if I have?” his voice spoke before he thought much of it.

Endeavor took a deep, calming breath. “That man is the only one who may have access to the entirety of the prophecy,” he explained in a strained voice. “We need to get in contact with him, but he would never speak freely with my knights alone. Your name was brought up in our last meeting.” He sent a pointed look of annoyance at Todoroki.

So, the king who hated magic needed him to ask a magician to help them with what sounded like a magic problem? The idea was absurd enough that he didn’t even need the gut feeling to tell him what to do. He let out a loud, barking laugh. “Holy shit, that’s rich. You’re gonna collaborate with a magician?”

“Will you do it, or not?” Endeavor hissed.

Katsuki crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head. “Why should I?” he snarled, wrinkling his nose at the king. “I have yet to hear a good reason. How do I know you’re not making it all up just to find the magician? To have him executed?”

“You know as well as I that such a plan would only bring about failure and death for us all,” he replied lowly. Then, he raised his volume again. “You will be paid for your services, of course. I’m sure you remember the spoils of your last quest from me.”

Katsuki nodded thoughtfully, tilting his head in the other direction. Then, he stood tall and leveled Endeavor with a cruel grin. “I’ll think about it,” he said simply.

The king ground his teeth together in a snarl of rage. Katsuki could imagine smoke coming from his ears. “The court is dismissed,” he growled.

The room cleared out in a flurry. Everyone seemed desperate to escape the wrath of Endeavor, but Katsuki wasn’t so worried. He also didn’t know where he should go, exactly. Iida was the one who’d brought them there, so he was likely the one to ask. He looked back and tapped Kirishima’s shoulder with the back of his hand, then nodded for him to follow. As soon as he was faced forward again, he bumped into the last person he wanted to see. “Out of the way, Deku,” he growled.

“K-Kacchan!” Deku stuttered, flinching away. He could hardly remember the last time the nerd had reacted to him like that in real life. It bothered him.

He narrowed his eyes and stalked past him, hoping to escape the confrontation, but Deku just fell into step behind him with Kirishima. “Eiji!” he said excitedly. “It’s good to see you! I thought you were never going to come to the city again. What changed?”

Katsuki glanced back subtly. So far, Kirishima still had yet to speak a word to anyone other than him. This interaction was no different. He was grinning widely as he gestured around the hall, then he gave a noncommittal shrug.

He turned away from them to peer around the bustling crowd for Iida again. The knight was nowhere to be found. Deku spoke in a hushed voice. “Remember you’re your own person too, okay? You don’t have to follow him to places that make you uncomfortable. He can’t force you to do things you don’t want to.”

Katsuki spun around. “Oh, shut the fuck up, Deku! You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s the one who wanted to come here.”

Deku bit his cheek and attempted to puff up threateningly. “I’m sorry, but I highly doubt that after last time.”

“It’s not my problem if you don’t believe me. I’m sure he’d tell you himself,” he snarled his reply.

Deku looked mortified. “That’s not funny, Kacchan!”

“I see you’ve met.”

Katsuki turned his head to see Todoroki was standing there, watching them. “Unfortunately,” he replied through his teeth.

The half ‘n’ half bastard tipped his head. “You already knew each other,” he observed.

“Oh!” Deku said, waving his hands frantically. “Me and Kacchan traveled together! A long time ago!”

The way his voice upped in pitch and sped up indicated that there was more to it than that. Especially when he stubbornly continued to use that nickname. Based on Todoroki’s squint, it was clear that he’d noticed it too. “Hm,” Todoroki said. He turned back to Katsuki. “Iida has arranged accommodations for you in the guest quarters. Your things should already be there. I’m sure you know your way.”

Katsuki grunted. The longer he spent in this space, the more familiar it became. He was starting to get the feeling he knew exactly where he’d seen it before. “I do,” he said. Kirishima gave him a bewildered look.

“That went better than I expected,” Todoroki said after a moment of awkward silence. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Katsuki squinted at Kirishima, who gave a sheepish look. “Wasn’t my idea.”

Todoroki nodded solemnly. “I see. I do hope you’ll consider it. This is your world too, you know. If it ceases to exist, your opinions won’t matter anymore.” He turned to walk away, then he looked over his shoulder. “Izuku, head to the guest quarters and draw him a bath,” he said. He sent a narrow-eyed glance toward Katsuki’s still-bloodied hair. “It looks like he needs it.”

He couldn’t even be angry with the jab. He turned to Deku slowly, a smug grin growing on his face. “Yeah, Deku,” he said, too quietly for Todoroki to hear.

Deku glanced between them, with a panicked look of indignation. “But—”

“Now, Izuku.”

He squeaked. “Yes, sire.” He turned away quickly, but not quickly enough for Katsuki to miss the blush creeping over his face.

He cupped a hand over his mouth. “And make it hot,” he shouted over the now-empty room. There was no doubt Deku had heard him from the hallway.

Knuckles dug into his side, and he looked back to see Kirishima’s disappointed face. “Mean,” he mumbled quietly. “That was, uh, quite the performance, bro. I thought I lost you for a second,” he tried to joke, but Katsuki could hear his underlying nervousness.

He glanced back to the throne to check if it was safe. The king was nowhere to be seen. “I was just doing it your way,” he whispered proudly. “Following my gut. I think I did good.”

Kirishima scoffed. “Well, I think we were seeing two completely different scenes,” he said, all hints of anxiety gone from his demeanor. “Why did you tell Todoroki that you know the way? We’re gonna get so lost, dude.”

Katsuki turned and stomped away. “No, we won’t,” he grumbled irritably.

The castle was huge. It had long, twisty, confusing hallways that didn’t make sense. None of that mattered, though, because Katsuki didn’t make a single wrong turn. They entered their room and found Deku crouched on the ground over a metal tub beside the wardrobe, chatting with another servant who stood beside him.

The extra turned around as soon as the door opened. He smiled brightly. “I’m here to take him to the manservants’ quarters,” he said, gesturing toward Kirishima.

Deku paled. Katsuki glowered. “Why would you do something like that?” he asked in a low growl, allowing his instincts to speak for him once more.

The servant looked between them anxiously, a light blush growing on his cheeks. “I apologize for the assumption, sire,” he said. He rushed out of the room without another word.

“Fuckin’ Glasses,” he muttered to himself.

Deku stood and inched past, trying to cover his own blush with one hand. “I’ll, uh, take my leave as well.”

The two of them watched as he backed out of the room and closed the door awkwardly. “Pretty sure you just implied that we’re a couple, Bakubro,” Kirishima commented.

Katsuki looked at the room in front of them to find that there was, in fact, only one queen-sized bed. He hid the flush of his face by stalking over to their bags on the splintered wooden table. “It was the instincts,” he defended. “It’s not the first time we’ve shared a bed, shitty hair. Did you really want to sleep on the floor next to Deku, or something?”

Kirishima snickered and came to stand beside him. “No, course not. I was just saying.”

“You should take the bath first,” Katsuki suggested without looking up. He gestured vaguely toward his head. “It’s gonna be fuckin’ nasty after I’m done.”

“Right,” he said. Katsuki heard his footsteps move away. “So, wild day, huh?”

He snorted. “Shut the fuck up,” he said, opening up the satchel with their food. “We’re both on the same page here, right? That this is definitely some kind of illusion quirk?”

Water splashed behind him. “Oh, yeah, absolutely,” Kirishima said without hesitation. “What are we gonna do about it?”

Katsuki considered it as he pulled the produce from the bag. After their meal earlier, they were left with two ears of corn, three apples, an ungodly amount of jerky, and something wrapped in waxy paper. He unwrapped it as he spoke. “I dunno, I guess. So far, everything seems pretty real, but we haven’t tried breaking free of it yet, right?” Inside the paper was some kind of pastry. It must have been the nice thing for Kirishima he’d requested. “Hey,” he said, holding it up over his shoulder.

Kirishima let out an excited gasp. “A sweet roll?” he exclaimed.

“What,” Katsuki asked, monotone and tired, setting the roll on the table.

He laughed nervously. “Never mind. Uh, I kind of did try to break free earlier. We should probably talk about that.”

“Right, you mentioned this morning. You were being vague as shit, though.” Katsuki said. He pulled out a chair and faced it away from him, then sat down and snatched up a piece of jerky. They were no strangers to being undressed in front of each other, what with the public showers and locker rooms at UA, but he still wasn’t exactly ready to face him after that awkward misunderstanding.

Kirishima groaned. “So, I might’ve lied a little. I was away from camp longer than I said I was.” Katsuki made a ‘go on’ gesture with the hand holding his jerky. “After wandering so long, I was already pretty sure it was an illusion. My gut told me not to use my quirk, so I thought maybe if I did the opposite, I could break the spell.” He paused and took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to go into detail, but… it was painful, and it was all wrong. I was trying to say this earlier, but I didn’t really get the chance, so, can you just promise me not to use your quirk unless you absolutely need to?”

That wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting, but couldn’t say he was all that surprised. It explained most of Kirishima’s strange behavior that day, anyways. Katsuki took another bite of jerky and waited to speak until after his mouth wasn’t full. “Like I said before, I trust you,” he said. “You sure we shouldn’t try in other ways? It couldn’t do much harm just to say something wrong and see what happens, right?” Even as he asked this, he was sure of the answer.

“We don’t know how this quirk works, bro,” Kirishima sighed, confirming his thoughts. “We don’t even remember getting hit. Any wrong move, and we could get stuck here or die. We’ll have to trust that the pros and Recovery Girl are working to get us out, and do our best to learn more from the inside.”

“Fine,” Katsuki said decisively. “So, we keep roleplaying, then.”

Kirishima laughed, and the water splashed some more. “You really got into it, bro. We gotta tell everyone that you’re a master of improv when we get back.”

“You’re not telling anyone shit,” Katsuki snapped. “What’s with you, anyways? You usually never shut up, but you barely said a word all day.”

“Ah, I don’t know,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed. “It was like there was a lump in my throat every time I tried to speak. I don’t think I’m supposed to. Or, maybe I don’t speak the same language, like Iida was saying.” The sound of a squeaky hinge interrupted him. “Oh, they gave us pajamas,” he said excitedly.

“Sweet,” Katsuki mumbled absently, picking up another jerky slice. “Anyways, that makes sense, I guess. No one really tried to talk to you, ‘sides Deku, and he didn’t seem bothered when you didn’t answer. Sucks, though. I fuckin’ hate talking so much.”

“I know you do,” Kirishima replied, amused. He appeared at his side and punched his shoulder lightly. “I’m done now. Your turn.”

Katsuki stood abruptly and shoved the last bit of his jerky slice into his mouth. He couldn’t wait to get out of the cape and put on a shirt. Kirishima plopped down in the chair as soon as he moved out of the way and started digging into the roll.

He got undressed and quickly lowered himself into the tub. It was still lukewarm, and thankfully, the water didn’t seem all that dirty even after being used by Kirishima. It still wasn’t perfect, but he’d take what he could get. He worked slowly to remove the grime off his skin, all too aware of how much it had built up without proper clothing to cover his body.

“Hey, I think I’m seeing parallels with another TV show,” Kirishima said suddenly.

“Oh yeah?” Katsuki muttered, not exactly ready for this conversation.

“Yep,” he said cheerily. “It’s about a guy who’s born with magic in a kingdom where magic is illegal, and he ends up being the servant to the prince. It’s based off of, you know, legends of King Arthur, Excalibur, knights of the roundtable—”

Katsuki groaned and stood up aggressively, causing the water to splash over the edges onto the floor. “God, stop. I know what fuckin’ Merlin is,” he sighed, accepting defeat. He wasn’t exactly sure how to wash his hair without getting the bloodied water all over himself, so he got out and knelt awkwardly over the side. He dipped just the top of his head into the water and started to scrub his scalp.

After a much too long silence, Kirishima finally spoke again. “You know what Merlin is?” he asked, his voice filled with pure joy.

“I had a phase,” he admitted, mumbled into the metal of the tub.

Kirishima let out a strangled noise and started cackling. “You had a phase?”

“Please shut up.”

He gasped, and the chair scraped against the floor. “Is that how you knew your way around? It is, isn’t it? But I watched the whole show and I was totally lost!”

Katsuki groaned, an agonized and pain-filled sound, then sat up. Kirishima was still looking away, but he glared at the back of his head anyways. “They filmed most of it in an actual castle, dipshit. I watched the behind-the-scenes footage.”

Kirishima threw his head back and laughed again. His voice escalated in pitch. “You watched the behind-the-scenes?” he exclaimed.

“I fucking hate you,” Katsuki muttered, turning around to grab his towel. He dried off thoroughly while Kirishima continued to cackle at him in the background, then tossed the towel over the puddle that had formed in the place he was kneeling. He kicked it around for a moment before he gave up and moved to get dressed.

“I’m pretty sure Midoriya is supposed to be Merlin. I wonder if that means he has magic, too,” Kirishima said once he’d recovered his breath. “Oh, man, do you think there’s still a secret dragon under the castle? That’s kinda scary, dude.”

“The dragon can’t do shit,” Katsuki sighed, ignoring the comment about Deku. The pajamas were all soft, light-colored linens. He snatched himself a pair and yanked them on.

“Whoa, wait, is my hair spiking right now?” Kirishima suddenly asked, voice filled with wonder.

Katsuki turned around to look, and sure enough, his hair was defying gravity all on its own. He snorted. “Congrats. Now you have magic shitty hair. I’m decent, by the way.”

Kirishima turned around and pouted angrily at him. “It’s not shitty,” he tried to claim, possibly for the billionth time since they’d met.

“Get the lamps,” Katsuki ordered as he stalked to the bed and pulled back the blanket. He practically fell into it, then got himself comfortable.

“Lanterns,” Kirishima corrected, but he stood to do it anyways. He stopped beside the puddle on the floor. “Bakugou, you realize Midoriya is probably gonna be the one to clean this if you don’t, right?” he scolded.

The thought brought a smile to his lips. Kirishima caught sight of it and scoffed, then knelt down to clean it himself. Once he finished, he placed the dirty towel next to his own and started the task of blowing out the lanterns.

When the only two left were the ones beside the bed, he hopped in next to Katsuki. He scrambled to yank the blanket and sheets out from under himself, then curled up contentedly underneath them. He sat up for a moment to blow out the lantern on his side, then laid back down. “Todoroki is obviously prince Arthur,” he said after a beat of silence. “I think Yaoyorozu is Morgana. It makes sense. She’s really pretty.”

Katsuki didn’t make a sound in response. He sat up and blew out his own lantern.

“I didn’t see anyone who could be Gwen, though.”

There was a knock on the door, and Katsuki groaned. “Whadaya want?” he shouted.

“I’m here to retrieve the bath?” Deku’s hesitant voice came through the door.

“Shit,” Katsuki muttered. Then, loud enough for Deku to hear, “Yeah, come in. Lights are out.”

Deku came in quietly and lit just enough lamps to be able to see what he was doing. Katsuki watched him painstakingly remove the dirty water, pick up the towels, and eventually drag the tub out of the room. He did all of it while pointedly averting his eyes from the two in the bed. He left the door open after him for just a moment, then came back to blow out the lanterns. He practically skittered out of the room, tripping over his own feet in the dark.

There was silence for only a moment. “You know, in the show, there was a lot of homoerotic subtext between Arthur and Merlin—”

“Shut up!”

Chapter Text

When Katsuki woke up this time, he no longer felt the twinge of pain in his head. It hadn’t been all that bad to begin with, but the absence was more of a relief than he expected. The next thing he noticed was the heel of a calloused foot digging into his back.

He groaned into his pillow and tried to push himself up, but the foot only pressed down harder. With more squirming than he’d ever be willing to admit to, he managed to shove one shoulder underneath himself. He used the leverage to turn on his side, facing toward the window.

His eyes opened to see green ones staring back at him. “Good morning, Kacchan.”

Katsuki let out an ungodly shout.

The weight of the foot was off him in an instant, followed closely by a loud thump. Deku took three steps back in his alarm and looked anxiously over Katsuki’s shoulder. “Eiji, are you okay?”

He twisted around to look at Kirishima. His calves were still on the bed, but the rest of him disappeared over the side. He raised one hand to give a shaky thumbs-up.

“Sorry for startling you, Kacchan,” Deku said sheepishly, bringing his attention forward again. “I’m here to help you get dressed.”

Katsuki stared at him, disoriented and incredulous. He took a moment to remember where exactly he was. An illusion quirk. They were in a fake alternate reality. Deku was a servant, just doing his job, apparently. “You think I need your help with something like that?” he demanded after his too-long hesitation.

Deku’s eyes widened. “Um, no, of course not,” he said quickly. He straightened himself out and cleared his throat. “The prince has invited you to breakfast in his quarters. Once you’ve dressed, I can escort you there.”

He sat up and rubbed at his eyes. The events of the day before were rushing back to him. Particularly, his frustration with everyone around for their exclusion of Kirishima. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “He invited too?” he asked tiredly.

“Um,” Deku said awkwardly. “I’m sure he can be.”

Katsuki stood and looked down at the nerd. “I’m not going if he can’t join us. Tell your prince that for me, will ya?”

Deku’s eye twitched. His face was an odd mix of scared and appalled. “I’ll, uh, go ask about it for you.” He scrambled away with little grace.

“Bro, why are you like this?” Kirishima mumbled with discomfort. He hadn’t moved from his position on the floor.

Katsuki walked around the bed to stand behind him, then gripped the fabric around his shoulders and yanked. His legs fell from the bed and smacked against the wooden floor. He dragged him a little further, then bent down to curl his elbows under his armpits and pulled him up to stand.

Kirishima allowed himself to be maneuvered with little struggle. “Is this how you felt yesterday?” he groaned.

“Yep.” He released one of his arms, but gripped tighter with the other. He balled his free hand into a fist and dug one of his knuckles into his lower back. A grin split over his face as Kirishima yelped and squirmed in a failed attempt at escape. “And that’s how I felt this morning,” he growled into his ear.

Kirishima pulled his shoulder up to his ear protectively. “Okay, okay, I get it,” he laughed. Katsuki released him abruptly and watched him stumble away in a fit of giggles. “Thanks for trying to get me invited, bro. It’s really okay if I can’t come. Maybe he’ll let you bring leftovers.”

“Fuck off,” Katsuki muttered, turning to trail over to the table. Deku had left a pitcher of water with two metal cups. He poured some for himself as he spoke. “There’s no reason for me to go without you. We have plenty to eat right here.”

He snorted. “Uh, yeah sure. Jerky and corn for breakfast. Maybe we can split the extra apple if we find a knife.”

“Better than sitting alone with that half ‘n’ half bastard,” he grumbled into his cup. “I’d prefer his daddy issues over this snob fest any day.”

He chugged the water. When he brought the cup back down, Kirishima had appeared beside him, pouring his own glass. “Aw, do you miss our Todoroki, Bakubro?” he teased.

“Ugh,” Katsuki replied with disgust. He snatched the pitcher away from him to pour the rest into his own glass. He took a sip of it, then cringed and set it down. He had a habit of over-drinking water in the mornings due to his excess of sweat, but he’d seemingly already had enough after just one glass. It was a little weird, but it wasn’t so abnormal for that to happen after cold nights.

