Crossing Fates : Book 4 - Free (BakuDeku)

26 - Empty Hands

Izuku watched him so worriedly.

He still had his arm jammed in a dragon's mouth, which still made Katsuki want to laugh.

His mate's freckled face was dirty and bruised, and the battle rang out all around them, but somehow, the viciousness never touched them.

They existed somewhere else, somewhere sacred, apart from it all.

That was until Momo rapped on his snout with her knuckles.

"Since you're getting better, you ought to know that my protection spell against the sun doesn't last as long as it used to," said the witch. "I need to get out of the sun, and you need to take over this incantation. People are going to keep dying if we don't figure out how to make some headway against this."

Katsuki's attention snapped back to what was happening all around him.

Not ten feet away, Eijiro had wrestled Nemuri to the ground.

The gryphon held the Elven woman pinned from behind, his arms wrapped around her as he gripped her wrists. Her body strained convulsively to break his hold until the tendons in her arms and legs showed white like bone against her skin.

All the while, she stared blankly into space through the tangled curtain of her hair.

Even though violence churned all around them, Eijiro talked to her. His voice was gentle as he said, "You're all right. You're going to be all right."

But while Tetsutetsu rescued children and Eijiro held on to Nemuri, no one else had the luxury of picking just one person to save.

He noticed that they tried to knock the Elves back without inflicting harm, but gradually they were both taking and inflicting damage as they were surrounded by an army that would not stop advancing.

Not until Tomura himself was stopped.

He focused on Momo's incantation.

Analyzing, he realized that she was acting as a focal point for the other magic users. Her incantation took their individual spells and wove them together in a patchwork defense against Tomura and the God Machine.

They were holding together a bubble of shelter around the sentinels and other fighters who had managed to reach him, while not twenty feet away, a hurricane force had picked up once again and battered against their shields.

They were cut off from the rest of their troops, including Mirio and the other Nyr.

Nobody else could fly in or out.

Even as he studied them, one of the magic users faltered and fell out of the pattern.

Momo repaired the hole quickly by reweaving the other spells together, but Katsuki could hear the strain in her voice.

She wouldn't be able to hold the spells together for much longer, and when she lost control of the pattern, all the rest would fall apart.

Katsuki gently pushed Izuku's arm out of his mouth and shapeshifted, rolling onto his hands and knees.

He straightened and put his hand on Izuku's shoulder, squeezing, as he asked Momo, "Can you hold for a little while longer?"

Not far away, Tenya glanced over his shoulder as he batted several Elves away with one wide swipe of his giant paw.

Momo's face twisted but she nodded. The Vampire wrapped her cloak tightly around her body and pulled the hood over her head, still chanting.

Izuku said hoarsely, "I need to go to Sekijiro."

There was nothing anybody could do for Sekijiro, but he did not tell him that.

Instead, he let go of Izuku's shoulder and said, "Go."

Izuku wobbled to his feet and, cradling his arm against his side, he limped toward the Elf Lord's still form.

Ochako noticed and pulled back from the fighting. As soon as those on either side of her filled the gap that she left, she jogged after Izuku.

Katsuki could no longer act in partnership with a dead man.

Freed from his oath to the High Lord, Katsuki turned his attention back to the sole reason why he had come.

To Tomura, who couldn't seem to leave his mate alone, and who couldn't seem to go off and be a maniacal despot in a pocket of Margin Land somewhere else that had nothing to do with Katsuki or the Nyr.

And Katsuki could learn to give in sometimes, in some ways. But there really was only so far he could bend.

This was not going to be one of those times.

This was the time to make a real victim out of that son of a bitch.

Katsuki cloaked himself with a spell so tight, not a mouse would have sensed his presence. Then he strode between Ojiro and Kyoka, into the howling gale, and he walked into the enthralled army.

As he hunted through the sea of hollowed eyes and empty faces, one by one, he filtered everything out. Momo and the other magic users. The God Machine.

Everything but that last thread of Power, the blood of his prey.

When he located it, he did not try to push against it or fight it. Instead he followed it, tracing it back to its source.

Unlike Tomura, he did not have a God Machine to magnify his abilities. He needed to draw close to his target for what he meant to do.

When he had gotten close enough, he curled his own Power around that singular thread, and he began to whisper a beguilement that brought him into an almost perfect alignment with it.

Then he slid his intention into it obliquely, as if by accident.

"You are the bringer of the end of your days," he whispered.

His enemy was very near, gathered behind a knot of strong Elven warriors.

"This is the final note in your song. It was set in motion at your beginning. You have forgotten that Death himself is part of your whole. You have done your job well, and you can let go. Let go. What you wish for is here- your ending. Now you can fall into silence."

Others like Tomura might share a talent for beguilement, but no one could beguile quite like the dragon who could whisper death with such gentle purity that it marked the soul for which it was intended.

Even still, his prey could have fought him, and might even have had a chance against the beguilement if his survival instinct had been strong enough, except that Katsuki used what Tomura wanted most against him.

The singular thread of Power dissolved.

He almost heard a sigh of relief from Tomura as it dissipated.

His eardrums pounded as the howling gale died.

Tomura's army staggered to a halt.

Nyr shouted to each other and to him while Mirio and others who had been left on the bluff raced toward them.

Several minutes later, searchers came upon Katsuki standing over Tomura, who was dead.

The Elf sat in a lotus position, his empty hands in his lap.

Like Sekijiro in the painting, Tomura looked as though he cupped something immeasurably precious.

Katsuki stared at Tomura in silence for a long moment before he turned away.