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Bakugou Katsuki was a rather typical barbarian child. He often wandered off on his own even though he was still only five years of age. He always returned home with bumps and bruises, bleeding elbows and knees which were a staple of a barbarian child. Katsuki would always carry a manic grin as his father, a not so typical barbarian man, would fuss over his bleeding son while Katsuki's mother would boast about her son's adventurous nature.
"You'll make him soft, treating him that way." Bakugou Mitsuki would grouse as her husband applied thick green paste harboring a pungent odor to all the scrapes their son proudly displayed.
Katsuki only paid half an ear to his parents' banter, too busy being distracted by his wooden dragon and rider figure in which he twisted around the air creating senseless patterns.
"It takes a special kinda patience to be a barbarian leather worker." Katsuki would mimic his father's words as if he knew what the big words even meant.
Mitsuki would shake her head and ruffle her son's hair with a heavy hand. She knew her husband could be just as rough as the other men in their clan.
With a finishing pat to his son's thigh, Bakugou Masaru would let his son bounce off to play once more. He knew he wouldn't be able to hold his son back from exercising a barbarian's natural durability and unique magical attributes. His wife had always told him the only way for a child to learn their limits was for said child to test them out.
Which was why Masaru had to learn fast how to make his leatherwork fireproof. An overexcited mage child harboring a powerful Explosive Arcanum was grounds for burnt belongings.
"Katsuki!" Mitsuki bellowed just as her welp was about to charge back out of their hut with bare feet. "C'mere brat, we have to talk."
The boy paused midstep. He took a rueful look out the bright orange fabric drapings that acted as their door, to his dragon toy, then over his shoulder, locking defiant crimson eyes with his mother.
"Don't even think about it. I will chase yer ass down." The fiery woman warned as she tapped a slippered foot on the wooden flooring.
Katsuki threw his head back with an annoyed groan. He didn't hesitate much longer before he shuffled back into his home. "What'd ya want ma?"
"We have to go on a trip tomorrow, so you can't go back out to play. It's bedtime."
"Why?" Katsuki whined with a scrunched up face.
Masaru smiled with a sad tilt to his lips. "There was another hunting last night… We need to go salvage what we can and bury the poor soul."
His son's eyes went wide as he clutched his toy closer to his chest. "No!
"I'm sorry kiddo." Masasu sighed dropping his gaze to the ground.
"That's not fair! I wanna see a live dragon."
Mitsuki huffed irritably. "Well, there's nothin' we can do about that, brat. Mystical Beasts have sought after magic, their body parts sell for a fuck ton of gold."
Masaru went to cover Katsuki's ears but got smacked by away. "Mitsuki!"
"So!?" Katsuki screeched. "You said the clans had lots and lotsa mystical artifacts! But the clans never killed dragons for them!"
Mitsuki swatted the back of her son's head. "I also told you that was ages ago, it isn't the clans who are killing them now. The kingdoms started this war on the Mystics, and the kingdoms are the reason their population has all but vanished."
"But I wanna be a Rider!" He shouted, displaying his figurine haughty.
"Then find a damn dragon that's alive! You'd better pray to the gods it thinks you're a friend too because it might just gobble you up for a snack instead of waiting to see if you'll try and poach it first."
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It took their small party less than half the next day to arrive at the sight of the poaching. Katsuki had ridden in front of his mother the whole way, curious crimson orbs scanning the temperate landscape around him, a vast difference from the plains their clan lived in.
It was always warm on the plains, and the forest boarding it. Katsuki had never seen snow since winter was virtually nonexistent in the lands owned by the clans. His father always told him it was the work of the ancient dragons that used to roam the land. Their dragon fire had warmed the clans' land to its core, and even after they were gone their arcanum remained. However, Katsuki's mother insisted the lands were eternally warmed by the flowing lava rivers of Hell's Gate in the northeast mountains the land that years ago was home to hundreds of dragons.