Kirishima laughed at him again like the bastard he is, and took his half-filled cup across the room toward the wardrobe. Katsuki wandered over to the window to admire the view. He wasn’t quite awake yet, even after all that. Todoroki could wait.

A few knights were lined up on horseback in the courtyard, with Iida pacing back and forth in front of them on the same white horse he’d ridden the day before. He wasn’t quite shouting, but Katsuki could recognize the guy’s scolding anywhere. He chopped his free hand through the air as he spoke. The knights in front of him sat ramrod straight and listened to the onslaught at attention.

“Hey, Bakubro,” Kirishima’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He sounded oddly hesitant. “Your parents are all about fashion, right?”

He glowered. His parents were a subject that they tended to avoid. He turned his head to squint at him. “And?”

Kirishima was half-dressed, in only his grey pants, vest, with his stupid scarf slung over one shoulder. He held up the torn edge of Katsuki’s cape in both hands. “You could tell if this was the same weave, right?”

That made him pause. “The fuck are you talking about, shitty hair?”

He turned around fully to reveal that he was not, in fact, holding just one cape. He held the end of Katsuki’s cape in one hand, and his smaller belt-cape in the other. “I’m pretty sure these are the same piece of fabric. Right?” He lifted them slightly, waiting for confirmation.

Katsuki grumbled in irritation and stomped over to him. “Yeah, it’s the same,” he muttered.

Kirishima practically glowed at the revelation. “That’s cute!” he said, hugging both pieces to his chest. “That means even if we’re apart, I’ll always have a piece of you with me, Bakubro!”

He squinted and opened his mouth to reply, then shut it.

“Ah, maybe that was weird to say,” the red-head mumbled after an awkward moment of silence.

“Shut up,” Katsuki said immediately in lieu of a reassurance. Kirishima seemed to understand what he meant, and shot him a small, embarrassed smile. He returned it with a smirk. “You don’t have to try ‘n’ justify wearing that skirt around.”

Kirishima’s smile widened into a grin and he scoffed in mock offense. “You can’t seriously be trying to enforce gender roles with your jewelry and fluffy scarf, bro.” He snickered at Katsuki’s glare. “They’re super manly, dude. So’s my skirt.”

He laughed as he dodged the whack aimed for his head, and hopped over the table to the other side of the room. Katsuki stalked over and dumped his water back into the pitcher. He lifted his hand to throw the cup just as the door opened again.

Deku stood there, frozen, taking in the scene in front of him. Kirishima was crouched, hiding behind the other side of the table, and clawing behind his back to grasp at one of the fireplace pokers to use as a weapon. His scarf had fallen off his shoulder, and the skirt had been tossed. Both were strewn across the floor several feet away. Katsuki stood with his one hand raised, and the other on the table where he’d leveraged himself in preparation to jump over it for a tackle.

The nerd looked him up and down. That was when he realized that after the twenty or so minutes that Deku had been gone, he was still in his pajamas.

“Eiji’s invited to join,” Deku announced awkwardly. He stood there in silence for a moment. Neither of them moved. He turned slightly as if to leave, took a breath, then turned back toward Katsuki. “Are you sure you don’t need—?”

“Get the fuck out.”

Kirishima didn’t stop cackling for the rest of the time it took them to get dressed.

Deku led them through the halls without another word. As soon as they entered the room, Todoroki looked up from where he’d been spacing out at the table. “I apologize for any misconception,” he said as soon as he saw them. The corner of his lip twitched. “Where you are invited, so is your shadow.”

Katsuki grunted and dropped into the chair furthest from him. “What’s with the early invitation, half ‘n’ half?”

Todoroki sat up straighter and nodded toward the platters laid out in front of them. Deku went to work plating their breakfast, and Kirishima finally trailed the rest of the way in to sit beside Katsuki. “My father won’t be as welcoming as I,” he explained. Then, he turned to look at Kirishima. “I can’t apologize on his behalf, but I do apologize for the behavior of my knight. Iida.”

Kirishima pursed his lips and stabbed at a slice of apple with his fork.

“And the silverware,” Todoroki added suddenly. “I know it isn’t your preference. I couldn’t find any chop—”

“What the fuck are you doing,” Katsuki glowered. He snatched an apple slice off of Kirishima’s plate with his bare hand.

Todoroki stared at him silently for a long time, then sighed. It was deep and heavy. “What will it take from me for you to accept the quest?”

Katsuki snorted. “That’s what this is about?” Todoroki’s gaze was unwavering. “You’re wasting your damn time.”

His expression hardened. “It isn’t just this kingdom that will fall, Bakugou,” he started. He opened his mouth to no doubt give a very inspiring and vaguely threatening speech, but Katsuki cut him off with a raised hand and the roll of his eyes.

He picked a piece of apple skin out of his teeth with his fingernail and flicked it on the floor. Deku made a pained sound somewhere behind him. “Why would I come all this way just to say no? If I was gonna refuse, I could have just told four-eyes to fuck off.”

Todoroki’s hardened stare faded into something more resigned, and his entire body deflated. He couldn’t tell if it was relief, or a bone-deep tiredness that was finally overtaking him. “Why did you, then?” he asked, more annoyed than Katsuki had ever heard him.

He gave him a grin and finally picked up his fork. “I like seeing the old man squirm.” He dug into his breakfast. After another heavy sigh, Todoroki did the same. He could see Kirishima in the corner of his eye, biting his lip to keep his laughter from escaping. “If you’re looking for pointers, though, it would have been nice to know a little more about what I was walking into,” he commented absently.

“Mm,” Todoroki nodded, apparently taking his criticisms to heart. “This is a top-secret quest. I’m sure Iida was only being cautious.” He lifted his cup and swirled the water around. “And, anyways… If you knew who we were asking you to find, would you have come at all?”

Katsuki watched with a squint as Todoroki sipped his water, never breaking eye contact with him. He had the distinct feeling that he wouldn’t have. His silence spoke for itself.

Todoroki raised a single eyebrow. I thought so, it said for him.

“Asshole,” Katsuki muttered, just to get the last word.

They ate in silence for a long time. At one point, Todoroki nodded subtly toward Deku, and the nerd quietly exited the room. It was suspicious as fuck, and Katsuki made sure the half ‘n’ half bastard knew this with a narrow-eyed glare. He didn’t seem to notice.

Almost as soon as they’d finished their meal, there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Todoroki said politely, not surprised in the least.

Katsuki was disappointed to find Iida to be the one entering the room with another ridiculous deep bow. “You sent for me, sire?” he asked as he stood back up.

Todoroki met Katsuki’s glare with a neutral look. “I did,” he admitted. “I noticed you seem to be missing your sword. Iida can show you to the armory, if you’d like.”

While he’d never consider himself defenseless, there was something deep inside him that felt naked without a sword attached to his side. It wasn’t a feeling that he’d noticed before it was pointed out, but now it was impossible to ignore. He glanced instinctually down to his hip, but the only sign that a sword had ever been there was a belt loop that was just a little more worn than the others.

Even so, the idea of accepting one of the prince’s inferior weapons was nauseating.

“You’ll need something to defend yourself,” Todoroki said after a long silence. “This quest will not be a simple one.”

Iida perked up at that, but made an effort to appear casual. “You’re coming with us, then?”

Katsuki let out a sigh so deep and pained that it might have been a groan. He was so, so tired of talking to stupid people. There was really nothing stopping him from spending the rest of the day alone in the guest quarters, or taking a walk along the edge of the forest where no one could bother him.

One look at Kirishima changed everything. He was bouncing in his seat, looking excitedly between Katsuki and Iida. His eyes were practically sparkling. The idiot wanted to see the armory.

“Yeah, I’m fucking going,” Katsuki growled, whipping his squinting glare toward Iida. He wrinkled his nose to portray his disgust. “I guess I’m going to the armory too. Lead the way.”

Iida looked a little too happy about this, and it bothered him that he didn’t know exactly why. Nothing about their interactions so far indicated they were friends. In fact, Iida only seemed to begrudgingly respect him out of necessity. It was hard not to feel like he was being looked down on, as if maybe the guy was happy to find him out of his element and in need of a guide.

Well, Katsuki was out of his element. After Iida bowed to Todoroki again and moved to lead them through the halls, Katsuki stood and spun toward the door. His cape swished around him. The breeze against his bare skin was cold. Without saying a word of goodbye to Todoroki, he buried his hands in his pockets and stomped out after the knight. Kirishima gave the prince an awkward little wave in his peripheral vision.

He was irritated.

How long would they be stuck in this place? It had already been more than a day. Did time pass here at the same speed that it passed in the real world? It couldn’t be this hard to catch a villain with a simple illusion quirk, surely.

“Here we are,” Iida announced proudly, sweeping his arm over the doorway. Again, Katsuki would have been able to find this place without him. The proud smile on his face irritated him further. “We have quite the collection here. Pick anything you would like, and I’ll let you know if it’s available for you to use.”

Katsuki stepped just inside the doorway. With one sweeping glance around, all he felt was disappointment. There were swords, axes, and other sharp tools lining the walls. Ornate shields hung high above them, and a large stack of more worn-looking ones were tossed beside the bows and arrows to the right. “This it?” he asked with a sneer of disgust.

Iida’s proud look faltered, and Katsuki struggled not to outwardly express the spiteful glee he felt at that. “The kings’ weapons aren’t good enough for you?” he asked dryly.

“The kings’ weapons are shit,” Katsuki replied casually. Iida balked at this. Kirishima squeezed past him to flit around the room like a kid in a candy store. “None of this is usable,” he continued, lifting one of the swords from the rack effortlessly. He held it out in front of him to check the balance as if he’d done it a thousand times before. “This is too fucking heavy. Might as well be fighting with a hammer. Who the hell do you think I am?”

The knight watched him with an incredulous look as he stabbed the sword back into its place with probably more violence than necessary. “Well, hammers are a weapon of choice for your peop—”

An unfamiliar hot spike of rage made itself known in Katsuki’s chest, and he whipped around to send him a fierce glare. Iida’s eyes widened in fear, and he finally shut his mouth. He didn’t know what exactly he was about to say, or why it made him so angry, but the peace and quiet while he continued to examine the walls of useless weapons was pleasant, at least.

He stopped in front of a particularly ridiculous sword. It was huge, big enough that it reminded him of something out of a cartoon. The handle was long and shaped in a way that made it clear that it was meant for two hands. Was there really someone out there who considered this their weapon of choice?

A tap on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. He turned his head to the side to find Kirishima standing beside him with an almost guilty look on his face. It took another moment for him to see that he held a katana in his hands. It was beautifully ornate. The hilt was tied with black and red, and the sheath was a deep mahogany. The guard was decorated with intricate gold markings that vaguely resembled the shape of a dragon.

“Are you fucking serious?” Katsuki sneered, voice hushed. He glance toward Iida, who was still watching them closely, then back to Kirishima. “That thing’s clearly meant to be decorative. It’s basically useless.”

Kirishima’s eyebrow furrowed deeper, and the face he was making became clearer. He wasn’t guilty at all. The look Katsuki was at the receiving end of was puppy dog eyes, possibly the worst ones he’d ever seen. The guy looked seconds away from tearing up.

Katsuki looked up to the ceiling and let out a deep, calming breath, then turned to Iida with narrowed eyes. “Can he have the shitty red sword?” he asked irritably.

Iida blinked in surprise. “Well, that one isn’t meant for battle,” he explained cautiously. “It’s meant to be hung as decoration.”

“See?” Katsuki said, turning back to the red-head. He was pouting now. He looked down sadly at the sword in his hands.

“Oh,” Iida said suddenly, grabbing his attention. He glanced back to see a wide-eyed look of understanding on his face. “Take it,” he said quickly, almost fearfully. “It’s for his… it’s because it’s precious, correct?”

That didn’t make an ounce of sense to him, so he didn’t bother to reply. Kirishima’s sad face disappeared in an instant, and it was impossible to know whether it was because it was fake all along, or if he just happened to be able to switch moods that quickly. He slipped the strap over his shoulder so that the sword hung snuggly over his back. It crossed his chest in a way that reminded Katsuki of his hero costume.

The familiarity was nice.

He ruffled the back of his shitty hair to distract himself and Kirishima from the unexpected rush of affection that flooded his chest. That was weird, and not something he was used to feeling so strongly. “Hope it was worth it,” he muttered. “Now you’re gonna have to carry that thing with you everywhere.”

Kirishima just grinned at him. His eyes told him that was exactly what he was hoping for.

“Fuckin’ nerd.”

“Well, if none of these are to your liking, I suppose it can’t be helped,” Iida sighed. “The knights will be gathering for training soon. Perhaps I could give you a bit more of an in-depth tour until then, and you could watch us train to see how these weapons are used?”

The knight looked at him with sparkling hopeful eyes. Katsuki was very irritated. While he didn’t actually know the details of how these weapons were meant to be used, he had the feeling that he was supposed to, and the suggestion that he would need help from Iida to understand was laughable. He didn’t need a tour of the grounds and he didn’t need sword fighting lessons from someone lesser than him.

“Let me consult my person,” he growled.

Iida blinked at him and looked between the two of them uncertainly. “Right,” he said slowly. He turned and stepped out of the room.

“What the fuck do I say?” Katsuki hissed without wasting a moment. “I don’t want to fucking go.”

Kirishima had the audacity to laugh at him. “Come on, bro, he’s just being friendly.”

He scoffed. “Friendly?” he asked in disbelief. “He’s clearly looking down on me. Thinks I need fucking lessons from him. Like I need him to show me where everything is. I’m not fucking stupid.”

Two firm hands landed on his shoulders. “Bro. Calm down,” Kirishima ordered sternly. Katsuki forced himself to take a single deep breath, and that seemed to be enough. His shoulders were released, and Kirishima continued. “I dunno what to tell you, man. It just seems to me like he’s—”

“Eiji?” Deku’s voice called from the hallway. His head appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Oh, are you busy?”

“Yes,” Katsuki growled with malice. Kirishima punched his arm and turned to face their intruder.

Deku glanced between them for a moment before looking back to Kirishima. “Well, I was going to start my rounds and I was wondering if you’d like to join me. I’m just delivering medicine and cleaning up some of the guest quarters.”

The red-head raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in thought. One glance back at Katsuki was all he needed to know what he was thinking. “You fucking traitor,” he snarled. Kirishima just gave him a sly grin and practically skipped over to Deku.

“I’ll give him back,” Deku promised, failing to hide his joy. Bastard. “It won’t be very long. See you later, Kacchan!”

Kirishima gave him a smug look and a wave as he exited the room, then not so subtly pointed in the direction that Iida had gone. They were both bastards.

“Guess I’m with you,” Katsuki sighed as he trailed out into the hall to meet up with Iida.

Four-eyes looked absolutely overjoyed at the news for the briefest moment, then schooled his expression to be something a little more knightly. He nodded once, then gestured down the hall in the direction they would be going. For a moment, they walked in silence. "So," Iida started awkwardly. "It was quite the startle, waking up to a war-cry first thing this morning."

Katsuki knew without a doubt that this was going to be a long day.

The former-class president talked at him throughout his whole tour, but Katsuki didn’t listen to a word of it. He figured there wasn’t a point, considering how well he knew the grounds already, and the fact that anything he said didn’t actually matter. He was just another extra in a wildly elaborate illusion that would likely unravel on its own in the next few days. His stories and introductions were meaningless and fake.

There were much more useful things for Katsuki to pay attention to. One example being the guard patrols, because he still didn’t trust Endeavor not to pull a guillotine on him. The pattern was simple enough, almost too simple, and he memorized it easily.

The horizon was beautiful, too. It was actually hard for him to keep his eyes off of it once they exited the castle walls. The trees extended as far as the eye could see, and they were lit up beautifully in the afternoon sun. He figured it must’ve been pretty early autumn, because the leaves were a mix of greens, oranges, and yellows. It was hard to believe anything like this existed in real life, but he was sure it did.

His attention was forcibly pulled to the present when Iida stopped to show him the stables. He’d said something, but Katsuki wasn’t paying an ounce of attention. The knight stood in front of him expectantly, and glanced briefly to the horse that stood just on the other side of the fence to their left.

Wordlessly, Katsuki held out a hand toward the horse. It froze for just a moment, tense, then snorted through its nose and shook its head. It practically skittered away only a moment later, and Iida stared after it, dumbfounded.

“Y-you,” Iida stuttered awkwardly. He took a moment to consider his words. “Is that head injury of yours worse than you’re letting on?” he asked hesitantly.

“What,” Katsuki snapped with a glare.

Iida’s eyes widened, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’m sure Shuzenji would be willing to treat you discreetly. There’s no reason to prolong your suffering.”

“I’m not fucking suffering,” Katsuki snarled, incredulous. He couldn’t even figure out where this line of thinking was coming from. “It’s just a headache. Nothing I can’t handle. Mind your damn business.”

The knight looked uncertain, but reluctantly conceded.

The last half of the tour was just as boring as the first. Iida guided him all around the grounds, going on about whatever they were planning for training that day, and Katsuki didn’t listen to a word. He was briefly introduced to some other knights that he didn’t recognize, and he had to admit that the fear in their eyes was more than a little refreshing. Their final stop was, of course, the training grounds, which were set up with seats and tents in preparation for some kind of tournament.

“You can watch from the stands, or from the side if you prefer,” Iida said pleasantly. “I’m afraid you can’t join us for this. The king wouldn’t take too kindly to an outsider swinging swords at his men.”

“Wouldn’t have joined you anyways,” he muttered under his breath as he turned to stalk toward the stands.

Katsuki watched the knights training absently. He could recognize the faces of Jirou, Sato, and the two from 1-B fighting alongside Iida and the other extras. The sounds of swords clanging together and shouting rung through the air. The longer he watched, the more he thought that sword fighting looked a lot like dancing. It really wasn’t his style, but he supposed there weren’t many other options in a world like this one.

This quirk was as interesting as it was confusing. Clearly, they were in an illusion, but that was just about as much as they could figure out from where they were. With their lack of memories, it was impossible to know whether their classmates had been affected too, or if their appearance was just a part of the illusion. For all they knew, the others could be stuck role-playing in the same way they were.

And that was another thing. They were being influenced by an outside force in a way that was subtle enough that they could maintain control, but difficult, if not impossible, to go against. Kirishima was right that they shouldn’t attempt to break free without more knowledge of what exactly the quirk did to them, but he couldn’t help but think that going along with it in the way it wanted would only work to bury them in more layers of illusion.

“Hey, Blasty,” Jirou’s voice came from his left. He turned his head just in time to see her sitting down in the seat beside him. “I didn’t think I’d see you around here again.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes and looked back down at the other knights. “Yeah, I’ve been hearing a lot of that,” he grumbled.

She laughed loudly at that, very much unlike her usual shy demeanor. “Well, you can’t blame any of us. Last time you rolled through we had to replant an entire forest and three farms.”

With this new information, Katsuki really didn’t understand why he’d been allowed back in the territory, or why everyone was implying that they were the ones who didn’t want to return. “Not my fault that shit’s so flammable,” he muttered.

