Yagi Toshinori has never felt worse than when he leaves young Bakugou alone and broken in the Great Hall---even the wound and time limit that All For One inflicted on him weighed far less than the image of the broken, scarred boy begging him to keep his dragon safe--a boy he disregarded, tossed aside after promising to teach him like the others.
A boy he broke.
I screwed up, he realizes, and immediately wants to turn to apologize. He does, and finds himself staring into livid red eyes. Bakugou Mitsuki's fury is a physical thing, setting the air around her on fire as she stares him down.
"What," she hisses, "in the hell did you say to my son."
Toshinori holds her gaze, refusing to drop it, stubborn pride getting in the way as always. "Something I shouldn't have," he admits.
"Something you should have," a gruff voice corrects. Endeavor gives him an approving nod, one of very few that he's ever received from the Flame Hero. "The boy betrayed our entire way of life."
Challenged it, not betrayed it, Yagi finds himself thinking. "Ready the ships," he orders wearily. "Upon our return, we'll release the Night Fury back into young Bakugou's hands."
Mitsuki relaxes slightly, but Endeavor scowls. Toshinori doesn't think too much of the latter---he's always scowling--as he makes his way down to the docks, the other hero in tow, Mitsuki heading for her home, as if knowing that this is something that he and her son have to work out between them.
Let this end today.
---
Ochako finds Katsuki standing high above the docks, a shadow against a fading sky. The ocean is empty of ships now, but she can tell that he's been here for hours, his body tense and shivering slightly.
Without his dragon or his pride, she thinks, he looks like a shell. Empty. She makes her way over to the platform he stands on. She glances sideways at him and winces; he looks even worse than she thought. His eyes are red-rimmed and empty of emotion, his posture slumped with exhaustion and despair.
It's not the Bakugou Katsuki she knows, not the one that she's come to care for, and she finds that she's honestly worried for him. And she knows for a fact that their village won't be able to handle the monster that rules the Nest without backup---backup that preferably comes riding in on dragonback.
And the only person that could possibly teach their small team of 1-A students to ride dragons was currently in a state of numbness to the world.
"It's a mess," she decides to start off with, standing next to him. "You must feel horrible. You've lost everything. Your mentor's trust, your ambition, your best friend..."
Okay, so she's not the world's greatest motivational speaker, but it might very well work.
"Thank you for summing that up," he says, voice dull.
She pauses, glancing at him. Bakugou crouches, hunching over and wrapping his arms around his knees. "Why couldn't I have killed that dragon when I found her in the woods?" he whispers, and Ochako stifles a smile, because now they're getting somewhere. "It would've been better for...for everyone."
"You're right," she agrees calmly. "The rest of us would've done it." Well, she would've, at least. She's not certain that Deku would've attacked a helpless anything, even if it was a dragon. She turns to him, and he averts his eyes. "So why didn't you?"
He makes a noise that she can't identify, like a cross between uncertainty and annoyance. She crouches next to him. "Why didn't you?" she repeats, her tone far softer than before.
YOU ARE READING
The Brave Men Rode Them
Fanfiction"In front of him lies the Night Fury, the most dangerous dragon in the known world, one that he's felled, the one that could prove that he does have what it takes to kill dragons. But its eyes are open, shining and white-gold, and he sees himself re...