Katsuki liked to believe it was a little of both.
It was the smell that hit the party first. The acidic stench of smoldering blood and ash. Smoke lingered in the air, burning everyone's lungs with each breath.
Mitsuki reached around her son's head and pressed a handkerchief to his mouth. "Hold this." She demanded shortly while tightening her other hand on the reins.
They soon after broke through the treeline into an unnatural clearing. More trees than Katsuki could count on his little hands were snapped in half, bark splintered everywhere as if they had been blown up from the inside. Some of the trees were even completely uprooted, laying on their side.
As they got closer to the epicenter, the bark on the trees got progressively more charred, browning blood painted the clearing and pooled in any dips carved into the ground. Not much longer after, they encountered the bodies.
It was obvious the deceased men and women who were being lined up, by a few warriors Katsuki recognize from their clan, were poachers. The garb they wore was grungy, but the trinkets they wore were gaudy and expensively made from ancient arcanum.
The bodies were also grotesque. A few had clean stab wounds from their clan's warriors who had stumbled upon the poaching sight earlier yesterday. There was also a small pile of completely charred remains, still smoking. However, the majority of the bodies were sliced apart brutally in many different ways. Some looked like their limbs had been torn right out from their sockets, others had their guts spilling out, while one body was even missing its head.
"Cool!" Katsuki squealed, jumping a bit in his seated position.
His mother chastised him for it but all he had for a reply was; "They got what was comin' to 'em."
It wasn't much further that Katsuki spotted a deep crimson mass over the downed trees. His heart sped up as he rose in his seat to see better over the horse's head.
"Katsuki," Mitsuki warned past the lump in her throat. She knew her son's excitement would change soon.
Before they got too close, it almost looked as if the dragon was sleeping save for the eerily stillness of it all. But as Mitsuki dismounted, Katsuki was fixated on the horror of the display.
The dragon was laying three quarters on its side, a long jagged cut ran from its jaw all the way down to the flank. Layers of scales and flesh peeled back with buckets of blood coating the forest floor below. A magically imbued dirk still buried in the poor thing's thigh. Intestines looked ripped from the gut as they spilled over the ground. The dragon's fire sack still dangled out of its throat drizzling cooled blood down dulling scales, likely because the poachers were interrupted before it could be removed.
Katsuki fought the urge to look away and ended up swallowing the bile his stomach tried to release, making his own throat burn, and his eyes water. He slipped down from the saddle and approached cautiously, avoiding his mother and father who were getting more information from the warriors on boring stuff. Like how they were going to collect all the poachers' belongings and how they were to go about cleaning up the dragon out of respect.
The young boy reached the massive head of the dragon, which was twice the size of a draft horse's head. He grimaced when he realized the dragon's golden amber eyes were wide open, glazed over and staring off into the forest. Katsuki would have thought it was looking for something, with the way its neck was angled and eye ridge was drawn up.
He reached forward to pat the dragon's jaw, then followed it's dead gaze passed his shoulder with his own crimson eyes. His brow furrowed when he snapped his attention back on the dragon.
"Don't worry. I'll find it for you." Katsuki whispered before reaching on either side of the dragon's wide face and closing its eyes. With only a moment of hesitation, he also placed a kiss on the dragon's clammy muzzle.
"Katsuki! Don't wander too far! It's easy to get lost in a forest." His mother shouted to him as he trudged toward where the trees were thick again.
"Yeah, yeah!" He shouted back. He knew how to traverse a forest, little to his mother's knowledge. Katsuki loved to hike out the thirty minutes it took his tiny legs to get to the forest's edge from their clan. He'd spend hours blundering through the thick foliage before heading back home.
Once under the canopy, Katsuki took out his dirk. Mostly to mark up trees so he could find his way back, but also to cut away any brush that barred his path.
