Erased Blood: A MHA fantasy AU

CHAPTER 7: CRIMSON SNOW

A land in the north, covered with ice existed, or so the legends said. They said that it was so cold that the mist was dense enough to make people a feet away unnoticeable. That the people there wielded the power of ice, that the palaces were elaborate frost architecture.

"'Tis a myth," was the general consensus in the Kingdom Of Endeavor where the majority were fire wielders, where most hadn't ever seen snow, apart from misleading drawings in ancient scripts. 

Until the King brought home a queen from the same lands, introducing them to ice-wielders and the first ever snowfall.

The same queen who disappeared in the first fifteen years of his reign without a trace, gone as suddenly as she had appeared. 

No one in the Kingdom of Endeavor dared to ask why, for the rumor was that whoever questioned the workings of the royal family were fed to the hellhounds. 

The description they got was very vivid, and children to this day suffered from nightmares of a black beasts ripping them apart, maws coated crimson. 

The order in the Kingdom was strict, every individual had to join the military and receive battle training, regardless of their personal wants. So, it was not a wonder that the people grew unsatisfied with the King, unsatisfied with his working, unsatisfied with the secrecy, the lack of benovelence and unsatisfied with how the Kingdom was slowly, but surely falling into ruins. 

The Kingdom used to be a prosperous one, with the previous Kings focusing on endeavors for the sake of the nation, instead of their personal selfish ones.

A bird chirped in the wee morning hours, where there was still a way to be carefree, in those special moments during dawn when they still could pretend that they weren't under a tyrannical rule of a maniac, who had secluded himself after learning of the state of their rival Kingdom, and the only orders that they received were, 

"Carry on with the training at all costs. Don't let their disappearance lure you into a false sense of security."

He sounded possessed, driven to madness with his obsession to defeat someone, destroying himself and everyone around him.

The fire that consumed everything without mercy. 

"Prince Shoto, shouldn't you be training?" 

The attendant looked intimidated at the look he got, and withered in his resolve and went away, not daring to risk the wrath of the Crown Prince. 

When he was gone, Shoto Todoroki turned to his violin once again, which he had been playing. When he had been younger and could still hope, his mother had taught him to play the violin.

That was the only happy memory he had of her.

Others were all corrupted by age, tainted and splattered with tears. 

His world was a bubble of thorns prickling into his skin, and through the blood dripping into his eyes he could see his siblings playing.

Through the harsh ringing of merciless orders in his ears, he heard their careless laughter. 

A hand ghosted the scar on his right eye, the phantom pain flaring up yet again.

"I fear that he is starting to become like him."

After the scar, she had been locked up and sent away in absolute secrecy, while he had cried and pleaded for her to be brought back, his last source of comfort in this accursed palace, where he was nothing but a walking shell, devoid of feelings but a rage, to burn everything to the ground, to see the last of the man who gave birth to him. 

He closed his eyes, wishing he could cry, instead of the twisted vine around his heart. 

The song he had been composing lay unfinished in her chamber, half charred, half frozen, completely forgotten. 

A traveler shielded his eyes against the brilliant eyes to look at the castle window, catching a flash of red and white, like splattered blood on snow, passion wound with calmth. 

The wind blew the hood off his head, revealing a curly mess of forest green.  

~~~~~~~~~

The house which Aizawa returned to felt sort of forlorn, however he was able to point out why, so he settled for moving cautiously as he went about his activities.  

Activity would be more accurate to describe this, for halfway through sorting out the paperwork, he fell asleep on the page, getting black ink on his tired face.

A feather flew in through the window to position a blanket on him. 

~~~

"Would you fancy a game of chess before you leave, Chief Advisor, Nedzu?"

The King's smile was warm and inviting, as Nedzu waited for his ride to him.

Mimicking that smile, Nedzu simply threw a scroll of parchment at his face in retaliation.

"My, my, pets surely have grown violent nowadays," he said with the same smile as he opened the scroll.

On it was written: 

"The King asks the bishop to a game of chess, after giving the Knight a deadly task.

The Bishop smiles back and throws a scroll at him to hiss the answer: No

The King laughs, finding it funny, appreciating the critter's good sense of humor." 

The last line should have made him try to repress his laughter, to prove Nedzu wrong, but alas, the King Of UA wasn't the one to do so.

His laughter made a few birds fly away.

The ringing in Nedzu's ears as he left made him question his decision to goad the King into a strategic game once again.