Jirou laughed again, and pat him roughly on the shoulder. She was a lot stronger than in real life. “Sure, sure,” she said, amused. “Well, we’d be happy to have you on this quest with us either way. Some of the others are worried, but we’re pretty much doomed without you. I hope you’ll seriously consider it.”

“I’m going,” he groaned. He really had no right to be annoyed with everyone working to convince him when he was the one who’d initially refused, but that wasn’t enough to stop him. “Who else is coming?”

“It’ll be the prince, of course,” she started. “Then Iida, Tetsutetsu, Sato, Kendo, and myself. We’re going in a small group for stealth purposes.”

Katsuki leaned back to look at her with a sneer. “That’s a small group?” he complained. “We don’t need nearly that many.”

Jirou scoffed and gave him a look. “Well, I mean, it’s the magician,” she explained as though it was obvious. “You know how he is.”

“If you say so,” Katsuki sighed, turning away again.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment. Iida pulled a move on one of the extras that caused them to drop their sword, then pat their back and said something that was probably reassuring. “So, how’s that guy of yours?” Jirou asked suddenly. “I saw him with you last night. What’s his name, again?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and was startled by the feeling of his words getting stuck in his throat. It was just like Kirishima had described before. There was something in his answer that he couldn’t say. He took a breath, and let instincts take him like he had before. “Ei. He’s doing fine. Way more into this world-saving bullshit than I am, that’s for sure.”

“Aw,” Jirou cooed. “You two are cute. Iida doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Katsuki scoffed in disgust. “If you ever call me cute again, you’re fucking dead,” he promised.

“Oh, but it’s okay for Ei to be cute,” she teased. “I see you, Blasty.”

He whipped his head around to squint at her incredulously. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded. She just laughed at him and hid her smile behind one hand. “And don’t fuckin’ call me that, Ears,” he added with a glance to her oddly jack-less lobes. In their place was a set of oversized gauges made of metal.

She laughed even harder at that, then met eyes with something behind him. “Speak of the devil,” she said, a little out of breath. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

Katsuki glanced over his shoulder to see Kirishima coming toward them from the other end of the stands, looking between them with curious eyes. He didn’t bother to give her a goodbye. If she was going to be joining them for the quest, he was sure they would see each other soon enough.

“What were you guy’s talking about?” Kirishima asked in a hushed tone as he plopped down in the seat to Katsuki’s right.

“Nothing important,” he sighed. “Apparently we burnt down a forest and three farms last time we were here.”

“Huh,” Kirishima said, sounding just a little perplexed. “Why does it seem like we were the ones who were wronged, then? That’s what everyone seems to be implying, at least.”

Katsuki laughed, short and humorless. “My thoughts exactly. Who fuckin’ knows.”

Kirishima hummed and leaned back against the armrest so that he was facing him entirely. “Well, I have updates for you,” he said excitedly. “Me and Midoriya eavesdropped on Todoroki and Endeavor.”

The thought startled a snort out of him. Katsuki took a moment to imagine Kirishima hiding around a corner while Todoroki and Endeavor had a stand-off similar to the ones he’d witnessed before. “I bet that was interesting,” he said cheekily.

“Uh, that’s one word for it, yeah,” Kirishima said with a nervous laugh. “It’s good news, though. The king accepted. We leave to find the magician first thing tomorrow morning.”

Chapter Text

The preparations the next morning were chaotic, to say the least. It reminded Katsuki of a time long before his relationship with his parents had deteriorated, when they used to go on trips together with the Midoriya’s and pack the car early before the sun rose. The knights were busy bringing out baskets and pouches of rations and other supplies to attach to the horse’s satchels, while Todoroki stood by and ordered Deku around like a dog. Katsuki wasn’t sure if there was something he was supposed to be doing, so he just wandered around and observed the chaos in silence.

At some point, he was handed one of the too-heavy shitty swords from the armory. It was old, worn, and poorly sharpened. The leather on its’ handle was even starting to fall apart. He subtly left it on top of a barrel and moved to the other side of the courtyard. He would rather fight with his bare fists than use something like that.

Kirishima was bouncing around the group with childlike excitement, helping with anything he could get his hands on. The knights all seemed amused at this, with the exception of Iida, who looked a little disturbed whenever he came too close. They gave him small, simple tasks at first, but quickly realized he was a lot more capable than they were giving him credit for. Their tasks were finished in no time.

There was one horse for each of them. Katsuki felt something deep in his chest telling him that he knew how to ride one, but as soon as he approached the horse meant for him, a skinny-looking thing with a shiny-metallic palomino coat, it shook its head, made a noise of distress, and backed away. That was as good a sign as any that he should give it some more time.

Kirishima jumped up onto his own horse, which Katsuki could recognize as an appaloosa due to its spots, and controlled the reigns effortlessly.

“Show off,” Katsuki muttered.

“Maybe it would be best if you ride with someone else for the time being,” Iida suggested in a hushed tone, not so subtly gesturing to his head wound again. “Riding on your own may be difficult until you’re feeling better.”

Stubbornly, Katsuki held out a hand one more time. His horse huffed aggressively. “Ugh, fuck off,” he grumbled at the knight, irritated that he wasn’t wrong.

“You can ride with me, or any of the other knights, I’m sure,” Iida offered in an irritating attempt to be reassuring.

Katsuki stared at him, deadpan, then turned toward Kirishima. “I’m riding with Ei, obviously,” he muttered. “You can tether my horse to yours, though.”

Kirishima’s face flushed a little at the nickname, and he blinked in confusion, but said nothing, of course. Katsuki had just as much trouble trying to get on the saddle as he did before, but at least this horse didn’t seem afraid of him like the other was.

“I’ll… I’ll do that, yes,” Iida said with a strained voice, trying his best not to let on that he was unhappy with being given such an inconvenient task.

It only took until they were about halfway through the lower town for Katsuki to realize just how boring this was going to be. It wouldn’t be like the tv shows that this world seemed to be based on. There would be no quick montages, and they wouldn’t be cutting to all the interesting parts and leaving out the rest. They were going to be traveling for who knew how long to search for a man who was so difficult to find that the king was willing to work with someone he disliked as much as Katsuki to do it.

Worst of all, he wouldn’t be able to talk to the only person worth talking to for the entire trip. They were completely surrounded by people who didn’t necessarily trust them. There was no way they would be left alone long enough to have a decent conversation, and life without the playful bickering that he’d gotten so used to would be miserable.

He needed to find this magician as soon as possible.

“Bakugou,” Todoroki’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. They were exiting the town already, traveling on a trail along the edge of a dense forest. The prince had pulled his horse up to trot right beside Kirishima’s to the left. Its’ coat was pure black, but its mane was pale, almost white. Katsuki wondered briefly if any of these horses were real breeds, considering he knew basically nothing about them. “You know for certain where we can find the masked magician, correct?” Todoroki asked.

He had no fucking clue. The world was huge, and apparently consisted of multiple kingdoms. He didn’t even know where to start. “Yep,” Katsuki’s instincts spoke for him. “He’s shit at hiding, really. You find that out once you get to know him.”

Strangely enough, the response Todoroki had to that was a barely noticeable cringe of discomfort. “Well, in that case, lead the way. Wherever you say to go, we’ll follow.”

Kirishima glanced back briefly with a hint of concern, but if Todoroki had seen it, he didn’t react. The request was a little more than impossible, and yet, with a deep breath and a moment to clear his mind, he knew exactly which direction they should go. “That way,” he announced, lifting his arm to point into the trees.

Todoroki’s eyes followed Katsuki’s arm blankly, and he stared into the shadows cast by the dense cover of leaves for just a moment. “Of course,” he sighed, pulling the reigns to turn back toward the others.

“What did you expect?” Katsuki shouted back irritably. “It’s the magician!”

The prince ignored him entirely.

Kirishima shook his head and sighed, then guided the horse off the path and into the forest. The knights followed faithfully, but they had all gone utterly silent. The energy of this place was heavy. Katsuki could feel eyes on him at all angles, but the only company he could see was the abundance of fungi and moss-covered trees.

Time didn’t seem to pass. The sky was nowhere to be seen through the thick, damp foliage. It could have been hours, or it could have been days. The horses were slowing down, and the knights’ shoulders were starting to hunch, as if the forest were sucking the life out of them.

“Maybe we should stop and rest for a bit,” Deku was the first to suggest, of course.

None of the knights would dare say a word, for fear of appearing weak in front of their prince. They all turned to look closely at Todoroki for some sign of his opinion. After a brief silence, he nodded. “Not too long. This forest is unsafe.”

In an instant, the knights were setting up camp.

Katsuki and Kirishima watched the scene in front of them, still on the back of their horse. Something twisted in Katsuki’s gut. “We should really keep moving,” he said lowly.

“Just a moment to regain our energy,” Todoroki countered coolly. “Not all of us are used to being on the road this long.”

He did the prince the favor of ignoring the jab at his apparent homelessness. “Listen closely, dipshit,” Katsuki snarled.

The group went silent. Whether it was in response to Katsuki’s blatant disrespect, or they were just following his orders, he couldn’t tell. Either way, it got the effect that he’d wanted.

Other than the crackle of Deku’s pathetic attempt at a fire and their own breathing, not a sound could be heard.

Todoroki looked around at the trees that surrounded them, as if he could discern something in the darkness. “We won't be here long,” he insisted.

The knights continued to make camp, but Jirou and Iida were both keeping an eye on their surroundings. At least someone there took Katsuki’s warning seriously. He didn’t need any strange gut feelings or hints to know that this was a terrible idea. Years of experience with hiking through the wilderness taught him one thing.

When a forest was silent, it was because everything was hiding.

Kirishima reluctantly slipped off of the horse, then helped Katsuki hop down too. He was obviously on edge. Without the benefit of communication, it wasn’t clear if it was the gut feelings that caused him to act this way or if he knew what Katsuki was trying to point out. Even as Katsuki hesitantly sat down and took a bowl of lukewarm soup from Kendo, Kirishima remained standing, staring at the shadows between the trees.

The forest floor was damp—not quite mud, but not quite dry enough to be dirt, either. the mushrooms and other plants on the ground around them were unrecognizable to Katsuki. I made him a bit apprehensive to be sitting so close to where they could be releasing their potentially toxic spores

Sato and Tetsutesu were chatting quietly on the other side of their makeshift firepit. Iida stood to their right, practically chugging water from his pouch. Kendo was crouched beside Katsuki, poking at the pathetic fire with a stick that was equally as damp as the logs that were failing to catch aflame. Deku and Todoroki were whispering to each other on the other side of the fire, and Jirou had taken to patrolling the edge of the clearing, if it could even be called that.

For a moment, the clueless travelers got the rest they so desperately thought they needed.

Leaves rustled almost silently from somewhere along the tree-line. Kirishima’s head whipped toward it in an instant. Before Katsuki even had the chance to speak, a dog-sized scorpion flew out of the darkness, directly towards Todoroki.

“Oh shit,” Katsuki’s voice cracked.

In a blink, Kirishima’s sword was in his hand. Apparently, it wasn’t useless after all. The bottom half of the scorpion fell to the ground, and the top half flew over Todoroki’s head and landed right in the fire pit. The blood it spilled put out the sparks with ease.

It was all over before a single one of the knights had turned to look at the scene.

Kirishima was still standing with his sword drawn over Todoroki’s head, breath heavy and eyes ablaze. His skin rippled strangely. It almost looked like his quirk, but something wasn’t quite right. It was impossible to see clearly without the light of the fire.

“We should get moving,” Todoroki suggested solemnly.

Funny enough, no one had any objections when he was the one who said it.

Katsuki stood and pulled Kirishima aside while the knights rushed to pack up their supplies. His eyes were closed, eyebrows scrunched in concentration, and his breathing was deep and purposeful. Katsuki took the sword out of his hand and put it back in its sheath behind Kirishima’s back. Then, he rubbed up and down his arms to help calm him, the same way Kirishima had done for him too many times to count.

Soon enough, his breath had evened out and he opened his eyes. “You good?” Katsuki asked quietly.

Kirishima nodded. “My quirk,” he whispered, almost inaudibly.

Katsuki hummed. “I saw.”

“I can’t control it.” His voice was small and fearful, and his eyes turned downward.

“Sure you can,” Katsuki said, a little louder. He rubbed his arms one last time for good measure. “You just did, didn’t you? We’re fine.”

Kirishima finally looked up at him, eyes shining. He nodded once, then they headed back to the others. They’d finished packing up, and they were already getting settled on their horses once more.

As Kirishima was trying to help pull Katsuki up onto their horse, Deku pulled his up next to them. “Is Eiji okay?” He asked quietly.

Kirishima looked up at him and nodded sheepishly, sufficiently distracted from the task at hand. Katsuki pulled harder on his hand, almost toppling him over, then finally managed to throw his foot over the horse’s back. “He’s fuckin’ fine,” he said irritably, voice strained with effort.

Deku paused. “Are you okay? I noticed earlier that you weren’t riding on your own, but—”

“Don’t you have anything else to do?” Katsuki snarled, getting more comfortable in his seat. “I didn’t know you had so much time on your hands. Figured you’d be too busy with royal ass to—” he was cut off by an elbow jabbing into his stomach, hard enough to send him into a fit of coughs.

With little self-preservation, Deku laughed loudly at that. “Good work, Eiji,” he said, a smile audible in his voice. “Keep him civil.”

Katsuki weakly hit his forehead against Kirishima’s shoulder. “I’ll fucking kill both of you,” he wheezed.

The group was clearly on edge after that. It seemed like they all wanted to get out of the forest as soon as possible, and while Katsuki couldn’t agree more, he also couldn’t shake the feeling that rushing things would do more harm than good. So, when they came upon a deep crevasse which cut through the mountain that they were working their way around, he’d already decided what they should do.

The others were slowing down, but Katsuki nudged the side of the horse with his heel in an attempt to make it go faster. “We go around,” he announced without looking back.

“Wait,” Todoroki said, of course, because he apparently hadn’t learned the first time he’d ignored Katsuki’s warning.

With a tired sigh, Katsuki pulled on the back of Kirishima’s vest to indicate he should stop. He did, then turned them around to face the party, which had stopped right at the entrance of the crevasse.

Todoroki stared into it. “This could cut at least a day off our trip, correct?”

Katsuki stared into it too. Clearly, this landscape was not natural. It was carved a long time ago using ancient forms of magic that were long lost to them now. How he knew this, he couldn’t say, but this was the moment he chose to quit second-guessing his gut feelings. “This would cut our trip short,” he snarked. “Are you fucking insane? Do you see what you’re looking at?”

The crevasse yawned wide above them in an almost perfect V-shape. Despite its sheer height, the cover from the trees were dense enough that they were still shrouded in darkness. They would probably have to break out the torches just a few feet inside, and that was only if they could light them. It was so humid in the forest, Katsuki couldn’t imagine it would be any better in what was essentially a massive cave.

“What I’m looking at is a shortcut,” Todoroki snapped shortly. “My knights are worn, and the horses need rest. The faster we get out of this cursed forest, the better. Let’s go.”

He dramatically spun his horse around and marched into the darkness. The knights lit their torches and followed suit.

Katsuki took a deep, calming breath. For a moment he wondered why this Todoroki was so much stupider than the real one. Then, he remembered who he was supposed to represent in this world. The prince in that particular tv show had been known for his acts of arrogance and stupid decision-making. If that was the case, then Todoroki was just in character. That also meant that it wasn’t Katsuki’s responsibility to keep the asshole from getting killed, it was Deku’s.

With just one unsure glance back at Katsuki’s tired, irritated face, Kirishima trailed behind the others nervously.

The light from the torches flickered. Just as Katsuki had predicted, it was far too humid to be relying on torches to guide them. He looked forward as far as he could see, then backward. It was pitch black in both directions. Once the torches went out, they would be shrouded in darkness.

Almost as soon as he’d had the thought, the last flicker of light blinked out. The click of hooves against stone came to a stop. There were no sounds, not even a breeze to guide them. “Nice shortcut you got here, prince dumbass. Care to explain to the rest of us how you plan to get to the other side completely blind?”

“Shut up,” Todoroki shouted. The frustration in his voice was surprisingly evident. it echoed down the crevasse in a way that was almost unnatural.

“Todoroki,” Katsuki tried to warn him lowly.

“Let me think,” he said, not lowering his volume in the slightest. By the third time it echoed back, Katsuki finally heard it.

The voice repeating the phrase was not Todoroki’s.

Katsuki pulled back on Kirishima’s vest, hard. “We have to fucking go, now.”

“Go where?” Sato scoffed incredulously. “Where did we even come from?”

He felt the horses’ muscles moving, but he honestly had no idea if Kirishima was guiding it in the right direction. He’d just have to trust him, which wasn’t all that hard. “Follow my voice!” Katsuki insisted.

“We don’t know where you are!” Jirou shouted desperately. “Your voice—it’s echoing off the walls!”

Too late, Katsuki realized that all of their words were being repeated back to them. The spirits were already too close. “We’re fucked,” he announced at a normal volume. It didn’t matter how far they’d gotten from the group. The spirits would carry his message for him.

“Kacchan!” he heard Deku’s terrified voice echoed from the left.

“Tell us what to do,” Iida insisted from somewhere below.

“We need you to guide us,” Kendo spoke from the darkness in front of them.

A tiny pebble hit Katsuki on the top of his head, but he’d expected that the moment he’d heard the spirits. Everyone gets buried here. That’s what it was made for.

“Kacchan!” Deku’s voice came again. He sounded so lost and powerless, but if this really was like the show, he would have known exactly what they were walking into.

Katsuki wrapped his arms around Kirishima’s middle and rested his head against his back. “Shitty Deku,” he mumbled as the walls crumbled around them.

The rocks never touched them. There was a hum of power in the air, but he was still effectively blind. He couldn’t see what was happening.

Until— “Katsuki,” A new voice sing-songed from above. A gust of wind blew all around them, and suddenly the cavern was bathed in natural light. He sat up and looked to see a massive sphere of stones floating far above the treetops, where it had broken through the thick cover of foliage. Torn leaves belatedly sprinkled around them.

As eye-catching as the giant stone ball was, there was something else at the edge of the crevasse that caught his attention.

“Now what are you doing in the Cavern of Souls?” Uraraka said, a little too amused considering how close to death his party had been. She held a staff in one hand and wore the robes of a magic-user. Her dress was light pink, and a magenta cloak covered just her shoulders. The hood was pointed like a witch’s hat.

“Taking a walk,” Katsuki replied casually. “You too?”

“Something like that,” she giggled. She hopped over the edge and drifted gracefully to the ground between them and the dumbfounded knights.

After an awkward moment of silence, Iida’s horse stepped forward and he cleared his throat, “In the name of the king of this land,” he started slowly, almost reluctantly. Uraraka’s face darkened. “You are under arrest for crimes of—”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Katsuki demanded. Kirishima guided their horse to stand between Uraraka and Iida. “She just saved your life, asshole!”

Iida didn’t look very happy to be in the position he was in, but he continued, nonetheless. “—for crimes of mag—”

“Where do you plan to keep her, hah?” Katsuki leaned forward, preparing for a fight, but not quite getting off the horse yet. “Do you have a cage hiding somewhere in that satchel? You think you can just tie her hands and she’ll cooperate?”

