Chapter Text
"Hey, Kiri?"
The young dragon turned, gemstone eyes alighting on the girl laying in the bed of flowers beside him.
"What is it?" he asked, his head tilting at her tone.
Her eyes stayed trained on the sky, a rare note of melancholy in her bright voice as she tracked the movement of the fluffy white clouds above them. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"Well... I dunno. That's not something I've ever had to think about before." He laughed nervously. He didn't understand where this was coming from. She knew what he was, so why would she ask?
She looked at him then, her brown eyes pleading with him to understand what her mouth wouldn't say. "Try? Just off the top of your head, what would you choose?"
He scratched his head, thinking hard. For some reason, it felt important. He wanted to try, for her, his best friend in the world.
"I guess if I had to choose... I'd want to be kind."
Immediately after he said it, Kirishima thought his answer inadequate. Surely that wasn't what she was looking for.
And yet, the girl stared at him like it was better than she could have hoped for. Relief flooded her features, still soft with the openness of childhood, and she looked back up at the clouds with a satisfied smile and flower petals in her raven hair.
"Good. That's a good answer."
The redhead shook the memory away, trying his best not to rustle the leaves concealing him from view. It had been years since he last thought about the girl from that summer all those years ago. How long had that been? A decade, at least, maybe verging on two.
Voices sounded from somewhere to his left, first questioning then loud and demanding. Quick feet crashed through the underbrush, choosing speed over stealth. The voices came closer, herding their quarry in Kirishima's direction. He sighed and peered out through the branches with keen eyes. He was supposed to be on a hunt, why was he thinking about the past right now?
A flash of silver burst through the gap in the trees, the figure of a woman tearing across the forest floor. Kirishima tracked her progress, predatory satisfaction coiling in his chest when he noticed that her path would take her right past him. The men had played their part well, the snare set and waiting to snap taut. He held his breath, his muscles coiling beneath him, as he waited for the right moment to strike. He saw her look back over her shoulder, unaware of the trap awaiting her. Steady...
Now!
Time slowed to a crawl as he jumped from his hiding spot. He timed it perfectly, plummeting towards the silver haired woman's back as she crossed under the tree. He grinned, anticipating a flawless capture. First he would pin her to the ground, draw one of his daggers fluidly and hold it to her throat. He would say something cool and wait for his companions to catch up. Then he would-
In the split second before impact, her head snapped towards him, brilliant amber eyes pinning him with a hawk eyed stare. She saw him, not by accident, but by trained instinct. This woman wasn't a rabbit chased into a snare at all. She was a snake and now she had him in her chokehold. A Hunter.
The shift was barely perceptible. One moment she was streaking through the forest, running away from his hunting party, the next she was turning towards Kirishima with her dagger drawn.
"Shit!" Kirishima moved on reflex more than intention, summoning hard scales up his forearms. He blocked her dagger from piercing his chest with one arm, metal screeching against unyielding plates. His other hand clamped hard around her wrist, keeping her from striking again.
The woman tried to pull free, her sleeve ripping under the sharp points of his claws, but his hold did not give. She huffed, trapped for the moment, but then... She smiled. Her odd eyes glinted eerily in the dappled sunlight, locked on his face, on the scales scattering across his cheeks and throat from the partial transformation.
"Found you," she said gleefully, her voice low and dark, "dragon."
Kirishima's breath caught, his eyes widening. He knew that voice. It was mature now, no longer the high and reedy pitch of a child, but he knew it. Instinctively. And her face... He could almost see her, the girl with the sunlit smile and eyes filled with wonder. But it was... Wrong. The color was wrong and the cruelty in their depths...
"Who," he managed to breathe. The rest caught in his throat, stuck behind the shattered pieces of his fondest memories. Who have you become?
If she heard him, she didn't care to answer. With a look of cold determination, she tapped the heel of her right boot to her left. A hidden blade sprang free of the toe with a click, not long enough to kill but sharp enough to maim. She pivoted on her heel, using his grip on her arm as an anchor, and kicked out towards his side.
Kirishima let go of her arm, hastily throwing himself back to avoid a nasty slice across his abdomen. But she gave him no room to breathe, retracting the blade back into her boot with a twist of her heel and advancing on him again with her dagger. He could barely keep up, using his scaled arms to fend her off.
He didn't understand. What happened to her? Why was she a Hunter? How could that be? Clearly she knew what he was, but had she come here knowing it was him? Didn't she recognize him?
"Wait!" He called, wincing at the force vibrating through his bones. "Hold on a second!"
She huffed derisively, punctuating each phrase with an attack with renewed vigor. "You can wait; I've waited my whole life for this! Now hold still and die!"
Kirishima dodged a stab at his face, his spine bending backwards. He gritted his teeth and caught her wrist again as it passed his face, using her to pull him back up. Enough was enough. "Stop! You know me!" A pained expression crossed his face and he let her name fall from his lips.
"Haruka."
Her body went rigid like she'd been struck by lightning. Wide amber eyes, still luminescent and wrong, locked on his.
"You-"
Bang.
The musketball caught her in the shoulder, the impact sending her stumbling away from him. She caught her footing, teeth bared in an ugly grimace as she faced the newcomer. The cavalry had arrived.
"Shit, that was close!" Kaminari shouted, his still smoking gun giving a telltale click as he reloaded. "You okay, Kiri?"
Kirishima didn't answer, his eyes still on Haruka. So it was her. She had reacted to her name, but it wasn't recognition he saw on her face. Not surprise or nostalgia.
It was rage.
And that fury continued to twist her features as she watched them, eyes flicking between Kaminari and him, but always lingering on him. Weighing her options, most likely. She wanted to continue fighting, but it didn't look like she had any other weapons on her. Hunter or not, two opponents would be a challenge to take on with just a couple of daggers. The smartest recourse would be for her to bolt.
And there were voices in the woods. Kaminari's shot had alerted them to their position and they were coming in fast. Reinforcements. Definitely too much for one injured Hunter to take on.
"Tch." Her eyes landed on him, a dark promise in their depths. "This isn't over."
Then she was gone, silver winking in the slanted sunlight as the forest swallowed her whole.
Kaminari fired another shot at her fleeing back, but it embedded itself in a tree just past her shoulder. He cursed, at a disadvantage in the cover of the trees.
"Go, go!" he called to the men crashing through the brush. "She won't get far. Bring her in alive. Bakugo wants a word with her."
The assortment of bandits and thugs grinned brutishly, hastening to pick up the chase. Kaminari sighed, unsure who he was more sorry for, the Hunter or the hapless underlings. An unarmed Hunter was still leagues more dangerous than ten armed thugs. But this Hunter had picked the wrong thugs to mess with.
Sunflower yellow eyes drifted to Kirishima, who still had yet to move. Kaminari furrowed his brows before cautiously reaching out to grasp the dragon shifter's shoulder. "Hey man, you okay? Did she get you?"
Kirishima shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on where she had been. Her eyes, so filled with hatred, were burned into his mind.
"I... don't know."