𝓝𝓸𝓽 𝓗𝓸𝔀 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂 𝓖𝓸𝓮𝓼 | Katsuki Bakugou x Male reader

Chapter 24

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Where is she? What are they doing to her? "Eri!" (M/N) shouted out. "Eri!" Only another agonised scream answered him. How did she get here? Why is she part of the Games? "Eri!"

Vines cut into (M/N)'s face and arms, creepers grabbed his feet. But he was getting closer to her. Closer. Very close now. Sweat poured down his face. He panted, trying to get some use of the warm, moist air that seemed empty of oxygen. Eri made a sound - such a lost, irretrievable sound - that he couldn't even imagine what they had done to evoke it.

"Eri!" (M/N) ripped through a wall of green into a small clearing and the sound repeated directly above him. Above him? His head whipped back. Did they have her up in the trees? He desperately searched the branches but saw nothing.

"Eri?" (M/N) said pleadingly. He heard her but couldn't see her. Her next wail rang out, clear as a bell, and there was no mistaking the source. It was coming from the mouth of a small, crested black bird perched on a branch about three metres over his head. And then he understood.

It was a jabberjay.

He had never seen one before - he thought they no longer existed - and for a moment, as he leaned against the trunk of the tree, clutching the stitch in his side, he examined it. The mutation, the forerunner, the father.

He pulled up a mental image of a mockingbird, fused it with the jabberjay, and yes, he could see how they mated to make his mockingjay. There was nothing about the bird that suggested it was a mutt. Nothing except the horribly lifelike sounds of Eri's voice streaming from its mouth. (M/N) silenced it with an arrow to its throat. The bird fell to the ground. (M/N) removed his arrow and wrung its neck for good measure. Then he hurled the revolting thing into the jungle. No degree of hunger could ever tempt him to eat it.

It wasn't real, (M/N) told himself. The same way the mutation wolves last year weren't really the dead tributes. It's just a sadistic trick of the Gamemakers.

Denki crashed into the clearing to find (M/N) wiping his arrow clean with some moss. "(M/N)?"

"It's ok. I'm ok," (M/N) said, although he didn't feel ok at all. "I thought I heard my sister but-" The piercing shriek cut him off. It was another voice, not Eri's, maybe a young woman's. (M/N) didn't recognise it. But the effect on Denki was instantaneous. The colour vanished from his face and (M/N) could see his pupils dilate in fear. "Denki, wait!" (M/N) said, reaching out to reassure him, but he had bolted away. Gone off in pursuit of the victim, as mindlessly as (M/N) pursued Eri.

"Denki!" (M/N) called, but he knew Denki wouldn't turn back and wait for him to give a rational explanation. So all he could do was follow the blonde.

It was no effort for (M/N) to track Denki, even though he was moving so fast, since he left a clear, trampled path in his wake. But the bird was at least half a kilometre away, most of it uphill, and by the time (M/N) reached him, he was winded.

Denki was circling a giant tree. The trunk had to be over a metre in diameter and the limbs didn't even begin until six metres up. The woman's shrieks emanated from somewhere in the foliage, but the jabberjay was concealed. Denki was screaming as well, over and over. "Kyoka! Kyoka!" He was in a state of panic and completely unreachable, so (M/N) did what he would do anyway. He scaled an adjacent tree, located the jabberjay, and took it out with an arrow.

It fell straight down, landing right at Denki's feet. He picked it up, slowly making the connection, but when (M/N) slid down to join him, he looked more despairing than ever.

"It's all right, Denki. It's just a jabberjay. They're playing a trick on us," (M/N) said. "It's not real. It's not your... Kyoka."

"No, it's not Kyoka. But the voice was hers. Jabberjays mimic what they hear. Where did they get those screams, (M/N)?" Denki said.