“Enough,” Todoroki said calmly. Iida went silent, and his shoulders drooped in relief. Todoroki got off of his horse and approached Uraraka, who took one hesitant step back. She squinted at him suspiciously. “Thank you,” Todoroki said simply, bowing his head. “I was impatient. Without you, my knights wouldn’t be here to see another day, and I wouldn’t be here to learn my lesson.”

Uraraka straightened and brushed invisible dirt off her skirt. “Well, you’re welcome.”

“Magic is illegal in this territory,” Todoroki continued. “I won't assume to know what you might have been planning while you’re here, but since you used it in front of us, there aren’t many options.” He shook his head and looked up at Katsuki, then back at his knights. He turned and made steady eye contact with Uraraka. “As of now, you are banished from this kingdom. You have until our quest is complete and we reach the castle to find your way home. That’s longer than most receive. I wish there was more I could do.”

Uraraka just laughed. “Of course there is,” she said cheerfully. “You’re just too much of a coward to do it.” The knights bristled. She walked right past them. “If Katsuki wasn’t with you, I’d have let you be buried under mountains of stone.”

With that, she disappeared into the shadows.

“You realize she could have led us safely to the other side,” Katsuki pointed out lowly. “She knows this cavern well.”

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Todoroki repeated decisively. He stared past Katsuki. The light from the exposed sky was bright enough to light the way back to the entrance of the crevasse. They hadn’t gone very far at all, as it turned out. “We’ll go around.”

Chapter Text

The time wasted on Todoroki’s mistakes wasn’t all that much, but when the horses began to slow to a stop and the knights started nodding off sitting up, Katsuki knew exactly who he would be blaming. It wasn’t until Sato actually slipped off of his horses’ back and landed heavily on the ground that they decided to risk another break.

Somehow, Jirou managed to find a larger clearing that was less humid than the rest of the landscape. The tree cover wasn’t quite as dense, but it seemed as though the branches above were weaved together to keep the sky hidden from them. Still, it was thin enough that they could tell it was nighttime.

Katsuki helped Jirou find some usable pieces of wood to start a real fire, while Deku and Kirishima stayed back at the camp to set up for a makeshift meal. This period of rest would not be a short one. Katsuki was fine after using Kirishima’s shoulder as a pillow for the past six or so hours, but everyone else had been awake for a day, or possibly longer.

It was safe to assume that they would have to make camp for at least eight hours, and Katsuki would be the only one on watch. Katsuki, who had no weapon and had promised not to use his quirk. Piece of cake.

“I’ll keep watch with you,” Jirou offered suddenly on their walk back to the camp, arms full of sticks.

Katsuki looked at her eyebags and scoffed. “As if. You’ll fall asleep as soon as you sit your ass on solid ground. Don’t bother.”

She shook her head. “It’s safer to have two on watch. I’m used to losing sleep. No one else can do this. I’ll keep watch with you.”

She didn’t look up at him or explain further. They reached the camp before Katsuki could object again, so it seemed that the matter was settled. Well, if Jirou happened to accidentally fall asleep at any point, Katsuki would just have to let it slide.

“You found so much!” Deku said excitedly, or just about as excitedly as possible without his beauty sleep. His eyes were a bruise-like purple and practically swollen shut in his exhaustion. “We’re making stew,” he informed them with a barely noticeable tremor in his voice.

Kirishima waved his little parry knife with a grin and went back to dicing up the potatoes. He didn’t seem tired at all, but considering how he would get after pulling all-nighters with Kaminari in the dorms… yeah, Katsuki wasn’t surprised. Most of the ingredients were already prepared in a pot and ready to be cooked, all that was left was for them to make the fire.

It was more than a little annoying to light a flame naturally rather than igniting the wood with his quirk, but a promise was a promise, so he squatted down with a stick in hand to create a flame using friction. Of all the things they packed, he couldn’t understand why none of them bothered to grab a lighter, or a piece of flint. Was that just technology that was too advanced for them, or were they unprepared?

He took the moment to observe their surroundings. There were no visible dangers in the tree line closest to them, but the trees on the other side of the clearing were too far for him to see from that angle. Sato, Tetsutetsu, and Iida were already sleeping in their bedrolls, apparently electing to take naps rather than waiting until after dinner to get their sleep. Kendo was taking a walk around the edge of the trees, peering at the unique species of mushrooms growing from anything they could take hold of. Todoroki was sitting against a broken stump, reading a book with a blank leather cover.

A flame bloomed suddenly from the wood below him. There hadn’t even been sparks yet, but the fire was plenty large enough to spread to the other logs. It was magic. Katsuki whipped his head up to glare at Deku, who bit his cheek and looked off in a different direction. He stood up abruptly and threw his useless stick into the flame. “Fire’s done,” he announced, glare still trained on Deku.

“Nice,” Jirou commented. “Much better than Midoriya’s try earlier, huh?” she teased, elbowing the nerd.

He was forced to quit acting like he wasn’t paying attention, and laughed nervously. “Ah, yeah, nice work, Kacchan!”

Katsuki stomped away to patrol the other edge of the clearing.

This time, the forest wasn’t silent. He could hear the call of many types of bugs, and even a frog or two. The sound was calming, but he stayed on edge. This place was dangerous, and just because there were no predators around right then didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any encounters in the time they weren’t moving.

It was interesting to see how the lack of moisture in the air kept the mushrooms from growing past the edge of the forest. Despite their abundance on the trees and floor around them, there was only a soft, long grass growing in the center of the clearing. Katsuki wished he could lay in it and look up at the stars, but the tree cover and his duties prevented it. He would just have to find a place to do it when they got back home.

Or, back to the castle. That’s what he’d meant.

Once he got back to the others, Kirishima was already dishing out stew to everyone while Deku served his prince. Katsuki felt a spike of irritation and possessiveness upon seeing this, but he was slightly calmed by the fact that everyone, barring Iida, of course, was treating Kirishima with respect.

As Iida took his bowl from Kirishima without a word of thanks, Katsuki was just coming up behind him. “He’s not a fucking manservant, y’know,” Katsuki growled lowly into his ear, causing him to jump and spill some of his stew. “Least you could do is thank him for the meal. I’d’ve let you starve, if it were me.”

Iida swallowed hard. “Thank you for the meal,” he said robotically, then he turned and hurried back to his bedroll.

“Asshole,” Katsuki muttered as he squatted down to take the ladle from Kirishima and serve a bowl for each of them. He nodded toward the spot where he’d set their things, indicating that he should follow. Kirishima’s face went a little pink, and he scrambled up to follow close behind.

Their place was away from the others, but not far enough that it would be safe to risk conversation. Still, when Katsuki tried his first sip of the stew, he hummed contentedly. “It’s good,” he complimented quietly.

Kirishima waved his hand bashfully in front of his face, then gestured in Deku’s direction.

“Bullshit, I saw you doing all the work. The nerd just played around with his spices the whole time.”

The red-haired idiot nearly choked on his laughter at that, and Katsuki couldn’t bring himself to suppress the fond smile that found its way onto his face.

Once they were both at the last few bites, they paused. Katsuki had the strangest urge to pour the rest onto the ground beside him. Before he could ask if Kirishima felt the same, he watched him shrug, and do exactly that. Katsuki followed suit. He was sure the reason would become clear eventually.

Across the camp, Deku was watching them closely. With his eyes narrowed, he subtly poured some broth out of the side of his bowl.

The group gathered around the fire after everyone was finished eating. Kirishima moved to help Deku take care of the dishes, but Katsuki threw an arm over his shoulder and dragged him to take a seat between Jirou and Tetsutetsu. He’d done enough to help for the day. Katsuki didn’t want anyone else to get the wrong idea. He glared at Iida pointedly, and the knight refused to meet his eyes.

Sato and Kendo helped Deku instead.

Taking a quiet moment to warm up by the fire before bed would have been a peaceful end to the long first half of their trip. On the back of a horse with a warm body in front of him, the cold hadn’t been so bad. Now though, Katsuki would kill for anything to cover his bare chest. He actually found himself grateful for the cape, and it was almost tempting to wrap it around himself like a blanket. He wouldn’t dare show any signs of his discomfort in the presence of others, though.

Of course, the silence could only last a moment. Even though they were playing characters, these were still his UA classmates, and one thing he should have kept in mind was that they never knew when to shut up.

“So,” Tetsutetsu was the one to break the silence. “Anyone have any good ghost stories?”

Kendo whacked the back of his head with her hand. “You’re embarrassing yourself,” She informed him.

Kirishima, still trapped under Katsuki’s arm, bounced with excitement. Tetsutetsu gave his back a friendly beating. “See, this guy knows what’s up. Come on, we’re in the dark, by a fire. It’s the perfect ghost story atmosphere.”

“I have one,” Todoroki spoke emotionlessly. Everyone turned to listen with rapt attention. Katsuki rolled his eyes. “I went to the armory alone one night. I was missing a piece for my ceremonial uniform, and I thought my eyes might be sharper than Izuku’s. There was no wind, but my candle went out on its own.”

The story was lackluster at best, but it received oohs and aahs from all around. Kirishima nodded thoughtfully and gave a polite golf clap.

“I’ve heard tales of a ghost horse in the stables,” Iida spoke next. “Some say they’ve heard hoofbeats behind them, but when they jump out of the way, nothing is there.”

Kirishima sucked in a breath. If he got too invested in this shit he would never sleep. Katsuki was about to call it when Tetsutetsu continued, “The stairwell up to Lady Yaoyorozu’s quarters,” he said solemnly. “The guards have told me they’ve seen hooded figures that disappear in thin air, and sometimes they hear crying, or even screams.”

“Okay, that’s enough, I think,” Jirou said, standing to stretch. Kirishima shuddered beside him. Great. “We want to get some rest, yeah?”

Todoroki nodded. “Of course, you’re right. We should rest up as long as we can. We’ll leave at dawn, or as close to it as we can tell,” he said, gesturing up to the woven branches.

While everyone settled in, Katsuki and Jirou quietly discussed their patrol schedule. Honestly, Katsuki wasn’t all that worried anymore. The more Jirou spoke of predators, the more certain he was. This was a protected space. Their offerings had granted them access to it. Nothing could touch them until dawn.

Still, Katsuki let her come up with a watch plan. Since he’d already patrolled around earlier, she would take the next one. After that, they would take turns every hour or so. Since they had no way to keep track of time, they would just have to guess.

They found a tree with two strong branches to use as a higher vantage point for their downtime. While everyone was falling asleep below, the two watched over them in silence. That was one thing he could always appreciate about Jirou. As much as she loved her music, she also knew how to find enjoyment in the quiet.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Not until they were sure that everyone had fallen asleep.

“You and your boy,” Jirou spoke first. “You’re probably leaving as soon as we get back, huh?”

Katsuki hummed. “Probably. Why, you’ll miss us?” he teased.

She looked down with a sad smile. “I guess, yeah. The other knights, and especially the guards, they fear you. They know you from exaggerated stories and the kings’ stern warnings. But I,” she paused to swallow a lump in her throat. “It’s just nice,” she said softly. “Being around others like me.”

Katsuki wasn’t quite sure what she was referring to, but one thing was clear. The knights weren’t meant to show moments of vulnerability to outsiders, and she’d chosen to trust him anyway. He reached over to give her shoulder a single supportive squeeze, and they fell into comfortable silence a moment longer.

“The staircase,” she said suddenly. Katsuki dropped his hand and turned to give her his full attention. “It isn’t haunted,” she admitted. “The hooded figure—it’s me. And the screaming and crying is Lady Yaoyorozu.”

It made sense. If Yaoyorozu was playing the part of Morgana, that meant… “Nightmares,” Katsuki guessed, voice low.

“They’re just dreadful,” Jirou confirmed. “I know I’m not supposed to go up there, but my room is closest to the staircase. I hear it every night.” As she said this, her voice broke. Katsuki recalled earlier when she’d said she was used to the lack of sleep. “I don’t know if she even remembers my visits. She never mentions them. I’ve held her for hours while she cries. I don’t know how else to help her.”

There was a possibility that this world didn’t follow the storyline exactly, but on the off-chance it did… there was nothing they could do to save her. “I can look into it,” Katsuki still offered. “I know lots of people, but I don’t know many who’d be willing to help a royal. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Thank you,” Jirou said, voice smaller than he’d ever heard it. “I know you already have a lot on your plate, so—thank you.” She stood upright and balanced perfectly on her branch, then cleared her throat. “It’s about time for the first patrol, I think. I’ll be back soon.”

With that, she hopped down and landed silently on the ground.

Katsuki watched her walk along the edge of the tree-line. It sounded a bit like she was playing the role of Gwen, but she didn’t seem to have any connection to the prince. Plus, she was a knight, not a servant. He found himself second-guessing whether they were right to be making these connections at all, but a familiar patch of red distracted him from his thoughts.

Kirishima was wandering around below, groggily peering around the shadows as if he was looking for something. With a dramatic roll of his eyes, Katsuki jumped out of his tree, cape billowing behind him, and landed on the ground right in front of Kirishima. “The fuck are you doing awake, shitty hair?” he whispered.

The red-head blinked in surprise, looked up into the tree, then back at Katsuki. “I was—well—I couldn’t sleep,” he whispered back.

“And it probably has nothing to do with the ghost stories earlier, hm?” Katsuki growled knowingly.

“No! Noo, not that,” Kirishima said in a hushed tone, gesturing wildly with his hands. “It was just, well, no matter how hard I pretend my rock is a pillow, I can’t actually convince myself it’s comfortable.”

“So you came looking for me,” Katsuki whispered, monotone.

“I couldn’t sleep!” Kirishima insisted. Katsuki gave him another moment. “I was lonely!” he finally admitted.

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “You fucking dumbass,” he sighed. “Go get your bedroll.” While Kirishima scrambled off into the darkness, he settled down in a comfortable spot at the base of his tree. When he made his reappearance, Katsuki patted his leg. “Come get your pillow,” he commanded.

Kirishima’s eyes sparkled. “Really?”

“Thick thighs save lives,” he deadpanned. Kirishima broke into snickers and started to lay out his bedroll beside him. “What? You said it.”

He had, weeks before. Katsuki had been expressing his dissatisfaction with the way his muscles were developing. Kirishima told him that there wasn’t any helping it because of the way he fought, but he’d also grinned and said, ‘It’s nothing to worry about, bro. Thick thighs save lives. Literally, in your case.’

It was such a stupid line, but it had completely obliterated the insecurity.

“It’s somehow funnier when you say it,” Kirishima snickered as he got himself comfortable. “Like, you’re not supposed to know memes, bro. You’re the old-man-friend.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki grumbled, giving him an affectionate flick to the ear.

By the time Jirou got back from her patrol, Kirishima was sound asleep, head planted comfortably on Katsuki’s leg and covered partially in the cape that was still attached to his shoulders.

The night went smoothly, of course. When it came Katsuki’s turn to take his patrol, he carefully maneuvered Kirishima to lie on the ground, but removed his cape to allow him to use the fluff as his pillow. He hadn’t expected to see much of anything at all, so it was a surprise to him when he found a small group of deer lying in the grass in the center of the clearing.

One stood up when he paused to stare at them. A small beam of moonlight snuck through the branches to light its face. Its eyes were just a little too far forward, and the horns atop its head seemed a bit too perfectly straight. As Katsuki approached, he quickly realized that it was much too tall to be an average deer.

He nodded politely as he passed. The moonlight shone in its eyes. It bowed its head, then curled up around one of its still sleeping brethren.

When he got back to the tree, he warned Jirou not to make eye contact with them.

The sun soon began to rise, and with it, did their fellow travelers. The creatures had left long before dawn, and the only evidence of their passing was the indent they’d left in the grass. Iida quietly stoked a fire under their pot of leftover broth while Sato cut up some bread and fruits to share as breakfast. The rest of the knights started to pack up camp.

Kirishima continued to sleep contentedly wrapped in Katsuki’s cape.

No one dared to break the peaceful silence of the morning until Sato noticed something strange sprouting from his shoulder. “Do mushrooms normally bloom this quickly?” He asked Katsuki, who was decidedly not an expert in fungi. “How is this even possible?”

Katsuki took a slow sip of his broth. “It’s not,” he said shortly.

Sato just stared at him. “What do you mean, it’s not?”

Katsuki ignored him. Instead, he looked around at every individual member of the group. Kendo had a rather impressive patch of orange growing on the back of her armor. Jirou had a couple of spindly mushrooms popping up on the backs of her knees. Tetsutetsu had a redcap, the only mushroom Katsuki could actually name, sprouting right out of the top of his head. Todoroki was examining a patch that had grown on the back of his hand.

The only ones who had been spared were himself, Kirishima, Iida, and Deku.

He looked back at Sato, a little dumbfounded. “Did you not leave an offering?”

Sato stared at him incredulously. “An offering?”

At this point, the others were beginning to tune into their conversation. Katsuki continued anyway. “To the Fae,” he explained.

Kendo clicked her tongue in irritation and tipped her head with a squint. “And why would we leave an offering to the Fae?”

Katsuki gestured to the clearing vaguely as he took another sip of his broth. Toward the woven branches above them, the dry ground, fresh grass, and, of course, the perfect ring of mushrooms that circled the clearing. “Thought it was obvious,” he mumbled into his cup. He walked away from the group to nudge Kirishima awake with his foot. “You’ve overstayed your welcome,” he called over his shoulder. “Might want to hurry up and get out of here.”

Kirishima sat up, rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then blinked in surprise at the scene before him.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Todoroki said patiently. When Katsuki turned around again, they’d each sprouted at least a dozen more mushrooms, and the field behind them was slowly accumulating a few patches of its own. “We brought you as our magical consult. You can’t expect us to know of these things.”

Tetsutetsu sneezed miserably somewhere to the left.

Katsuki scoffed. “It’s common fucking sense!” he said defensively. “It’s a damn fairy ring, what do you expect?”

“We should just go,” Jirou said, sinuses stuffed up from the spores. “Will it stop if we leave?”

“Depends on how vengeful the Fae are feeling this morning,” Katsuki muttered. “It probably helps that some of us gave offerings.”

Kirishima scrambled up to help scrape the orange patch off of Kendo’s back, then used his sword to chop the redcap from Tetsutetsu’s head. Iida started rushing to get the rest of the food put away. “Why am I unaffected?” he asked, a little panicked. “I gave no offering!”

“Um, me neither,” Deku lied nervously as he shoved his bedroll into its place on his horse’s side.

“Then you’re both clumsy pieces of shit,” Katsuki muttered. Kirishima gave him a reprimanding flick to his forehead as he rushed past to pluck some strangely colored mushrooms off of Jirou’s shoulder.

They had already been mostly finished packing up before the first mushroom ever sprouted, so it wasn’t long before they were hopping on their horses and booking it out of the clearing. Katsuki wasn’t in a rush. He walked through the clearing one last time while he snacked on the berries and bits of apple that Sato had been preparing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a hint of movement. He almost wouldn’t have even seen her. In the center of the new patch of mushrooms that began growing in the field, there was one that was much larger than the others, and it had a face. One that he recognized. He couldn’t recall her name; he only knew her as the mushroom girl from class 1-B. Here, though, she was just an innocent sprite protecting her home, and she looked terrified.

