𝓝𝓸𝓽 𝓗𝓸𝔀 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂 𝓖𝓸𝓮𝓼 | Katsuki Bakugou x Male reader

Chapter 22

---

Katsuki dropped the sheath and buried his knife into the monkey's back, stabbing it again and again until it released its jaw. He kicked it away, bracing for more. (M/N) had the arrows now, a loaded bow, and Denki at his back, breathing hard but not actively engaged.

"Come on then! Come on!" Katsuki shouted, panting with rage. But something had happened to the monkeys. They were withdrawing, backing up trees, fading into the jungle, as if some unheard voice called them away. A Gamemaker's voice, telling them this was enough.

"Get her," (M/N) said to Katsuki. "We'll cover you."

Katsuki gently lifted up the morphling and carried her the last few metres to the beach while Denki and (M/N) kept their weapons at the ready. But except for the orange carcasses on the ground, the monkeys were gone.

Katsuki laid the morphling on the sand. (M/N) cut away the material over her chest, revealing four deep puncture wounds. Blood slowly trickled from them, making them look far less deadly than they were. The real damage was inside. By the position of the openings, (M/N) was certain the beast raptured something vital, a lung, maybe even her heart.

She laid there on the sand, gasping like a fish out of water. Sickly green, her ribs as prominent as a child's dead of starvation. Surely she could have afforded food, but turned to the morphling just as Shota turned to drink, (M/N) guessed. Everything about her spoke of waste - her body, her life. The vacant look in her eyes. (M/N) held one of her twitching hands, unclear whether it moved from the poison that affected their nerves, the shock of the attack, or withdrawal from the drug that was her sustenance. There was nothing they could do. Nothing but stay with her until she died.

"I'll watch the trees," Denki said before walking away. (M/N) wanted to walk away, too, but she gripped his hand so tightly (M/N) would have to pry off her fingers, and he didn't have the strength for that kind of cruelty. He thought of Wendy, how maybe he could sing a song or something. But he didn't even know her name, let alone if she liked songs. He just knew she was dying.

Katsuki crouched down on the other side of her. "With my paint box at home, I can make every colour imaginable. Pink. As pale as a baby's skin. Or as deep as rhubarb. Green like spring grass. Blue that shimmers like ice on water."

The morphling stared into Katsuki's eyes, hanging on to his words. (M/N) watched, too, surprised at his inclusion.

"Once, I spent three days mixing paint until I found the right shade for sunlight on white fur. You see, I kept thinking it was yellow, but it was much more than that. Layers of all sorts of colour. One by one," Katsuki said quietly. His tone shift was so soothing to (M/N), though he couldn't place exactly why.

"I haven't figured out rainbows yet. They come so quickly and leave so soon. I never have enough time to capture them. Just a bit of blue here or purple there. And then they fade away again. Back into the air," Katsuki said.

She seemed mesmerised by Katsuki's words, and so was (M/N). Though quickly after, her blood-covered hands stopped twitching, she gave one last huff of air, and the cannon fired. The grip on (M/N)'s hand released.

They let her body float out towards the Cornucopia, then the hovercraft appeared and a four-pronged claw dropped, encased her, carried her into the night sky, and she was gone.

Denki rejoined the two, his fist full of (M/N)'s arrows still wet with monkey blood. He dropped them beside (M/N) on the sand. "Thought you might want these."

"Thanks," (M/N) said. He waded into the water and washed off the gore, from his weapons, his wounds. By the time he returned to the jungle to gather some moss to dry them, all the monkeys' bodies had vanished.