His mind was set on finding whatever the dragon had its eyes on. Katsuki hoped it was the dragon's treasure. He wasn't stupid like Deku to think it'd be mounds of gold and jewels. No, Katsuki knew a dragon's treasure could be a single item, or even a living being, like a mate or their kin.
Katsuki really, really hoped the dragon was guarding its kin.
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The young barbarian wasn't keeping track of how long he had been hacking away at the underbrush. But to the five-year-old, it had seemed to take forever.
Katsuki huffed irritably as he flopped down on the duff using a boulder as a backrest. His arms burned and his face was red from how many swings he had to make with his dirk. The undergrowth was a lot thicker and there was so much more of it this deep in the woods. He wasn't used to having to cut his way through every little step he took.
Grumbling and pouting, Katsuki slid further down the boulder and gazed up through the thick canopy above. He traced the sparse blue peeking through with his eyes before a high pitched chirping sounded suddenly from his right. Katsuki scrambled upright, fist tightening around the hilt of his dirk. His crimson gaze snapped to the right, as he scanned the shrubs and brambles.
"Hello?" He called out in a squeaky voice. No, not because he was scared, he just hadn't drunk any water recently. He would definitely tell his mom it was a demanding hello, not something that a baby like Deku would've stammered out.
The chirping stopped immediately.
Katsuki's mouth clamped shut with an audible click. Maybe calling out was a bad idea? Now he didn't know exactly where the noise was coming from or what was making it.
He stilled himself, hoping what was making the noise would start again.
Sure enough, the chirping started up after a moment. It was a distressed noise, not unlike the pitiful sounds a newborn kitten makes to call for its mama. In turn, Katsuki frowned with his entire face.
The chirping would pause every six times. Shuffling could be heard in between, but the chirping would start again, not having moved position.
Katsuki approached quietly, thinking that maybe a big cat's cub was stuck. He really hoped it wasn't a sabertooth, and that the mom wasn't close enough to hear it's baby.
When he slid up to the brambles he thought the cub was under the shuffling increased in urgency. The chirping turned more into growls, and smoke began to rise from the brambles.
Katsuki's eyes blew wide and he dropped, pressing his tummy flat against the ground. As soon as he was leveled his crimson eyes locked with amber surrounded carmine orbs and serpent-like pupils.
"Hey… you're stuck?" He called as softly as possible. He shifted a bit trying to get a better look at the creature under the dark tangle. He was almost certain he was looking at a baby dragon, but there was not enough light to see it properly.
The creature chirped back loudly before wiggling again.
"I'll take that as a yes," Katsuki replied confidently. "I'll help ya out."
He shimmied backward to sheath the dirk, which honestly was the size of a short sword in his tiny hands. Katsuki then pulled out a small knife hidden in his fur-lined boots. The only reason to wear boots in his opinion was so he could hide weapons in them, otherwise going barefoot was the best.
Katsuki then lowered himself back to the ground, digging his elbows into the dirt to propel himself forward. "Okay. This is a knife. It's sharp like your teeth." He displayed the small weapon for the little creature to see and tapped the pointy end with his finger.
The baby creature churred and flashed shiny white fangs curved around a muzzle. The sight made Katsuki grin back, even more, confident with his assumption. "That's right! I'm gonna cut away the yucky brambles so stay still, and don't eat me, okay?"
With a huff, the baby dragon released steam from its little snout.
Katsuki narrowed his eyes at the dragon. "I'm trusting you. So no biting! I'll share my jerky with you when you're free."
After holding a staring contest with the carmine eyes, Katsuki only began cutting away the branches when the dragon broke its gaze first. He worked swiftly, but as careful as possible. He wanted no chance of nicking the baby dragon with his knife or any of the surrounding thorns. He didn't want to lose any trust the dragon might have in him. Katsuki was determined to make the baby dragon his friend.
"There. I think you can move now. Just crawl this way." He waved his hand toward himself as he shimmied back through the fresh tunnel he'd cut away.