Subtly, Katsuki knelt down and placed his bowl of fruit on the ground in front of her. There was no such thing as too many offerings for the Fae.

In no time, Katsuki was back on Kirishima’s horse, and they were moving through the forest with renewed speed. It didn’t take long at all for the beat of the horses’ hooves to shake the mushrooms off of the sprites’ unfortunate victims. Once the spores were gone, so were the miserable sniffles and sneezes, and the party was at their full strength once more.

It was a good thing, too. Katsuki could feel it. They were going to reach their destination, and they were going to reach it soon.

The trees began to thin out again, but this wasn’t the true exit to the forest. Once they came to the end of the tree line, they found themselves in yet another clearing, but this one reached almost as far as the eye could see, in all directions. A hill loomed tall above them with a gigantic hole carved right in the center. It was a cave, no doubt, but it had none of the properties of one that was naturally formed.

This was the place he was guiding them to.

Once they approached the caves’ entrance, Katsuki hopped off the back of Kirishima’s horse. When the red-head moved to follow, he held up a hand. “Stay,” he commanded, far too quiet for the others to hear.

Kirishima pouted, but obeyed. As soon as Katsuki turned around, he was met with a tuft of green and blazing emerald eyes.

“You’re not going in there alone,” Deku said seriously.

Katsuki laughed in his face. He leaned down slightly to his eye level. “And what the fuck are you going to do about it?” he sneered.

The nerd glared at him silently. He couldn’t argue his point in front of the prince and his knights. They were at an impasse, which meant Katsuki won.

“Get back to your damn horse. I’ll be five minutes.”

As he passed, Iida gave him a half-bow with a serious look on his face. Jirou gave him a solemn nod. Tetsutetsu risked a heavy-handed pat on the back.

Not one of them offered to join him.

Katsuki dared one final glance back as he stood at the entrance of the cave. The knights had all gotten back on their horses after seeing him off, and were in the process of persuading Kirishima to move away from the opening. It seemed like they were headed off somewhere to the left. He shook his head to himself. It was a good thing he’d looked, or he would have probably come out and thought they’d taken off without him.

As soon as he stepped inside, the sounds from the outdoors were cut off. All he could hear was the air moving through the tunnels and the steady drip of water coming from somewhere in the cavern. The cave was massive, so huge that he couldn’t see the ceiling in the shadows, and the walls all seemed to blend into each other. There were plenty of tunnels that seemed to be off-shoots from the main cavern, so Katsuki figured he would wander around the entrances to see which one pulled at his instincts more.

It took him a while to work around the edges. He got all the way to the wall furthest from the main entrance, but there was still no pull in his gut to tell him where he should go. With a sigh, he went to move on to the next tunnel, but he tripped on something that he hadn’t noticed in the darkness.

A bundle of cobwebs laid on the stone ground. It seemed to be wrapped around something, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was. When he took another look around the cave, he realized that there were a lot of cobwebs, actually.

And that’s when he saw it.

Movement, in the shadows at the top of the cave. He wasn’t forced to squint up at the ceiling in an attempt to discern what he was seeing for too long, because before he knew it, the creature was dropping down to the ground in front of him.

It was a spider. To say it was the biggest spider he’d ever seen would have been an understatement. This was a jumping spider, hairy legs, fancy patterns, and all, that was the size of a building. And it was coming straight for him.

Katsuki’s heart leapt into his throat, and he turned and ran into the tunnel closest to him. “Shit,” he hissed. The spider followed him into the tunnel with ease. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He ran faster, but there’s not much faster a guy can go when the thing chasing him had the stride of a city block. Eventually, the tunnel opened up into another cavern. This one was absolutely covered with webs, and one corner was filled with bundles that Katsuki could only assume were the bodies of all the small creatures that this beast had managed to capture.

The walls were solid all around. Not a single offshoot existed for him to use as an escape. His only exit was occupied by the thing that was no doubt hoping to eat him as soon as he got close enough. This room was so small that Katsuki would be backed into a corner as soon as the thing exited the tunnel.

There were no other options. He had no choice but to use his quirk.

Katsuki backed up as far away from the tunnel as possible to give himself the upper hand when it came to timing. Even if the best he could do was distract the thing, that was all he would need to find a way to get to the exit.

The spider came out of the tunnel with a deafening hiss. Its fangs were bared, and two front legs raised high in a display of aggression. Katsuki held up his hands and waited one moment for it to step a little closer, then two.

When it was practically in his face, he closed his eyes and braced for the blast. “Die!” he shrieked, voice cracking in fear.

Nothing happened.

Katsuki looked at his hands in shock. His heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t have his quirk at all. His hands didn’t even warm up. He was completely defenseless. He could actually die here.

Before he could scream, or cry, or beg for mercy, or whatever other pathetic ideas his panicked mind could conjure, his thoughts were interrupted.

“Die?”

Katsuki looked up in bewilderment. The spider placed its two front legs on the ground and tipped its head like a dog. It stared at him for a long time.

“Mistook you for prey,” the voice came again. There was no doubt this time. It had come from the spider.

It lifted its legs again, but this time it wasn’t in threat. The clawed paw-like feet grabbed onto the walls, and it scurried near-silently into a tunnel in the ceiling that Katsuki hadn’t even noticed before.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Once the barely audible clicks of claws against stone had receded, the only sound that came to his ears was his still pounding heart and his own heavy breathing. He needed a second to process what had just happened. Kirishima was right, of course, but not in the way he had thought. Where Kirishima’s quirk was just wrong somehow, Katsuki’s had disappeared entirely. If he had learned that in any other situation, he might actually be dead.  Luckily, all he’d needed to do was threaten the spider, apparently, and the crisis was averted entirely.

He wasn’t mentally prepared to think about the rest of the events he’d just been witness to.

Katsuki finally took one hesitant step forward. All the panic and adrenaline drained out of him, leaving him an empty shell of a person. He wandered over to the mass of webs. The bundles were definitely bodies, and the thought alone made him nauseous. Still, he knelt down and tore through the layer of web underneath to find gold and jewels gleaming up at him.

That entire web was covering a massive pile of riches, and Katsuki got the distinct feeling that all of it belonged to him.

He pushed aside more of the web to uncover a set of knives attached to two belts. Those seemed important. He placed them on the ground next to his feet and continued his search. After nudging one of the bodies out of the way, almost throwing up, and tearing away one last bit of web, he finally saw it.

The pommel and guard were made from polished gold, and the hilt was wrapped perfectly in leather. It was sheathed and attached to a belt that looked worn from overuse. Without hesitation, Katsuki stood and practically tore his belt off, then quickly replaced it with the one attached to his sword. He unsheathed it as if he’d done so a thousand times before and examined the blade. It was curved like a pirates’ sword. No, it was a pirates’ sword. It was a cutlass, and possibly the most beautiful one he’d ever seen.

Okay, he’d never actually seen one in person before, but still.

He sheathed the sword and leaned down to grab the knives, but before he could turn to leave, one more thing caught his eye. A small stack of pouches. He picked one up and sure enough, it was filled with coins. He stashed it in his pocket, and then after a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed two more. They probably wouldn’t be back here for a while.

Katsuki made his way back through the tunnels in silence. His breathing had evened out, and his heart was working no harder than usual. It was almost like nothing had happened at all. The sound of his boots against the stone echoed around the walls. Once he got back to the main cavern, he could hear that dripping water again. Looking up, he could see that there were no longer any shadows covering the ceiling. He’d been staring at the spider that whole time.

He shuddered once, and finally exited the cave. The sounds of birds and bugs were welcome to his ears, and the light breeze was a relief despite the chill. He looked to the left to see Tetsutetsu had his hands on the shoulders of a very agitated Kirishima, and he seemed to be trying to talk to him. Whatever he was saying was lost, because as soon as Kirishima made eye contact with Katsuki he was booking it across the field.

Kirishima threw his arms around him in a tight hug. “Bro, are you okay? I heard you scream!”

How embarrassing. He glanced at the knights, and recalled the crack in his voice when he’d yelled.

“What happened?” Kirishima asked, pulling back to examine him for injuries.

Katsuki blinked at him. “Spider,” he said.

Kirishima tipped his head and gave him a bewildered look. “A spider?”

He shoved the knives at him to take and pushed past him toward the others. “Big spider.”

As Katsuki approached, Iida got off of his horse and stood in front of him. “Your mighty hiss surely rivaled the beasts’ own,” he said solemnly. It sounded like it was meant to be a compliment.

“… Yeah,” Katsuki muttered, untying the rope that tethered his horse to Iida’s. He was pretty sure he knew how to ride it now.

“Please tell me we didn’t come all this way just for you to retrieve your sword,” Kendo said, sounding exasperated.

All the knights were staring at him from atop their horses, making him feel a little bit small. “Kneel,” he told his horse, and it did. He got on and it stood to full height, making him just as tall as they were. “What, you wanted me to meet the Magician defenseless?” he scoffed.

Todoroki stared at him, unblinking. Iida rubbed the stress out of his forehead. Jirou struggled to hold back laughter.

“It’s also a shortcut, kind of,” he said vaguely. Kirishima finally came back. The belts attached to the knives were actually a harness, and they crossed behind his back so that the handles were accessible over his shoulders. The katana that had been there before was nowhere to be seen. “Going around the forest would have taken twice as long,” Katsuki continued. “This was just a little detour.”

The knights continued to stare at him, speechless. Katsuki cleared his throat. “This way,” he told his horse, tugging the reins gently in the direction he felt most confident in. It obeyed him without complaint.

They were basically walking along the tree line that they had come from, so not exactly backwards, but… the detour might have been a bit larger than Katsuki had made it out to be.

And then, when they reached a certain point, Katsuki’s gut pulled him back into the trees. So, yeah. Backwards it was. The knights were eerily silent behind him.

Eventually, Kirishima caught up and they rode side by side for a while. Katsuki didn’t have anything in particular that he wanted to say, but he hated the silence that extended between them. He resented it. It wasn’t Kirishima’s fault, of course, so he wasn’t mad at him. He was pissed at the villain who put them there. None of this would be quite so bad if he could just talk to the one guy who he was sharing the experience with.

So, when they finally came close to the true exit of the forest, Katsuki was feeling understandably antsy. And irritated. And smothered. They were on a hill, and the path continued down a safe route that went deeper into the forest, but surely guided them to an exit. There was a lookout point at the top of the hill with a crudely built fence in front of it, and as Katsuki looked down this hill, he could only think one thing.

That would be really fun to slide down.

Obviously, it would be kind of terrible, actually. He had no protective clothing, so when he inevitably tumbled all the way to the bottom of the hill like an idiot, he would be left scratched up and bruised all over for his trouble. Still, some childish part of his brain saw the smooth contours of the grass-covered land, and, really, it looked like mother nature’s playground.

It was basically a slide. A slide that he couldn’t actually slide on. A slide that only looked that way because distance and perspective gave him that illusion. A slide that he would have to run down in order to stay upright. A slide that would not even offer any form of shortcut, because his companions were all on horseback and he was on his two feet. His two feet which would surely be exhausted by the time he reached the path at the bottom of the hill.

“Kacchan?” a hesitant voice came from his right. “Are you coming?”

Katsuki finally looked up at the nerd. All the knights had paused to wait some distance away while he sat there and stared at the landscape for who knew how long. “No,” he decided impulsively. “Kneel,” he told his horse, and as it did he looked up at Deku. “Tether my horse to yours. I’m taking a shortcut.”

Kirishima excitedly hopped off of his own horse and practically skipped over to Iida to hand him the tether, ordering him to do the same without so many words. Good. They were on the same page. “That’s hardly a shortcut, Kacchan,” Deku complained, but he did as he was asked anyway. “We’ll reach the bottom before you.”

“Doubt it,” Katsuki scoffed. “I’ll see you at the bottom, fuckin’ loser,” he teased with a grin, and Deku gaped at him. Kirishima smacked the back of his head as he approached, and they both turned and hopped the fence together.

Katsuki was right about everything, of course. It was terrible. He ate shit almost instantaneously, probably still within Deku’s line of sight, but he didn’t care. Kirishima’s shrieking laughter made it all worth it. His voice made it worth it.

Neither of them reached the bottom unscathed. Kirishima seemed quite a bit more nimble than usual, but even he ended up tumbling a few times. Katsuki, on the other hand, spent most of the trip rolling down the hill like a goddamn pill bug, giggling and shrieking like a toddler.

At the bottom, rather than trying to get up and end the run with dignity, Katsuki simply let himself roll until he came to a stop flat on his back, breathing heavily with a grin plastered across his face.

Kirishima plopped down on the ground right beside him. “Whew!” he exclaimed, voice still tinged with laughter. “That was further than I thought.” Katsuki hummed in agreement. The sky was a beautiful blue, and filled with small, puffy clouds. How long had it been since they’d had an unobstructed view like this? He guessed they could have taken a moment to look at it when they visited the spiders’ cave, but he was a little distracted at the time. “For a second, I didn’t think you were gonna do it,” Kirishima snickered.

“What, think I’m a bitch?” Katsuki panted, smile still wide. “Those fuckers are too stuck up. Can’t stand it.”

“Mm,” Kirishima surprisingly agreed. “They think just because I don’t talk to them, I must not be as smart, or something,” he said a little petulantly. “Like, when you went into the cave, they were talking to me like a child missing a parent, or something.”

Katsuki’s smile quickly morphed into a frown. He picked a cloud to glare at and pretended it was any one of those stupid knights. “I’ll kill them,” Katsuki promised.

“They’re trying to be nice,” Kirishima reluctantly defended them. “I think they were really scared of that place. They didn’t want me going anywhere near it. They almost couldn’t believe you went inside.”

Understandable. “Eh,” Katsuki replied ambiguously. “Did you go inside? Where’d you put your sword?”

“Uh, I just kinda,” Kirishima mimed an overhead toss with his hands. “I dunno, my gut said that’s all I needed to do.”

So, the spider was the one who put everything in the storage cave for them. “Makes sense,” Katsuki said vaguely.

Kirishima was silent for a moment. “Bro, now I really want to go inside.”

Katsuki scoffed. “You don’t even like spiders.”

“Every word that comes out of your mouth makes me even more insanely curious.”

Katsuki laughed out loud at that, then finally pushed himself up to stand. “You’re an actual child,” he informed him.

Kirishima continued to lay on the ground below him for a moment, arms crossed behind his head and a grin wide on his face. “Says the one who initiated the tumble down a mountain,” he teased. “You know, just because something looks like a slide, doesn’t mean it’s meant for sliding.”

The confirmation that they’d both had the same thoughts when looking down that hill did things to Katsuki’s heart. Weird, warm, pleasant things that he didn’t want to think about. “Yeah, and how many times have you had to learn that lesson?” he shot back, holding out a hand to help him up.

Kirishima took the hand and pulled himself up easily. “Seven and counting,” he replied cheekily.

They started on the walk toward the path in amicable silence. This was what Katsuki craved. Just the two of them, together, without the pressure of putting on an act for those around them.

“You got your cape dirty,” Kirishima pointed out after a moment. Katsuki grunted in reply. He didn’t even need to look. He was sure the thing had gone through much worse, anyways. “So,” Kirishima started awkwardly. “Uh, what’s with you talking to the horse?”

Katsuki snorted in surprise. For some reason, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he would need to explain. He’d just assumed that Kirishima already knew, but of course he didn’t. He couldn’t possibly have predicted that turn of events. “Remember when you said not to use my quirk?”

Kirishima gave him a supremely disappointed look. He knew what was coming. “Yes,” he hissed through his teeth.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, fuck off, what the fuck was I supposed to do? I had no way to defend myself!”

 “You promised me, Katsuki!” Kirishima shouted, then he paused. “Uh, sorry, I don’t…”

Hearing his given name thrown out there so casually was a little shocking. It startled both of them enough to cut through the tension in a sort of disjointed and unorganized way. “It’s—it’s fucking fine,” Katsuki stuttered, unsure what to do with all the anticipation he’d built up for the argument that they were no longer having. “I keep calling you Ei, for some reason, so it’s whatever.”

Kirishima cleared his throat and looked down at their feet. His cheeks were tinged a little pink. “Uh, yeah, I noticed that. Um—”

“Can you just let me fucking finish?” Katsuki interrupted, his voice dripping with exasperation.

“Right, yeah,” Kirishima shook his head as if to clear it.

Katsuki took a breath and gathered his thoughts again. “I tried to use it and it didn’t fucking work. I don’t have my quirk.”

“Oh,” Kirishima breathed. “So, it’s just me? Out of the two of us, I’m the only one with my quirk, and I can’t even—ugh,” he pinched the bridge of his nose.

The situation clearly frustrated him. Katsuki could understand why, too. The scar on his eye came from a time in his life that was very much like this, where he had no control of his quirk. It had scared him for a long time, and he worked hard to gain the confidence to use it the way he did as a hero.

All of that confidence was shattered when he realized he’d lost control again.

“We don’t need quirks here,” Katsuki said decisively. If Kirishima’s confidence was shaken, he would just be confident for the both of them. “We have other weapons to defend ourselves with. When we get back to the castle, we can train with them together. We’re strong without our quirks, okay?”

Katsuki stared at him intensely. Kirishima was still looking down at the ground for a moment, but he eventually looked back up. His eyes were still unsure, but he tried for a wobbly smile. “Right,” he agreed reluctantly.

“Anyways, I wasn’t done,” Katsuki continued casually. As much as he wanted to beat the confidence into the guy, he knew that would only make him feel smaller. They could save the rest of that conversation for later. “When I was about to be eaten alive—”

“Wait, what—?”

“—I was freaking out and screaming like a bitch, and as it turns out the thing could understand what I was saying. And it apologized. Then fucking left.” Katsuki finished. He still couldn’t really believe that any of that had actually happened to him.

Kirishima was quiet for a moment. “It, as in—?”

“The spider, yeah.”

“So,” Kirishima took a moment to think. “So, you have Koda’s quirk now? That doesn’t really make sense.”

Katsuki thought back to Iida’s words, and the looks on the faces of those around him every time he gave his horse orders. “I think it’s different,” he decided. “For some reason you can hear what I’m saying, but the others hear something else. I think I’m—I think they hear me making fucking animal noises or some shit.”

The path was just ahead of them now, and Katsuki could see the figures of their traveling companions just beyond the tree line. His disappointment was immeasurable. “A couple of people called you Beastmaster before, didn’t they?” Kirishima said suddenly, as if he was having an epiphany. “This is what they meant! That’s so cool, bro.”

Katsuki sneered. “It’s fucking weird,” he muttered under his breath. “I don’t like it.”

Kirishima just laughed at him. “Well, I think it’s cool.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Katsuki said suddenly, desperate to get this thought out there before the others got too close. The knights were exiting the forest now, and they had already spotted the two where they were standing in wait. “I don’t like it when I can’t fucking talk to you. We have to get away from them.”

A supportive hand landed on his shoulder, and Katsuki looked back. Kirishima gave him a soft, if not a little sheepish, smile. “We’ll go somewhere else after this,” he promised. “Maybe we can find a different kingdom to explore where magic isn’t outlawed, or we can just travel aimlessly until we find someplace comfortable to wait the quirk out. We don’t have to stick around here.”

