DRAGON'S BROOD (Kirishima x Bakugou)

Chapter 11: Shift

Bakugou's PoV

When I had lowered my sword, Kirishima slowly took down his raised hands and watched me closely.

I didn't move, I just stared at the redhead. The man I had only met tonight looked at me waiting. I knew I had a dragon's brood in front of me. He could shift at any moment and would then be far superior to me at least from the pure fighting strength.

"Bakugou. I don't want to fight you," he finally said quietly. "But I promised someone to stay alive and I will do everything I can to keep that promise." His voice was quiet, but still there was a certain and haunting undertone in his words.

I tightened my grip on the sword until my knuckles turned white. My mind told me that I had to kill him before he had a chance to shift into his dragon shape. But when I looked into his big red eyes, I saw no dragon in him. I saw an upright handsome young man. A man who would certainly not use violence voluntarily.

I swallowed and thought back to the story Aizawa had told me about him. He was someone who would stand in front of a little girl when a man got pushy. The report had seemed absurd to me at the time, but when I looked at Red now it seemed to fit perfectly. My grip around my sword loosened and I let my shoulders sink.

Fuck my mind, my instinct told me otherwise. Slowly I let my sword slide back into the sheath. Red's shoulders fell with relief and he laughed nervously.

Then I heard the whirring of an arrow flying past my right ear. It drilled itself into Red's shoulder. I had been so focused on the red-haired man in front of me that I hadn't noticed Aizawa with the troop sneaking up on us.

Kirishima cried out and instinctively felt with his hand for the arrow. Dark blood came out of the deep wound. With one jerk he pulled out the arrow and hot dragon's blood dripped hissing to the ground. He bared his teeth and revealed his predator fangs.

That was the moment I saw the dragon in him. He raised his head, a deep fold between his now glowing red eyes, and stared past me at my troop. A shiver went through his body.

"Bakugou, move!" Aizawa shouted to me.

I had stared as if frozen at Kirishima, who stood only two meters away from me, without realizing the danger I was in. Kirishima was about to shift. There where I stood, would stand in few seconds a full-grown dragon! Quickly I hurried into a safe area.

Kirishima's PoV

The pain in my shoulder ignited a fire in me. I had just thought that I could miraculously convince Bakugou of me and then one of these bastards had shot me from ambush!

I saw a glow on my left hand and noticed that it was the ring Ochako had given me. But I didn't have much time to think about it, because the pain of my transformation began. Never before had I shifted, but I had no idea that it would be so unpleasant. Every muscle was stretched and expanded, bounded by the hard scales into which my skin transformed at the same time.

A scream escaped my lips and I heard it turn into a deep roar. But the magic was quickly over and I found myself in a dragon's body. One would think that one needed time to deal with an unknown body, that it felt different, but this was not an unfamiliar body. It was my body and it felt quite natural when I dug the claws into the hard rocks below me.

From above I looked down upon the king's henchmen. Bare anger spread within me. I hadn't done anything to anyone! Sharp smoke came out of my nose as I exhaled angrily. But they hadn't actually come to fight. Their arrows couldn't do much more than pierce my wing skins. The trained fighter, the one who knew the weak points of a dragon and knew exactly in which angle he had to stab with his hardened blade, was Bakugou.

I turned and looked down upon him. He stood only a few meters away from me and stared at me with wide eyes. His sword still rested in his sheath. Slowly he laid his hand on the handle of the sword. I growled.

Observantly, we stood opposite each other. I didn't want to make the first move, I had told him that I didn't want to fight and had meant it that way.

"Bakugou!" one of the men shouted upset, as if to wake the dragonslayer. I recognized his voice. It was the man Bakugou had talked to when I overheard them on their ride to Tamio.

The dragonslayer flinched, looked briefly over his shoulder and nodded. Then he drew his sword and put on a grin as he stood in combat position. But it wasn't the same dangerous grin he had put on when he had caught me and stopped me. It was a little as if some of his willpower had left him.

But while I was still thinking about it, he had jumped towards me and had overcome the last meters that separated us. His sword flashed in the darkness as he set about a stroke from below. Only one flap of my wings and I avoided his attack. But he was immediately at my side again. He was fast and agile and I cursed myself that I had underestimated him. He blocked my wings so I couldn't spread them out and just fly away. Every time I tried he attacked me, so I had to get to safety first.

And then he jumped on me. I growled and reared up, but he held on to a spike on my neck. In the corner of my eye I saw his sword flashing again and panically I threw myself back. I would definitely not die here and now!

And in fact, I had managed to unbalance him. Bakugou fell off my back. But that didn't seem to scratch him at all. Still in the air he turned and landed on his feet. But the momentum with which he landed knocked him off balance and he stumbled back.

But behind him was nothing but the gaping abyss of the steep coast.