The dragon waited a bit, keeping its eyes trained on the boy's movements. Once Katsuki was nearly out from under the brambles the dragon wiggled forward a few lengths.
"That's it, c'mon."
The dragon stopped just as a little black snout emerged from the shadows of the bramble bush. Its nostrils twitched, taking in the air around it as the dragon snuffled.
"No one but me around," Katsuki snorted. "You're safe." He scooted back a bit further to give the dragon some more room.
It took a little longer of Katsuki cooing and coaxing, trying desperately not to show his frustration before the dragon finally emerged from its cave.
Katsuki fidgeted, a wide smile on his lips and saucer-sized eyes as he watched. The onyx scales covering the blocky little body shimmered ruby red as rays of sunlight bounced off them. The dragon was built a bit like a tiger cub. Cylinder shaped torsos, with stalks arms and legs. Its tail was long, thick at the base and tapering off at the end like most lizards. Fledgling wings sprouted from it's back, pulled tight and tense against the length of its little body which was not quite as long as Katsuki's torso.
"You're a Kirishima!" Katsuki exclaimed in excitement. He knew he was too loud when the baby dragon's eyes dilated, making the pupil nearly swallow all the red. He covered his mouth quickly and whispered through his fingers. "Oops… But you are right? You and your mama?"
Katsuki didn't want to start rambling on like Deku always did, but he was seriously tempted. His father always read to him about different dragon families, and what abilities they were known for. Katsuki would be lying if he said that the Kirishima dragons weren't one of his favorites. They were known for being able to make their scales tougher than diamonds, and when they were hardened, not even Hell's Flame could burn them. It was especially impressive if you knew the only heat in existence that could cremate or set a dragon alight was Hell's Flame.
It was also kind of heartwrenching. Considering this little Kirishima dragon's mother must have been exhausted near the end of her fight. Katsuki couldn’t exactly make the situation go away, but maybe he could make it better.
The little dragon’s wide eyes blinked up a Katsuki before dipping its little chin down and up again.
A grin spread on Katsuki’s lips. “Knew it! So, Kirishima do you want some meat?”
Kirishima’s amber surrounded carmine eyes narrowed suspiciously at the boy.
“Hey, it’s good. Seasoned and dried.” Katsuki chuckled childishly as he reached into the leather bag tied to his belt. He waved the jerky in front of Kirishima’s nose, but the dragon backed away with a snort. “C’mon, it’s good, see?” Katsuki brought the meat to his mouth and ripped into it, chewing a bite and swallowing.
A long pink tongue peeked out of Kirishima’s muzzle and he licked his chops.
“Here, your turn.” The boy waved the piece of meat back at the baby dragon.
With one last disgruntled sniff, Kirishima’s mouth opened and gingerly took the meat from Katsuki’s fingers. The dragon chewed slowly. At first keeping its eyes locked to Katsuki’s boots, then slowly looking up to his face.
“Tired?” Katsuki asked, “Your day was pretty shitty right?” He opened his arms in an invitation. “You can come live with me. Our clan loves dragons, you’ll be safe there. No stinky poachers will bother you with me on your side! Your mama did good, and the clan made sure to kill those shitty leftovers.”
As Katsuki talked Kirishima crawled forward, belly still dragging on the ground.
“It’ll be okay boy, We’ll make sure she gets a proper ceremony.”
With a broken keen Kirishima buried his snout in Katsuki’s tunic. The little dragon’s entire frame shook with muffled weeps, chirps, and snuffles. It didn't take long for the boy to realize Kirishima was sobbing.
Katsuki wiggled a little, bringing his arms around the dragon and scooping him up fully into his lap. Kirishima curled with the movement, making his little body as small as possible. The dragon’s tail wrapped around Katsuki’s waist.
The young barbarian hesitated a moment before stroking between Kirishima’s wings in an attempt at comfort. Katsuki couldn’t imagine how horrible it was to lose one’s mother forever, even if his own mom was annoying. He’d never want her to die.