That didn’t sound so bad at all, actually. Traveling the foreign land with Kirishima as his companion would almost be like a vacation. Almost like the villain who put them here was gifting them with a break from their hectic lives, rather than holding them in an inconvenient trap. Katsuki couldn’t help the small smile that graced his lips, and he went to reply, when—

“I can’t believe you actually made it here before us,” Tetsutetsu whined childishly.

Katsuki looked up at him with a glare. Now that they were closer, he could see that the knights looked a little more ragged than they had been before. Their armor was scuffed, capes torn to shreds, and they all seemed utterly exhausted. Even Todoroki looked like shit.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asked incredulously.

“Wolves,” Jirou answered tiredly. “As soon as you were gone, they attacked us.”

Iida nodded solemnly. “They must have been stalking us, waiting for an opening,” he said gravely.

Katsuki stared at each of them individually. “Huh,” he said simply. There were no signs of predators anywhere along the path. A pack of wolves wouldn’t just spawn out of thin air, though, unless—

Suddenly, Katsuki recalled an important piece of information. The last memory he had before they woke up there. He was in Kirishima’s room, watching him play a game just before they were suddenly called away for something. One thing that irritated him about it was how the wolves seemed to spawn suddenly at the most inconvenient times. Even in the middle of dialogue, they would just pop up and start attacking the player and other characters.

There was no way. There was absolutely no way that they were stuck in medieval times just because Kirishima had insisted on playing Skyrim the same night that they were hit with an illusion quirk.

Katsuki ground his teeth in frustration. Well, at least he wasn’t playing something like Dead Space, or Amnesia. It was endlessly aggravating that he couldn’t even share this revelation with the guy. He just had to live with the knowledge that their world was seemingly nothing but a patchwork of whatever was in their brains when they were hit with the shitty quirk.

It didn’t escape his notice that all of the major details seemed to be based on their shared knowledge of these pieces of media.

He didn’t bother to offer any more comment or form of apology for abandoning them at such an inconvenient time. Instead, he wordlessly untethered his horse and got on, and they were on their way in tense silence once more. It was clear that most of the knights were irritated with him, which made sense, really, considering his… not-quirk… his special skill would have taken care of the problem without any effort at all. If he was there, there wouldn’t have been any need to fight at all.

Maybe that’s why the wolves waited until he was gone to attack them.

That didn’t make much sense, but he had a feeling that the reason they were attacked had something to do with their absence. It didn’t matter much, though. There wasn’t anything they could do about it now, and the knights were fine, anyways. It wasn’t like they couldn’t handle themselves in a fight. If they expected to rely on Katsuki to avoid battles that they were perfectly capable of fighting, that was entirely on them.

Katsuki saw the tower long before they reached it. It rippled in his vision unnaturally, and the sight was strangely familiar. It was like deja-vu. He’d been to this place many, many times, and not a single one of them was pleasant.

The reason why the image of the tower glitched in his vision as though it were a hologram, blinking in and out of existence in a way that made him dizzy and a bit sick to watch, was because there was a magic barrier around it to keep it invisible to the naked eye. Of course, Katsuki didn’t know how he knew this, just as he didn’t know how he knew so much about the Cavern of Souls.

He was also certain that the people he was traveling with couldn’t see it yet. The only reason it was visible to him was because he knew it was there. As soon as the location was revealed to him for the first time, the illusion must have been shattered, leaving this broken, ineffective magic in its place. Even Kirishima didn’t seem to be seeing what he was, which was just a little disconcerting. If he’d never taken him here, there must have been a very good reason for that.

The moment that they stepped past the barrier, the tower finally blinked into existence and stayed there. His traveling companions all exclaimed in shock and surprise, and they discussed the revelation amongst themselves, but Katsuki ignored them. He was sure that it was weird for them to discover that such powerful magic was hiding right under their noses when they thought they’d worked so hard to keep things like this out of their kingdom.

Kirishima had been just as surprised as all of them, and he gave Katsuki a look with raised eyebrows, but Katsuki just shrugged. He didn’t know how to communicate that he’d been seeing it for hours by that point.

They arrived at the doors shortly after that, and tethered their horses in the stable that was just outside. A flash of a memory played in Katsuki’s head as he did this, startling him a bit. It was of himself as a child, untying a tether with hurried hands. He was begging the horse to stay calm, to relax, to please, please, let him on and take him somewhere safe. It was raining, he was cold, and he was terrified and alone in the world.

This was not his memory. It was the character that he was playing. Not once had he gotten such a detailed hint about his past in this place so far, and the suddenness of such a comprehensive flashback gave him a very bad feeling about the level of danger that they were walking into.

“Kacchan,” Deku’s voice came softly from beside him. Katsuki looked up, and found that all the knights had already left the stables. It was just himself, Deku, and Kirishima, and Katsuki had been frozen, staring at his half-tied knot for an extended period of time. “We can take a break first,” he offered hesitantly. “We don’t have to go right inside. We can make camp and go in when you’re ready.”

Katsuki swallowed hard, then looked back down to finish tying the tether and shook his head. “He knows we’re here,” he said a little breathlessly. The Magician was surely alerted the moment they passed his barrier. He cleared his throat a little in an attempt to strengthen his voice. “I’m fucking fine,” he insisted, despite the memory replaying over and over in his mind. “How are you gonna convince your prince you don’t know me now, Deku?”

Deku sighed. “He already knows,” he said regrettably. “It’s kind of obvious.”

“No shit,” Katsuki snorted. He finally turned around fully to exit the stables with them. Kirishima looked pretty damn concerned, so he brushed a hand on his shoulder as he passed in an effort to reassure him. “Kacchan, Kacchan, Kacchan,” he mocked in a pitched-up voice. “You don’t know how to shut the fuck up.”

Deku scoffed. “I don’t—I’m sorry, Kacchan, I can’t call you Beastmaster. It’s too—”

“Finish that fucking sentence.”

The nerd didn’t make a single peep as they finally walked outside.

The atmosphere of the group was grave and serious. They were all aware of how deeply this place affected Katsuki, apparently, and only Todoroki still had the courage to meet his eyes. “Well?” Katsuki sneered. “What the fuck are we standing around for, hah? The Magician’s waiting for us.”

Jirou shuddered. Sato swallowed hard. Todoroki nodded once, and turned toward the door. “Alright, then,” he said authoritatively. “Let’s head inside.”

The entry hall was long and shrouded in shadow. The walls were lined with urns and vases of various sizes and shapes, and every single one of them was filled to the brim with pebbles, or something. It was too dark to make out.

If they needed to fight, there wouldn’t be much space to do so. The hallways were a mess. More urns, boxes, and other different types of containers littered the floor and stacked up along the walls. Even on the narrow staircases, there were boxes scattered around, as if they’d been tossed carelessly down to be moved later. It wasn’t until they reached the top floor that it finally cleared up a bit, and the space was lit up well with lanterns and open windows.

This floor, unlike the rest of the tower, looked like the home of royalty. It was beautifully decorated, and well taken care of. The windows were gigantic, and the drawn curtains were floor-to-ceiling red velvet, almost like what one might find at a theater. The main room was split into a few sections; one corner looked to be a library of sorts, another seemed to be decorated like a bedroom, and another looked like a writing desk.

The corner closest to the stairs was the only space left unkempt. The curtains on this wall were closed, and none of the candlesticks were lit. There wasn’t much to speak for except for a single box-like shape that was hidden under an old, worn sheet.

Something about that corner was… deeply unsettling.

The final detail that he noticed was the most telling one. It told him everything he needed to know. All of the vases on this floor were clear glass, and in the light, he could see that they weren’t filled with pebbles, after all. They contained hundreds, if not thousands of marbles. Blue marbles.

“After all these years,” a familiar, deep voice spoke, sending shivers down Katsuki’s spine. He looked up at the center of the room toward where it had come from. A cloaked figure stood facing away from them at a desk that was covered in beakers, tubes, and glowing runes. An alchemist's table. Slowly, the figure turned around to face them, revealing his signature white and black mask, shrouded in shadow from his dark hood. He pulled the hood from his head a moment later, and replaced it with a top hat that had been sitting on the table beside him, which was very similar to the one he wore in reality.

“After everything we’ve been through, you just waltz through my doors like it’s nothing?” Sako Atsuhiro, also known by his villain name, Mr. Compress, said gravely. Katsuki’s heart dropped into his stomach. “After all the effort I spent to find you, over and over again, you’re telling me all that I had to do was simply sit here and wait?”

The silence extended long between them. This was why Todoroki implied before that Katsuki would not have agreed to come if he had all the details. This was a man who had haunted his nightmares every night since the training camp. He was waiting patiently for Katsuki to reply, as if they were just old friends having a chat.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” Katsuki muttered.

The Magician sighed almost fondly. 

“I suppose we have a lot to talk about, then.”

Chapter Text

“Why don’t we take this somewhere a bit more comfortable?” The Magician suggested amicably. 

Katsuki was frozen in his spot. He’d been expecting a fight, but it seemed that Compress really did want to talk. About what, Katsuki couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“This group is,” Compress trailed off uncertainly as he looked over them. “I simply don’t have the space to host all of you.”

The last time he’d seen this mask in person had been the worst moment of his life. He’d felt so secure in the fact that he would never see him again. He should have known that his nightmares would find a way to haunt this reality, too.

“Your companion is always welcome, of course,” Compress continued. He looked over the group once more with a dramatic swivel of his head, tapping his chin in thought. “Well, I suppose if the prince travelled all this way, it must be for good reason. You can stay.” He straightened and pulled a handful of marbles from his pocket. He held them between each of his fingers. 

“The rest of you,” he spoke in a low voice. “Get out of my tower.”

He didn’t have to tell them twice. 

Katsuki’s feet wouldn’t move. He never imagined he would be this weak if he were met with this guy again. In his fantasies, he would always fight back harder than he had the first time, until each of the villains who hurt him were begging for mercy. This situation was only working to prove how powerless he really was. 

Compress was across the room beside one of the windows now. He’d pulled out a small table, and he was setting it with teacups. The bastard really expected Katsuki to sit down and have tea with him.

“Bakugou,” Todoroki’s voice broke him from his trance. He looked up to find the prince standing to the left, turned slightly toward him with a carefully blank expression. Every muscle on his face was relaxed, but his eyes were blazing. Katsuki knew him well enough, quirk-enforced roleplay or not, to see exactly what they were communicating. They said, Pull it together. I need you.

Katsuki glanced back at the sheet-covered box one last time. 

Distantly, Compress laughed as though he was witnessing something that he found to be quite adorable. “You can sit at the table,” he assured him. “You’re big now.” 

Katsuki shuddered in disgust, although he couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was about the words that disturbed him so deeply. Kirishima appeared on his right, startling him, and reached under the cape to rub supportive circles on his bare back.

He could do this. He had this. 

The three of them crossed the room together. 

Compress went in a circle around the table, pulling out the chairs for each of them politely. Once they’d all taken their seats, he sat down himself with a flourish, cloak whipping behind him dramatically. “Ah, how long has it been?” he asked nostalgically. He lifted the teapot from the center of the table to pour into their cups. Katsuki didn’t even question how he’d managed to heat the water so quickly. The answer was obvious. He slouched in his chair, and didn’t dare touch the tea in front of him. “Last time was,” Compress mumbled thoughtfully. “Ah, yes, the circus, wasn’t it?” 

Flashes of memory found their way to the front of his mind once more. Striped tents, people in garish costumes, a tight rope with no safety net, and spinning torches. It was strange, he thought, considering that they were meant to be in medieval times. He was pretty sure they didn’t have anything like that back then, but it was just an illusion quirk. Anything was possible.

Compress laughed with a hand in front of his mask, as if covering his already covered mouth. “I still don’t understand how you managed to get those lions to turn against their owners. You were so cute.” 

Katsuki was hiding in the corner of an animal pen, hands still bound behind his back from before he’d made his escape. A fully grown, but clearly malnourished lion stood in front of him, snarling menacingly at a man on the other side of the bars. 

“You need to get out of there, kid!” he said a little desperately. “Your father is here looking for you. You’re safe now, so please come out.” 

Katsuki mimicked the sound of the beast in front of him. The man searching for him was surely not his father. The stranger in front of him was afraid when the lion made this sound, so maybe if Katsuki could do the same, he would leave him alone.

Except, he didn’t flinch, his breath didn’t catch, and worst of all, he didn’t take a single step back. 

“Please, you could get seriously hurt! They seem domesticated in the shows, yes, but that’s a wild animal!” 

Katsuki ground his teeth in frustration. 

“Die,” he spoke, and the cat lunged without hesitation. 

That was one problem taken care of. 

“Oh, or the time with the snakes!” Compress laughed. “I can’t remember which came first.”

This time, the words took him back to the very same dark forest that they had just been travelling through. He was running for his life from something truly horrifying, though he couldn’t recall exactly what it was. In his desperation, he hid in a bush, but he knew he couldn’t stay long.

There was a colorful python curled up right beside him. 

He felt no fear. He crouched low, and whispered to it. “I heard that the man in the mask has the sweetest blood in all the land,” he spoke. “Tell your friends.” 

“You were such a clever child,” Compress sighed warmly. 

Katsuki swallowed dry. “And you were a shit kidnapper.” 

Kirishima’s eyes widened slightly. Todoroki didn’t seem surprised by his words in the slightest. Compress laughed again. “I suppose I was. It’s too late for any of that now. You’re too big and strong.” 

Again, the words brought on a shudder of disgust. “We’re not here to catch up, Sako Atsuhiro,” Katsuki snarled with malice. At the mention of his full name, the Magician’s shoulders fell, and he became serious. 

“Right,” he said lowly. “I suppose you wouldn’t. And it probably has something to do with the reason why you’ve led royalty into my home, and given him my true name?” 

Compress spoke the word with disdain, but Todoroki took his opportunity to jump into the discussion. “We’re looking for something,” he started eagerly. “It’s a part of a prophecy. Your reputation as a collector reached my ears, and I could think of no better place to look. If you don’t have it, no one does.” 

The Magician leaned one elbow against the table, lifted his mask just enough to uncover his mouth, then picked up his teacup. The liquid was still warm enough to be steaming. “And which prophecy would this be?” he said, a touch amused. “There are many, many prophecies in this tower, your majesty.”

“It mentions ‘The Destroyer of Worlds,’” Todoroki explained, and the smile instantly dropped off the Magician’s face. Todoroki didn’t seem to notice the change in his demeanor. Compress took a long sip of his tea. “We already have one half at the castle. It doesn’t give us enough information.”

“What makes you so sure that the second half will give you the information you need?” Compress asked lowly. 

Kirishima hesitantly reached for his own tea, and Katsuki sat up to slap his hands away. Kirishima slumped back with a pout. “You’ve read the whole thing,” he guessed. 

“I have,” Compress confirmed. He set his cup down and replaced his mask. 

They waited for him to continue, but he didn’t say another word. “So,” Todoroki said hesitantly. “Do you have it? The second half?” 

“I do,” the Magician said simply.

They sat in silence. The Magician swirled the liquid around his cup absently while the three of them stared at him.

Katsuki groaned in irritation. “What do you want for it?”

Todoroki’s head whipped up to him in alarm. Compress set his cup back down. “Aw, you know me so well!” he cooed. He clasped his hands on the table in front of him. “There’s just one thing I want from you.”

Kirishima kicked him lightly under the table. Todoroki continued to stare at him hard, no doubt attempting to communicate something with his eyes once more. Katsuki ignored both of them. “Go on,” he growled. 

“A favor,” Compress said, sickly sweet. “Anything I want, at any time I want.”

That didn’t sound like a fair deal at all, but Katsuki couldn’t really tell which one of them was getting the short end of the stick. He had the distinct feeling it might be himself, but the pull from his instincts was stronger than ever.

“Done.” 

Compress excused himself politely to go get the promised item, and the three of them remained seated at the table in utter silence. Katsuki felt a hard, bitter lump form somewhere in his chest. That was too easy.

When Compress came back, they all stood. He placed a marble in Katsuki’s hand, which Todoroki took before he could even process what happened. They’d travelled all this way, only for Katsuki to negotiate and pay the price for a quest item that ultimately would never benefit him. Sometime in the future, he would have to be the one to repay this debt rather than Todoroki or his father. It was certain that no amount of the kings’ riches was worth this much.

The lump grew harder as they exited the tower together.

To be fair, Katsuki probably would never actually be forced to deal with this problem. He got the feeling that this was a check that the Magician would take a while to cash in on, and they could break free from this quirk at any given moment. Still, he couldn’t help his bitter mood. Everything felt just a little more pointless, just a little more hopeless, than it had moments before. 

They got on their horses to start on their journey back, and the knights all collectively decided that they would prefer to spend the extra time going around the forest rather than travelling through it again. Katsuki didn’t give a shit. He let them walk ahead of him, and he glowered behind their backs, secretly just a little bit glad that he wouldn’t have to spend the extra energy to guide them when he was in such a bad mood.

Kirishima hung in the back with him, of course, and they rode side by side through the open fields. It was clear that the redhead noticed his mood, but there wasn’t much he could do to distract him like usual. Without the option of conversation, Katsuki was left with only his thoughts to entertain himself, and his thoughts were turning rather dark. 

Maybe they would never escape this place. Maybe the quirk was permanent, and they would be stuck here until they were dead. Or maybe they were already dead, and this was actually just their reincarnation. Katsuki could think of no fate worse than being stuck in this world for the rest of his life, where Deku had unlimited magical powers while he was quirkless.

It was probably just karma, or something. 

Suddenly, something hit his shoulder, and he jolted in surprise. He turned to look, and found Kirishima giving him a sheepish grin, holding an apple in his hand. Sure enough, when Katsuki looked down at the ground behind them, there was another apple rolling away.

“What the fuck, shitty hair?” Katsuki whispered, exasperated. 

Although Kirishima had gone to such lengths to get his attention, he still didn’t speak a word. Instead, he pointed excitedly toward the sheer cliff face on their left. There was a waterfall coming into view, and the mist was creating a rainbow effect in the light. It was like an illustration out of a god damned children’s book. 

The scene didn’t improve his mood whatsoever, obviously. It was pretty, or whatever, but it didn’t change anything. They were still in this shitty situation, and Katsuki still felt like a used piece of garbage. A magical consult, Todoroki had called him before. Yeah, right. As if any of these assholes even listened to a single word he said. 

Katsuki glanced back at Kirishima’s hopeful face. He looked a little unsure, but he was still grinning and gesturing at the view, almost desperately, as if he couldn’t think of any better way to help. Something small snapped in Katsuki’s chest, and he felt the tension exit his shoulders with his sigh of breath. 

As long as Kirishima was still with him, none of the bullshit really mattered. He didn’t need to worry about what the extras were or weren’t doing. He didn’t need to worry about debts, or who would have to pay them. It was, quite literally, them against the world. It was okay that everything they’d gone through felt like a pointless waste of time, because it was. None of this was real. The only time that wasn’t wasted was the time they spent together, as the only two real things in the entire world. 

