Travel The Distance

Chapter 11

A legend surrounded the arrowhead-shaped peak which jutted out of the mountain range behind my castle. The villagers had told me when I first became King that a great evil lived on the peak of the mountain. The legend said that an evil sorcerer by the name of All for One wasted away on the mountain top after the legendary hero All Might vanquished him. His followers were banished away to the peak alongside him. I didn't place much merit in these rumours. Of course, I knew that All for One had been a very real and threatening man but the battle between him and All Might had been centuries ago, I had no reason to believe that he was still alive.

The flight to Arrow Peak was long and miserable. Once I got high enough, the wind-battered me from every side. Trying and failing to deter me from reaching my destination. Snow swirled around me, hitting me in the eyes and making my joints stiff. If I hadn't been a naturally very hot creature, I'm sure I would have died on the journey to the peak alone. As it was, I made it to the peak with little to no trouble. The only problem I had was that my joints were slightly stiff. I shook the small amounts of snow which had gathered on my head off of me as I transformed back into human form.

Back in my human form, I drew the blood-red cloak around my shoulders closer to my body, trying in vain to conserve some body heat. It hadn't been my smartest idea to fly up to the top of a mountain in only trousers and a cloak. It would have been beneficial to get a top from my room before I left. Sighing heavily through my nose, I stared up at the gaping cave mouth in front of me. I couldn't see anything beyond the small amount of the cave which had been illuminated by the low light of the sun. Beyond the weak white light, all I could see was inky blackness which seemed to stretch on forever. "Why the fuck would anyone want to camp up here." I hissed to myself. "Suck it up, Katsuki. Go in, check to see if there's anyone around here leaching off of the Kingdom then get back out. The sooner we get back, the sooner we can move on with our lives and meet our beautiful destined." Ground Zero snarled in my head, voice becoming softer and almost lovesick towards the end as he spoke of our destined. I scoffed mentally. All he went on about was our destined, it was tiring and got old after a while. "How the fuck do you know if they're beautiful." I snarked at Ground Zero as I entered the cave, leaving the safety of the light and descending into the mystery of the darkness. "I just know, dickhead! No matter what they look like or who they are, we're going to adore them and shower them with love, got it punk?" Ground Zero growled defensively. I nearly barked in laughter at his words. Shower them with love? Who did he think I was? I wasn't the sort to 'shower' anyone or anything with love. Love was a foreign concept to me which, in my eyes, would result in nothing but weaknesses which would be all to easy to exploit.

The sound of water hitting the floor and my shallow breaths were the only noise in the darkness. The sounds echoed around the empty space, the silence making the sound of my heartbeat astonishingly loud in my ears. As I got further into the cave, I could feel warmth hitting my skin. By the time I had been walking for 10 minutes, I could feel sweat building up on my skin. As well as heat, I could feel magic in the air. It simmered across my skin and tingled in the air. It was almost palpable. This only convinced me further that someone was in the cave and they were leaching off of my Kingdom's magic. The magic which was weaved into the air around me and caressed my skin was far too familiar for me not to come to that conclusion. The only course of action now was to find the motherfucker who thought they could slip under my radar and beat their motherfucking ass.

I had been walking for 30 minutes before I found any sign of human habitation beyond the tangible magic in the air. The first sign was the flickering of fire in the distant, seeing this I sped up my steps whilst still keeping them light so as not to be heard. The next sign was the voices. As far as I could tell, there were three, maybe four, of them. Three masculine voices and one feminine one. Two of the four voices sounded like they were close to my age whilst the remaining two sounded slightly older than me. I sent out a mental message to my tribe, telling them where I was and what I was about to encounter. I didn't doubt my ability to win, but if I had learnt anything in my 21 years of life, it was that you could never be too cautious when it came to an unknown variable. "Tomura...How long are we going to be here? I'm bored." the feminine voice whined. Whoever was speaking sounded like they were around my age. Maybe 2 or three years older than me. "Shut up, Himiko. We'll be here until I say otherwise. This was the last place we saw master, we need to look longer." A dry sounding voice replied to the whining voice. Again this voice sounded around the same age as me. A bit older than the previous voice, but still within the range of 4 to 5 years older than me. From this snippet of conversation alone I was learning a lot. These people were looking for their 'master'. I had edged closer to them by this point, I could feel their aura. It wasn't pretty. I was hit with a mixture of bloodlust, devotion, evil intent and hatred. "I feel as though we may not learn much here, Tomura. The inhabitants of the Kingdom at the bottom of the mountain are bound to notice us leaching their magic soon enough." one of the older voices said. This voice was slightly clipped and sounded rather aristocratic. " I agree with Kurogiri. We won't find anything here. We might as well return to the dark forest." the final voice muttered. Their voice sounded a lot more common than the other's voices. As if they had come from a farming village on the outskirts of Endeavour, maybe crossing into Creati. "Shut it, Magne. We didn't ask for your opinion. We're staying until I find something or we're discovered. Suck it up." the second voice, Tomura, snapped. There was an indignant squawk from the first voice, Himiko. "Don't be mean to Big Sis Magne. How would you like it if she used that tone with you?" Himiko assessed. There was a grunt and then silence. It seemed I had discovered all that I could from them, so I decided to reveal myself.