“It’s gonna get dark soon. Can I take you home?” Katsuki questioned after the dragon in his lap started to still.
Huge glossy eyes looked up at him and blinked, causing droplets of tears coursing from the corners. Katsuki didn’t even know dragons had the ability to shed tears. And he knew a lot about dragons.
“I’m gonna take that as a yes.” Katsuki went to stand and stumbled.
Instead of Kirishima removing himself from his lap as Katsuki assumed he would. The dragon instead clung desperately. His sharp claws digging desperately into Katsuki’s tunic. It was notably effective because of opposable thumbs on the hands of his forelegs.
“What the heck? Leggo!” The boy growled, wobbling unsteadily before falling back on his rump.
Kirishima cooed, nuzzling his damp snout into Katsuki’s collar.
“Ack! No! That tickles stupid!” The boy giggled and shoved at the dragon’s snout. “You gonna let me up now?”
Kirishima looked up at Katsuki, carmine eyes shining and brow ridge drawn up is a frown as he made a snuffling noise.
Katsuki’s shoulders dropped and he made a disgruntled noise, halfway between a groan and a pout. “Fine, I’ll carry you, ya baby.”
A lighter coo was the only answer he got.
With a snap, Katsuki unclasped his cape. He brought the fabric around, under the dragon’s backend and over his own shoulders. He clipped the broach back together making a sling with Kirishima swaddled tightly to his chest.
When he stood up this time, and even though the dragon weighed nearly as much as the boy did, the task was much easier. Katsuki looked back through the pathway he’d cut earlier. Thankfully it was going to be much easier to get back.
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“Katsuki! Katsuki!”
As the boy got closer to the clearing, he could hear his mother’s frantic calls for him. He emerged from the brush just to bump right into her waist.
“Katsuki! I thought I told you to stay close, you brat!” Matsuki kneeled roughly into the ground, grabbing her son by the shoulders. She jostled him a bit, looking him over for injuries.
“Stahp!” Katsuki grumbled, shoving away from her hands and hissing under his breath, “You’re gonna wake him up!”
Matsuki rose a delicate brow, “Wake who?”
Katsuki clenched determined fists in front of his chest, a huge grin playing on his face. “Kirishima, my dragon!”
At his mother’s confused gaze, Katsuki pulled down the lip of his sling. It revealed enough to let his mother get a glimpse of a little black nose, nostrils flaring softly with each breath.
She gasped softly as reached forward to pull away more of the sling.
The baby dragon was snuggled soundly into Katsuki’s middle. The horns sprouting from his forehead threatening to rip holes in Katsuki’s tunic, eyelids twitching because of his dreams and clawed hand clutching at the fabric.
“Where?” Mitsuki breathed softly.
“He was in the forest. His mama was protecting him I think. He’s so little.” Katsuki said in a voice softer then his mom had heard in a long time, all while stroking Kirishima through the rough fabric of his cape.
“Mitsuki! You found him!” Masaru came crashing clumsily through the underbrush, relief washing over his features.
“Shhh!” Katsuki hissed at the same time his mother called out, “Katsuki found the Kirishima’s baby.”
“What!? Really?” Masaru’s eyes lit up curiously as he knelt beside his family. He hummed thoughtfully, placing his hand on the dragon’s forehead. He patted Kirishima softly a few times before peeling the dragon’s lips back and checking out his fangs. “Looks like he’s about your age Katsuki.”
Light danced in Katsuki’s eyes. “Cool!” He paused, brow drawing together. “We gonna have a dragon funeral for his mom?”
Mitsuki patted her son’s wild blonde hair softly. “Of course. We’ll honor her properly, and your new friend will always have a memorial to remember her by.”
Katsuki nodded reverently back, casting a gaze over her shoulder to look at Kirishima’s downed mother. The events that brought the pair together may not have been the best, but Katsuki was looking forward to the adventures they would have in the future.