Kirishima mistakenly took his relaxation as a sign that his distraction was successful. He proceeded to point out any pretty things he could see. Anything from clouds in the sky to flowers on the side of their path, they were noticed and pointed out with equal enthusiasm. Katsuki hardly glanced at any of them. Instead, he was focused entirely on the smiling little red-haired shithead who didn’t even seem to notice eyes on him. He was scanning the landscape in search of something, anything interesting enough to keep Katsuki’s thoughts out of the deep, dark hole that they’d fallen into. 

He didn’t need to look so hard. This view was enough. Katsuki nearly laughed to himself at the thought, but he caught himself. 

Then he really caught himself. 

Kirishima continued to point out random bullshit, and Katsuki followed his direction, pointedly avoiding staring at him as he had been before. 

Not long after they’d exited the Magician’s barrier, Todoroki slowed down substantially enough that they soon caught up to him. The knights were still far ahead, but now the three of them were riding together in silence.

None of them spoke for a long time. Katsuki almost thought the prince might just be tired of Deku, which was completely understandable in his opinion, but then Todoroki took a breath. “I didn’t know,” he said simply.

“What,” Katsuki replied flatly. It annoyed him to death when people said cryptic shit out of nowhere like that. He was already irritable enough before, so his patience was thin.

“When we asked you to come here,” Todoroki spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words. “Well, everyone knows the stories of The Magician attempting to sell you for your skills.”

“Read this,” the stranger demanded, shoving a page between the bars. 

Katsuki reared back and kicked at his fingers with all the force he had. The paper fluttered to the ground, and the hand pulled away long before he could get the hit. “No!” he shouted the only word he could remember in the language that this man might understand. 

The man sighed, exasperated. “I heard you speaking in dragon-tongue before. I know you can read it. I just need to know what it says, then I will let you go.”

It was clearly a lie. It was the same lie he’d been told over and over again, every time the man brought back a new project for him. It didn’t even matter. Katsuki couldn’t read, and he couldn’t translate a language that he understood into another that he couldn’t speak. “No!” he said again, unable to communicate any of these reasons. He kicked the bars again for emphasis. 

“Of course not,” the man sighed, and then he turned and walked away, leaving Katsuki alone in the corner as if he was just another part of his collection. 

“I didn’t know he’d attempted it more than once,” Todoroki continued, unknowing of Katsuki’s flashback. “It must have been a difficult time.” 

A difficult time? Yeah, that was one way to describe it. Along with the visual flashbacks, Katsuki was struck with the emotions that this version of himself must have been feeling at the time. Helpless, because he was so utterly trapped. Hopeless, because he knew that no one was looking for him. Afraid, because the Magician had hurt him. Frustrated, because he’d been away from other people for so long before this that he’d forgotten how to speak to them. 

Somehow, he knew it without a shadow of a doubt. In his character's past, the Magician had tormented him from the time he was seven, until he turned fourteen. The only reason he’d stopped was because Katsuki finally found a decent place to hide.

That was all a long, long time ago.

“Eh, he was a pain in my ass,” Katsuki replied nonchalantly. 

There was another moment of silence. Todoroki quit staring at him, and looked down at his horse's mane. He brushed his fingers through the strands idly. “I’m sorry,” he spoke quietly.

The apology was layered. At the surface level, there was pity. Underneath that, he was apologizing for bringing Katsuki into this in the first place. Finally, he was sorry that Katsuki was in debt to the man who had chased him for so long. He didn’t need to explain. Katsuki could read all of this just through those two words. 

Maybe he was closer to Todoroki than he thought. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Katsuki sneered, almost petulantly, and he did. Todoroki nudged the side of his horse to speed it up, and he left Katsuki to his thoughts once more. 

The trip back to the castle was unsurprisingly much more time-consuming than their travels through the forest. It wasn’t until the fifth day that Katsuki realized just how long they must have really been in the dark, and how much longer they had until they would be back home. The edge of the forest extended wide to the west, seemingly endless, but every half-hearted suggestion that Katsuki gave to just bite the bullet and cut through the trees again was met with adamant refusal. 

There was no danger out in the open like this, really, but everyone took turns on watch at night, anyways. These were Katsuki’s only moments of peace. When it was just him and Kirishima, the only two creatures awake as far as the eye could see, laying in the grass and making quiet conversation for as long as their instincts would allow. 

Katsuki didn’t tell him about the flashbacks yet. That was a conversation for when they were truly alone. 

It took them seven days and seven nights before they reached the town again. As it turned out, they were gone for a total of ten days, which meant that in their trip through the forest they had only slept once in 72 hours. It also meant that the knights’ stubbornness extended the trip back to more than twice its original length. 

It was irritating, but there was nothing that could be done. Katsuki would just have to rub this fact in their faces until it got old.

Getting settled back in at the castle felt a little too much like coming home for Katsuki’s comfort. He couldn’t even blame the instincts, really, because it was clear that his character never really had a home before. Something else was at play causing him to feel this strange level of comfort, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. 

The room they’d stayed in before was occupied, as well as every other one of the guests’ quarters. Apparently, the king had invited quite a few royals over for some event, but Katsuki didn’t bother with trying to find out what it was. It didn’t matter much. After they got their reward, Katsuki would be taking off with Kirishima to travel together just as they’d spoken about before. Plus, they were given one of the spare knights’ quarters instead, so it was kind of an upgrade. 

It was only kind of, because it meant they were closer to Iida, who was still acting as weird as ever. 

Still, it wasn’t bad. They were given separate baths this time, and Katsuki was so filthy that he’d forced Deku to replace the water three times before he was finished. Even after that, he was done long before Kirishima, who was still sitting in his tub as Katsuki got comfortable in their new king-sized bed. There was a book in the drawer of his bedside table, possibly something left behind by a knight who had passed, so Katsuki spent some time reading it while Kirishima finished up.

“How are you feeling, bro?” Kirishima spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, as he finally climbed into bed beside him. It wasn’t nearly time to go to sleep yet. The sun hadn’t even come close to touching the horizon, but they were exhausted. They hadn’t laid in a comfortable bed in ten days, so they would be laying in that bed all afternoon, all evening, and all night after that.

“Fine,” Katsuki answered shortly, closing the book with a soft thump. He set it on the bedside table. “You can talk fuckin’ normally, you know. We’re alone now.” 

Katsuki finally looked up to see Kirishima pouting at him. “You just looked so cozy,” he said at a normal volume this time. “I didn’t want to startle you.” 

Katsuki rolled his eyes to hide the rush of affection that barreled through him at the words. “Yeah, whatever,” he muttered. 

“Um, I only ask because,” Kirishima swallowed, then scooted a little closer. “Well, we haven’t had the chance to really talk since… And that was a lot. I mean, having to see him again must’ve been—”

“It sucked,” Katsuki summarized for him, deadpan. “What, exactly, do you want to talk about?”

Kirishima deflated a little. “You just seem tense,” he explained. “I know we only just got back, but we have a moment, so, just, if you wanted to talk…” he trailed off.

The reason for the vagueness of his questions was obvious. He had no clue what to ask for, because Katsuki hadn’t told him anything. For an entire week, Katsuki had failed to communicate. The excuses for this were reasonable, but still, it wasn’t fair to Kirishima. He would be affected by this too.

Katsuki turned on his side to face him, and sat up on his elbow. “The instincts,” he started. “Have they changed for you?” 

At this, Kirishima looked startled. “Um, no it’s pretty much the same,” he said, mirroring Katsuki’s position and curling his arm around the pillow so that he could lie down comfortably. “It’s stronger when you’re not around, I guess. It’s easy to follow along when you’re there to guide me, but without you, I have to figure out what the feelings mean all on my own.” 

That was very interesting, but not at all what Katsuki was looking for. “I’ve been having flashbacks,” he finally admitted. Kirishima frowned up at him deeply, but he didn’t interrupt. “They feel like my memories. My emotions. It’s like suddenly I’m there again, but—I was never there. None of that shit actually happened.” 

“Oh,” Kirishima said quietly. “So, when you sounded like you knew exactly what happened, it’s because—”

“I do,” Katsuki cut him off. “I know everything. Seven years of bullshit memories.” They stared at each other. “He stalked me—my character—for seven fucking years,” he continued, voice low. He looked down at Kirishima’s pillow, unable to meet his eyes. Although he was speaking about things that weren’t even real, it felt like he was letting him in on something very vulnerable about his past. “Sometimes he caught me, and I would be stuck there until I found a way out again. Most of the time he was just chasing me. I was—weak, and fucking scared, and alone.”

“What about you?” Kirishima asked carefully. He reached out a hand to tentatively touch Katsuki’s, and when he didn’t pull away, he grasped it firmly. “None of the quirk stuff. Just you. It must have been hard to see him again, yeah? How was that?”

Katsuki stared down at their intertwined hands. When he really thought about it… he shouldn’t admit this, but it was Kirishima, after all. “It was the same,” he admitted quietly, refusing to meet his eyes. “I was… scared. It sucked.” Kirishima let out a sympathetic hum, but before he could properly respond, Katsuki spoke again. “So, it’s just me, then? You’re not having any memories?”

“I—” Kirishima faltered. “I don’t have PTSD, Bakugou,” he said softly, almost a little sheepish. 

Katsuki reared back at the words like he’d been slapped in the face. 

“I’m not saying you do!” Kirishima rushed to say, sitting up and reaching out for him. Katsuki flinched again, involuntarily, and he put his hands back down. “I just mean to say, uh, I don’t get flashbacks. I’ve never had one before, so my brain doesn’t work that way, I guess.”

“R-right,” Katsuki stuttered, embarrassingly, and he clicked his teeth shut to avoid humiliating himself further. 

He’d already made the connection between the Magician's presence and his nightmares, but he never truly considered it. Not once did he stop to really compare the two, but now that it was pointed out, Katsuki could see the bigger picture. The memories and his regular nightmares were all the same. He was either running, trying so hard to escape some unseeable enemy, or he was fighting, and the battles were always gruesome. 

The false memories just told the same story with different costumes. 

“I don’t fucking have PTSD,” Katsuki muttered under his breath. 

“We don’t have to talk about this right now,” Kirishima tried. “Really, I could have been more patient. I’m sorry.”

Katsuki punched his shoulder and sat up. “Don’t apologize, asshole,” he growled. “I’m fucking fine. It was important. We have to be on the same page about all this quirk bullshit.” 

“Right,” Kirishima agreed, uncertain. There was more he wanted to say, of course. For him, this conversation was never about the quirk in the first place. He didn’t push it though. “So, are we just gonna lay in bed all day?”

“Fuck yeah we are,” Katsuki sighed, flopping back down into his pillows. He reached for the book on the table again. It was interesting, sue him. 

Kirishima scooched a little closer. “Wanna snuggle?” he teased. Katsuki was prepared with an eye roll and a fuck off at the tip of his tongue, but then he continued. “We can read together,” he offered. 

Well. That actually didn’t sound so bad. 

And that’s how Deku found them just a couple of hours later. Kirishima was curled up against Katsuki’s chest, following along with his finger as he read, and Katsuki’s arms were wrapped firmly around him, holding the book up for both of them. As it turned out, it was a romance novel. The main character was a knight, of course, who had fallen in love with a princess. It was cheesy as fuck. Katsuki kind of loved it. 

He glared up at the nerd, and Kirishima ducked to hide his blushing face behind the pages. Katsuki was just as embarrassed as he was, but he stood his ground. How Deku managed to find the most compromising moments to walk in on them, he couldn’t possibly fathom.

“Do you ever fucking knock?”

Deku gulped, and his face steadily turned a deep shade of red. “U-um, sorry?” he said awkwardly. “It’s just, ah, the king asked to see you. Both of you. Immediately.”

Katsuki made no effort to move. Kirishima squirmed in discomfort. “Impatient bastard,” he muttered under his breath.

Deku cringed. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

Once the door clicked closed, Katsuki finally shut the book and set it aside. Kirishima sat up, disappointed pout clear on his face. “Do you think it’s about the prophecy?” he whined. “We just got back. We didn’t even read it yet.”

“I don’t care,” Katsuki sighed as he stood to stretch. “It’s got nothing to do with us. We’re here to rest a day or two, and then we’re leaving. Right?”

“Right, yeah,” Kirishima agreed, though he didn’t look so sure anymore. Katsuki stared at him. “It’s just, I’ll miss everyone. What if we can’t find any more of our friends?” Katsuki continued to stare. “And I’m kind of curious about the whole Destroyer of Worlds thing, to be honest.”

Of course Kirishima was still into it. When he thought of it like a game, which this was apparently based on, this could be considered the main quest. It was an interesting story, but the world was so much bigger than this.

Still, that strange feeling of comfort itched at him, and he could understand his reluctance. 

“If we go looking, we’ll find more of the extras,” Katsuki assured him. “We won’t be here much longer. It’s already been nearly two weeks. The quirk will run its course, or the pros will get us out of here before we figure any of it out, anyways.”

Kirishima made a face while he considered his words, and Katsuki rolled his eyes. They could talk more about it later.

They showed up to the throne room in their pajamas. Katsuki didn’t realize until halfway there that he hadn’t even put on a shirt. As they approached, Endeavor’s booming voice could be heard throughout the halls. 

“Since when have I allowed leniency in cases like these, Shouto? Tell me!”

“He’s not the one who made the call!” Todoroki’s voice boomed after him, filled with the type of rage that was only ever directed at his father. “I’m the one who let her go!”

“And had he not been there to influence you, would you have made the same choice?”

Deku carefully opened the door, and they entered the room just in time to see Todoroki’s mouth snap shut. He had no retort. What a coward. 

Katsuki didn’t waste any time. It was clear to him now why they’d been summoned. “You know, without her, your little prince here would be dead.” Endeavor's blazing eyes snapped to him, but Katsuki didn’t back down. He didn’t fear the king. “So would half of your damn knights. Instead of banishment, you should be inviting her to dinner.”

Endeavor’s teeth ground together, and he stood with a snarl. In an instant, he crossed the room to lean down into Katsuki’s face. Katsuki stood his ground impassively. “Instead of banishment, she should have been burned at the stake,” the king hissed. “It doesn’t escape my notice that you and the witch already knew of each other. That alone is a crime.”

Katsuki laughed in his face. “I wasn’t harboring a fugitive. She doesn’t live here, dumbass,” he said with a grin.

Endeavor struck his cheek so hard and suddenly that he collapsed to the floor.

Kirishima gasped and moved to run to his side, but Deku held him back. Katsuki tentatively brought a hand to his sore jaw. “You should be aware of who you are speaking to,” Endeavor growled lowly. “If not for your parents' influence, you would have been dead a long time ago.”

To be fair, Katsuki hadn’t expected him to be this unhinged. This was the kind of behavior that lived only in Todoroki’s darkest memories. He supposed it made sense, though, considering the fact that this man was playing the part of a villain. 

The room was quiet for a moment, outside of Kirishima’s noises of distress and Deku’s quiet shushing. Todoroki was frozen like a statue, teeth clenched in silent rage, still beside the throne where he’d been arguing with his father before they entered, while Endeavor stood over Katsuki, glaring down at him. The king was waiting for a moment, almost daring him to speak out again, but it seemed that the act of violence had soothed his rage. 

“Maybe you’re right,” Endeavor finally spoke, eerily calm. “I’m hosting a dinner tomorrow night. We’re celebrating twenty years of our prosperity. You will attend, and you will consider exactly how your actions affect those around you. Then, you will be banished along with her.”

“Father—” Todoroki protested instantly, but he was shut down with only a flash of Endeavor’s glare.

Katsuki was done trying to argue with the king, but his character had other ideas. Like a man possessed, he sat up and opened his mouth to speak, “Again?” he asked dryly. “And how long is this one gonna last, hah? Right up until you realize you need me again?”

His punishment was a harsh kick to the stomach, of course. He fell back to the floor and groaned in pain. 

“Watch. Your. Tongue,” Endeavor snarled. “If I don’t see you tomorrow night, I will assume you’ve elected to begin your banishment early, and the guards will be instructed to arrest you on sight. Am I clear?”

Katsuki glared up at him with one arm loosely wrapped around his middle. “Clear as ever, your majesty,” he snarled through clenched teeth. 

At that, the king turned and exited the room without another word.

Deku finally released Kirishima, who rushed to Katsuki’s side instantly. He crouched down in front of him and held his injured cheek delicately, a deep frown etched into his features. Katsuki held his gaze unwaveringly, but he couldn’t bring himself to offer any form of verbal reassurance.

“We can have Yagi take a look at it,” Deku’s voice came suddenly from beside him. It took a moment for Katsuki to realize he was referring to All Might. “Or Shuzenji. Either of them could help.”

“It’s fine,” Katsuki snapped, standing abruptly. Kirishima stood with him, hand still planted firmly on his cheek. “Don’t need to see a damn medic for a hit like that.”

Todoroki finally crossed the room to approach them slowly. “I’ll speak with him,” he said lowly. “You can’t be banished. He’s acting rashly.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes. “We were planning on leaving anyway. This just means we won’t come back. Doesn’t fucking matter.”

Kirishima’s hand finally left his face and trailed down his arm as he turned to face the prince. Their fingertips brushed briefly, then the contact disappeared. 

“It does,” Todoroki spoke gravely. “I read the prophecy this morning. The first line… I didn’t realize it when I asked you to come with us, or even when…” he trailed off for a moment, lost in thought. “It’s about you, Bakugou. The first line of the prophecy is yours.”

Katsuki stared at him, deadpan. “Bullshit,” he declared. “Prophecies are vague as shit on purpose. They want you to think it’s referring to someone you know. Half of the damn things are fake, anyways.”

“Not this one,” Todoroki said confidently. “And the line isn’t vague.” 

Katsuki snorted. “Sure, whatever you say,” he practically snickered, then he turned to leave. He’d been in the middle of a good part, and if he was being banished the next day, he needed to hurry up and finish his book first. 

“Sealed by a promise,” Todoroki said, and Katsuki stopped in his tracks. “The first line is sealed by a promise. The prophecy has already begun, and it started with you. You can’t be banished.” 

Katsuki stood there for a moment. 

“A favor. Anything I want, at any time I want.”

“Done.”

It made sense. Kirishima and himself were the two affected by the quirk. They were the main characters of this story, whether they wanted to be or not. 

“Tell that to your old man,” he finally said, and then he exited the throne room with Kirishima on his heels.

Todoroki had made the big claim that the first line of the prophecy wasn’t vague, but Katsuki had to disagree. Sealed by a promise was the vaguest shit he’d heard in a while. There was no possible way to be sure that it referred to the promise that Katsuki had made to the magician, especially because he had no idea what he’d promised in the first place. It was more like a debt.

Still, with the context that this was a fake world and the assumption that this was the main quest, Katsuki knew for a fact that it must be referring to him. Todoroki had no valid reason to think that, though, so he would continue to shame him for it.

As soon as Kirishima was certain that Katsuki was uninjured, both physically and mentally, after the argument with Endeavor, he’d started on the preparations for the next day. He buzzed around the room grumbling incoherently, packing up their things and setting out their finest clothes. Their finest clothes, which happened to be their only clothes, really. Anything else they’d been wearing during their stay had belonged to the king, so it was tossed into the corner of the room with little care. 

Usually, Katsuki would jump at the opportunity to stress clean along with him. This time, though, he was held back by his instincts yet again. The distinctive feeling in his gut kept him planted firmly on the edge of the bed, watching in dismay as Kirishima tore through the room and packed everything neatly into their bag. 

Kirishima had announced that he would have Deku help him with cleaning and polishing their armor in the morning, because he thought it was important that they look their best. He wanted Endeavor to know exactly what he’d be missing. Katsuki appreciated the sentiment, but he had a feeling that the king wouldn’t care as much as Kirishima hoped.

That was what he was off doing the next morning, though, when Katsuki was slipping into the dining hall to smuggle something into their room for breakfast. He couldn’t be sneaky, exactly, because everyone knew who he was and they all tended to stare, so his technique was to enter the room as casually as possible. If he acted like he was supposed to be there, most people wouldn’t think to question it.

“What are you doing here?” 

Iida was not most people. 

Katsuki groaned and spun around to face him. He crossed his arms over his bare chest and sneered. “Can’t I get myself some breakfast? I’m not about to starve ‘til dinner.”

For a moment, Iida was silent. “You can join us, if you would like,” he offered hesitantly, gesturing toward a table where the knights were all eating together. They seemed to be in good spirits. They wouldn’t make bad company, but…

“You’re the rat, aren’t you?” Katsuki asked, voice dripping with contempt. “You’re the one who told the king about Uraraka.” 

Iida bowed his head in shame. “It is my duty as a knight to report—”

“You’re a damn coward,” Katsuki spat. 

There was another period of awkward silence. Iida’s head remained bowed, and Katsuki glared down his nose at him. “You’re right,” Iida admitted. “It was not my place. If the prince deemed it worth reporting, he would have done it himself.” 

Katsuki raised an eyebrow. That was closer to an apology than he’d been expecting. He dropped his arms and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Fine. I’ll join you.” 

Iida visibly relaxed. They crossed the room together, and the knight sat down in his place while Katsuki busied himself with serving two plates full of food. 

“Beastmaster!” Sato greeted. “The first man ever to be banished twice. How’s it feel?”

Katsuki snorted, but didn’t look up from his task. “If I’m not banished in the end, I haven’t done the job I was hired for. At least I’m getting dinner this time.” 

The knights shared a moment to laugh at his expense, and Katsuki took a seat a few chairs away from them. They didn’t seem all that worried about his banishment, aside from Jirou, who gave only a half-hearted chuckle. 

“We’re taking bets on how long it’ll last this time,” Tetsutetsu said with a grin. He shoved a slice of pork into his mouth and continued to speak as he chewed. “I put ten coins on a month. Sato put three on two. Kendo put fifteen on a day. D’ya want in?” 

Iida chopped the back of his head with his hand, causing him to choke. “Chew before you speak. It is unbecoming of a knight.” 

Katsuki ignored him and leaned forward with his elbow on the table, resting his chin in his hand. “We’re talking gold, yeah?” 

“Oh, shit, he’s in,” Sato snickered.

Tetsutetsu composed himself and bounced in his seat. “Yeah, gold, for sure!” 

“Hmm,” Katsuki hummed. “Thirty coins the king begs me to stay.” 

The knights gawked at him. 

“Where the hell did you get thirty gold coins to bet with?” Jirou said in disbelief.

“He would never do that! You’re insane!” Tetsutetsu said incredulously.

Katsuki gave them a sly grin. “Doesn’t matter. You guys’ll never see me again, so I won’t have to pay up. I’m fucking banished, remember?” 

Tetsutetsu stared off into space, considering this. “Shit,” he muttered. “You’re right.” Then, his eyes snapped back to Katsuki’s, his own grin firmly back in place. “Well, at least until you end up back here in a month and you have to pay up. I’ll be rich!” 

Sato rolled his eyes and pointed at him with his fork. “A month is way too short. Did you hear how angry he was? It was worse than last time!” 

“But the prince said we need him,” Kendo reminded them. “He can be very convincing.” 

The knights proceeded to bicker about who’s bet would win in the end, and Katsuki sat back to watch them silently. He wouldn’t eat without Kirishima, but he didn’t really know how long he should stay before taking off with his haul of food. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so dressed down before,” Jirou commented, catching Katsuki off guard. He raised an eyebrow at her, then glanced down at his clothes. He was wearing a pair of cotton pants and slippers. “You look cozy. Guess I should’ve figured that you’d be shirtless in your free time, too.”

The knights started snickering, and Katsuki scoffed. He could feel his face heating up. “Shirts are fucking useless,” he found himself saying defensively. “They’re itchy, and they get in the way. There’s no point.” 

“Don’t you get cold?” Kendo asked as if she was genuinely curious. 

“No,” Katsuki sneered. “And if I do get cold, I can put on a damn shirt then. That’s what they’re for.” 

Snickers turned into full-blown laughter. Katsuki briefly wondered if the knights had a death wish, or if they really thought that one quest brought them close enough for this behavior. He growled a warning, but even still, the knights continued to include him in their strange breakfast bickering.

If Katsuki’s false memories served him correctly, he’d worn nothing but crudely tied animal furs for the first half of his life. So, honestly, they were lucky he was even wearing pants. 

A patch of red across the room snatched Katsuki’s attention, and he carefully suppressed the grin that was threatening his lips as he watched Kirishima pop his head through the door to look around the room. “Seems that I’m being searched for,” Katsuki announced, nodding towards the doorway as he stood. 

Jirou followed his gesture with her eyes, then laughed. “Aw, look how serious he is too.” 

Tetsutetsu let out a snort as well. “I see how it is. You just came to steal enough of our food to share with your boy. You didn’t even eat with us!” 

At that, Katsuki’s lip twitched. Tetsutetsu wasn’t nearly that perceptive in reality, so this must be a manifestation of Kirishima’s opinion of him. He lifted his plates and started to cross the room. “Well, shit,” he called over his shoulder. “You’ve got me all figured out.”

 “What the hell, bro, I've been looking everywhere for you!” Kirishima hissed as soon as Katsuki got close enough. 

Katsuki gave him a smirk and started down the hall. “Figured you’d be hungry,” he said knowingly. “Since you’ve been running around like a madman all fuckin’ night and morning.” 

It took Kirishima a moment to process his words as he turned to follow him. He looked down toward the plates, then back up at Katsuki with sparkles in his eyes. “You’re a god among men,” he said very seriously, then grinned at Katsuki’s burst of shocked laughter. “No, seriously, I can’t believe I forgot! What would I do without you?”

“Fuckin’ starve, apparently.”

As soon as they got to their room, Kirishima began organizing Katsuki’s haul into two categories. One for the food that would keep well for their travels, such as fruits, vegetables, and grains, and the other for food that they wouldn’t be able to easily carry. The food they couldn’t carry was what was left for breakfast, which turned out to be a plate of eggs, short ribs, and some grilled vegetables that were deemed too oily to store. 

Katsuki couldn’t help but worry that they would be eating like rabbits after this meal. That is, unless he got over himself and learned to hunt for food. The thought alone made him shudder. 

“So, where are we going first?” Kirishima asked through a mouthful of meat as soon as he finally got settled. “You know, after dinner. Should we just head in any direction?” 

That was a great question. Katsuki hadn’t even considered it yet. “Well, we came from the north,” he mumbled, resting his chin in his hand. “The quest took us east. The south…” Something deep in his subconscious screamed that going south was a bad idea. There was danger in that direction. “Feels wrong,” he decided. “So, we go west.”

“Huh,” Kirishima hummed, then he shovelled the remains of his eggs into his mouth. “Well, that sounds good to me. I’m gonna go find Midoriya and see if he has a spare basket for us to carry this food. Do you need anything while I’m there?”

Katsuki scoffed. “You asking if I need something from the nerd?” 

“No,” Kirishima rolled his eyes. “You still have a head wound, bro. Don’t think I just forgot. This is your last chance to get something for the pain.” 

“It’s,” Katsuki gaped at him. “I– well,” he hesitated. 

“Yeah,” Kirishima said dryly.

“It’s not that bad,” Katsuki said a little weakly, knowing that it was sort of a lie. While it was true that he’d never felt much pain from the wound, it also hadn’t healed in all that time. It still bled occasionally. If he was a smarter man, he would have seen Shuzenji for it as soon as they got back to the castle. “Really, it doesn’t hurt, it’s just–”

“Infected,” Kirishima concluded for him. “Seriously infected and getting worse.”

Katsuki sighed deeply. “Yeah, if you could get something for, uh. For that,” he mumbled.

“Will do!” Kirishima said cheerfully. He stood up and stretched, then headed for the door. “I won’t be as long this time, so please try to stay put. See you soon, bro!”

“Stay put, my ass,” Katsuki grumbled under his breath, but he set down his plate on the table and moved to flop onto the bed anyway. 

The head wound was a little concerning if he really thought about it. He’d woken up in this world with it. He could only assume that the hit had come from the same villain who used their quirk on them. The fact that it didn’t hurt much made him think that maybe, assuming this was a dream or hallucination, the wound was something on his physical body. And if it was taking this long to heal… maybe time was moving differently. It could mean that despite being in this world for two weeks, not much time had passed at all in the real world. 

Well. That was a good thing, right? It just meant that they weren’t missing as much of their studies as Katsuki thought they were.

It also would mean that the pros probably hadn’t had much time to make any progress in getting them out.

Kirishima popped back in to deliver the medicine and the basket that he’d gotten from Deku, then he explained that Deku requested his help with delivering medicine around the castle. So, since he had nothing better to do, Katsuki took the book from the bedside table out to the courtyard and sat cross-legged on the top of a barrel with it. He spent the rest of the afternoon finishing it. In the end, the knight took too long to express his feelings to the princess, and he died loveless and alone. Tragic.

While he was reading, more guests arrived. They seemed to be mostly staff, like caterers and housekeepers, as well as some people who might be entertainment. There was one woman who arrived with guards and servants surrounding her, and Endeavor came outside to greet her personally with a bow and a kiss on the back of her hand. 

Gross.

Before he knew it, it was already time to get ready for dinner. Kirishima was still nowhere to be seen, but his armor was set up on the table in their room waiting for him. Being late wasn’t exactly an option for Katsuki, so he would just have to get ready and head to the dining hall alone. 

The place was already packed by the time he got there. Among the sea of extras were a few faces he recognized, like the knights, Monoma, and All Might. Deku was there, too, but Kirishima was nowhere to be found. 

All of Kirishima’s hard work didn’t go to waste, it seemed, because people couldn’t seem to keep their eyes off of Katsuki. They could have been thinking anything, really, but Katsuki couldn’t help but preen a bit. He felt like he was looking pretty sharp in his freshly cleaned armor, despite how he’d felt about it before. The cape was growing on him. 

The moment everyone's eyes finally left him, Katsuki couldn’t even complain. Momo arrived at the party in another stunning red dress, along with Jirou, who had also gotten her armor polished and cleaned for the occasion. They captured everyone’s attention, including Todoroki, who paused his conversation with a group of knights to greet them.

Something about the scene felt familiar, but Katsuki couldn’t put his finger on it. 

Before he could think on it further, Kirishima finally slipped into the room. His face was white as a sheet, and he didn’t look anyone in the eye as he stumbled over to the secluded corner where Katsuki was people-watching from. 

“There’s a secret dragon,” Kirishima blurted out, sounding like he could be sick. 

Katsuki stared at him, open-mouthed. “Of course there’s a secret fucking dragon,” he said incredulously. “Where the fuck were you?”

On unsteady feet, Kirishima walked around the table to sit in the chair beside Katsuki, shielding himself from the rest of the room. “Well, my last delivery was for a prisoner,” he explained quietly. “I remembered that the cave access was in the dungeon in the show, so I went looking for it.”

“And you found the dragon,” Katsuki finished for him. 

“It called me fledgling,” Kirishima hissed, distraught. “What does that even mean? Is it just because I'm young?

Katsuki snorted. “Probably,” he said with a smirk. “It’s a dragon. I bet that’s what they call all the kids.” Kirishima groaned and laid his head on the table. “If you weren’t prepared to see a dragon, you shouldn’t have gone looking for a fucking dragon, shitty hair.”

“I didn’t expect it to be so real,” Kirishima mumbled miserably into the table.

Katsuki hummed in mock sympathy and ruffled the back of his hair, knowing that he could do it without consequence because it was held together with magic rather than gel. It was soft. “Should’ve seen the spider.”

Kirishima didn’t have a chance to reply. Apparently, there was a seating chart for the dinner, and staff had begun to guide the guests to their proper places. That wouldn’t be much of an issue, considering that Katsuki knew almost none of these people, except. 

“You don’t seem pleased,” Todoroki pointed out from his seat at the head of the table. Katsuki glared at him. They were practically sharing a corner together. 

“Was this you, or the old man?” Katsuki growled. 

Todoroki’s lip twitched. “Would you believe me if I said neither?” he asked slyly. “It was random chance. My father will be just as excited as you are to see how the staff has chosen to seat the tables this evening.”

Katsuki growled an animalistic noise at him and reluctantly sat down. As random as he claimed this was, Katsuki couldn’t help but notice that Kirishima was seated on his other side. Whoever created the arrangement had put some thought into it.

The dinner finally officially began once the king made his appearance at the head of the table. Or, tables, kind of. There were three tables set up together in a U shape, and the king, Todoroki, and Momo took up the entire head table. 

“We have enjoyed 20 years of peace and prosperity,” Endeavor's booming voice could be heard echoing around the hall. He seemed to be in high spirits. “It has brought the kingdom and myself many pleasures.”

Something wasn’t right. Katsuki knew déjà vu when he felt it, and this was something more. He recognized this scene.

It wasn’t until the next words were spoken that Katsuki knew for certain. 

“But few can compare with the honor of introducing Lady Bibimi!”

Katsuki didn’t know her, but he wouldn’t dare ask Kirishima if he did, knowing what was going to happen next. The Lady began to sing, and slowly but surely, the guests at the tables began to nod off where they sat. Subtly, Katsuki covered his ears as he laid his own head down, and she didn't seem to notice that he was unaffected by her spell. 

In this situation, Katsuki was completely helpless. He had no weapon with him, and no quirk. The most he could probably do was gossip with the rats in the walls about the feast they were going to get once everyone in the room died due to his incompetence. 

There was one person who could solve this. In this scene, it had been Merlin who saved everyone by dropping the chandelier onto the witch. Unfortunately, they didn’t have an all-powerful wizard. Instead, they had–

Katsuki looked up and across the room, only to see wide, panicked green eyes looking back at him. Deku had covered his ears too, apparently having some sense once he noticed the other guests falling asleep so easily. The Lady was still singing. Their surroundings appeared to age rapidly, and she was getting closer and closer to Todoroki. Deku was just standing there, looking all around the room, desperately trying to think of a plan.

Katsuki had to resist the urge to groan into the table. The idea that he was potentially going to have to rely on Deku in situations where he was powerless was almost physically painful. It was definitely karma. 

Finally, Deku used his brain. His eyes flashed gold, and the chandelier fell onto the Lady just as she was raising her arm to throw a knife through Todoroki’s chest. Slowly, the guests began to wake up and wipe the cobwebs away, and the King and Todoroki both stood to assess the situation.

Katsuki knew what was coming next.

If the scene went according to the original one, it would be Deku’s responsibility. Unfortunately, he was all the way across the room, and no amount of subtle magic could get him to Todoroki’s side in time. So, as the witch raised the knife one last time, Katsuki stood and yanked the prince out of the way, sending them both tumbling to the ground. The knife stuck solidly into the chair that he’d been standing in front of. 

“Strong throw for a dying woman,” Katsuki muttered quietly, for Todoroki’s ears only. Kirishima blearily raised his head from the table just above them, finally waking from the spell himself. 

Todoroki sat up and shook himself. “I suppose she must have really wanted me dead.” He stood fully, then offered Katsuki a hand to get up himself. Katsuki took it reluctantly. 

There was a brief moment of stillness as they stood and made themselves presentable again. Katsuki adjusted his furs to sit comfortably on his shoulders, while Todoroki brushed the dirt off of his pants. The hall was dead silent, and it seemed as though everyone was processing the events that just occurred.

Clearly, the woman who was now trapped under the chandelier was not Lady Bibimi. It was a glamour spell. Katsuki didn’t recognize this woman either, but again, he wouldn’t ask. Both of these women were dead. Really dead. There was a dead body, just a few feet away. Deku had killed her. Katsuki shuddered.

Endeavor approached as Katsuki was staring at the corpse, startling him. He tried not to let it show, and he met the king’s gaze steadily. His eyes were calculating, as if he was deep in thought.

“You and I,” Endeavor started slowly. “We’re very different.”

Katsuki swallowed back an incredulous laugh. “You could say that,” he said, voice strained.

"And the relationship you have with my son," the king continued. "I don't quite understand it."

"That's evident," Katsuki muttered under his breath. Todoroki glared hard, practically screaming 'shut up!' without making a sound.

“This is the third time you’ve saved my boy’s life,” Endeavor said, voice wracked with emotion. Katsuki could only count two occasions where he saved Todoroki and one where Kirishima did, but he supposed that the third could have been during the first incident which had gotten them banished. “If it were any other man, I would have knighted them after the first time.”

“I’ve renounced my nobility,” Katsuki replied automatically, although he had no idea what that meant.

Endeavor just laughed. “That doesn’t make you any less of a noble. It’s in your blood,” he said in a patronizing tone. As if Katsuki was just a child who didn’t understand. They stared at each other for another long moment. “I’m aware that you are nomadic,” the king continued. “So a proper knighthood would feel more like a prison sentence to you. I don’t trust you enough for that, anyway.”

Katsuki squinted at him. “The hell are you getting at?”

Endeavor took a deep breath, then bowed his head. “You are no longer banished,” he said softly, as if trying to keep this conversation private between them. “In return for your loyalty to my son, I would like to offer you an honorary knighthood. Please accept this, along with my humblest apologies for being so blind in the past.”

Katsuki stared at him. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He took in a breath. “I don’t know if—”

Todoroki stomped on his foot. His eyes blazed with pure malice.

“I accept both,” Katsuki coughed. Though he wasn't keen to give in so easily, the feeling in his gut was like a sharp kick in that direction. “Thank you, your majesty.”

“Of course,” Endeavor said smoothly, raising his head. “You may make yourself at home in the quarters you’ve been staying in. It will be kept for whenever you wish to stay in the castle. Your Knighting will be held tomorrow. You may be excused if you wish, and I will send a medic to check on you and your shadow later tonight.”

Katsuki swallowed hard. “Yeah, sure thing,” he said faintly. He gave the king a short, awkward bow, which seemed only to amuse him, and then turned to drag a still-drowsy Kirishima up out of his chair and guide him into the hall.

As soon as they were alone, Kirishima spoke. “What just happened?” he asked, sounding just about as lost as Katsuki felt.

“I just earned twenty-eight gold,” Katsuki replied distantly.

“Wasn’t that—”

“The first episode?” Katsuki replied. “Yeah.”

Their eyes met. Katsuki huffed a laugh.

“I guess this is only the beginning.”