Chapter Text
How to hunt down a dragon
Bakugou Katsuki was on a hunt. And it was not just a regular shitty hunt to bring a wild boar back for a banquet. No, today he was going to hunt down a dragon and become a warrior.
Katsuki was the son of Bakugou Mitsuki, the chief of their village and the strongest Viking warrior in the whole world (as far as Katsuki is concerned). Warriors and Chiefs from all over the land came to her to show their respects, and one of the reasons she was so revered was because she took down her first dragon at 17 years old. This week Katsuki himself has turned 17, and that is why right now he is in this tiny shitty boat that barely fits a man and a goat to find himself a dragon to kill.
You see, dragons are a fucking pest. They live in an archipelago of small islands about 6 hours sailing from Katsuki’s village, and the fucking nuisances destroy every boat that comes near their territory. Many ill-advised fishermen have already perished from the dragons’ attacks. And if that was not enough, sometimes the fucking lizards dared to steal sheep from their herds in the middle of the night.
That is why the order for every warrior in the village was to kill any dragon on sight if possible. And it was considered an unofficial rite of passage for young men seeking to become warriors. No warrior would be taken seriously without at least one dragon tooth hanging from a leather string in their neck. Usually, young Vikings in age to become warriors (from 18 to 20 years old) spend their nights awake hoping to score a dragon trying to eat a sheep. Or they volunteer to accompany fishermen to see if they luck out and catch a dragon away from their archipelago.
But those are shitty options for shitty cowards that want to sit around on their asses for far too long. Bakugou Katsuki is not a coward and doesn’t have time to wait around for a dragon to graciously fall on his sword. That is why today when the first rays of sun peeked in the horizon, Katsuki was taking a tiny boat (one that wouldn’t be missed by the fishermen when they started their day) dressed in his best combat clothes (rustic dark brown trousers, a light short-sleeved cotton white shirt, black boots and his thick red cape lined with wolf fur), carrying his best weapons (his big broadsword, his bow and arrow quiver, and a long rope with a metal hook on the end of it) to get close to the dragon’s islands and hunt one down.
His mother would scream like a banshee if she got a wind of what he was doing. She is always nagging him about how she only killed that first dragon because it invaded her family’s land and was destroying their herd. Earl Mitsuki ruled with an iron fist and she believes dragons shouldn’t be hunted purposely or else they may decide to hunt the humans back. According to his mother’s rules, dragons can be killed if they come to their land or if they fly by a Viking boat.
But Katsuki doesn’t give a fuck about his mother’s coward rules. When he becomes Earl, they will hunt down every single one of those fucking overgrown lizards and get rid of those nuisances once and for all. Fuck this shit of waiting around until the dragons decide they had enough of fish and sheep and that now they want human meat. They don’t even know how many dragons there even are in the fucking archipelago, but from what they have seen flying around it was a fucking lot. Dragons of several colors, shapes, sizes, and abilities.
Katsuki would not be caught unprepared when the fuckers come, and he will show his mother how ready he is to take his place as First Warrior. The position of First Warrior in his village is vacant as of now. Usually, the strongest warrior in the village is chosen as the First Warrior if the Earl is not in conditions to lead battles and raids anymore. And the fucking old hag isn’t! She is getting old and slow, and Katsuki deserves the place as First Warrior! But he can’t claim to be the strongest warrior in the village without a fucking dragon tooth on his chest, and if he doesn’t get it soon enough the old hag will have to appoint someone else for the fucking position! Katsuki simply can’t let that shit happen.
He already can see a small island that belongs to the dragons’ archipelago on the horizon. The island is so fucking small that not even his village’s market could fit in the shitty thing, but that is a good thing. He knows he will not find many dragons around here, but it would be suicide to fight more than one dragon by himself. That is alright for today, Katsuki just needs one dragon, one tooth. After he goes back to his village, claims the title of First Warrior and builds a hunting party, then he can come back and take down several of the flying fuckers at once.
Katsuki decides he is close enough and starts setting up his bait. He brought some pieces of goat and a leather pouch full of goat’s blood to grab a dragon’s attention. He douses the goat pieces in the blood and throws as far away from his boat as he can. Dragons supposedly have very good senses of smell, so one of them should pick up the smell in the water if they are close enough.
After setting his bait, all he could do was wait. Katsuki’s sharp red eyes scan the horizon looking for any movement at all. The fucking lizards could fly and swim proficiently, so his prey could be coming from deep under the water or from up in the sky. The sun is at its peak right now, and it hurts Bakugou’s eyes to look so intensively. The water looks like it is sprinkled with shredded glass from how much it shimmers.
Katsuki’s eyes are watering from the luminosity, so maybe it took him longer than it should to notice that one of the shadows in the water was not moving slowly like all the other cloud shadows. He glares at the sea trying to be sure it’s a dragon under the waves and not some whale, but he sees nothing in it. Then he looks up to see if there is anything hiding among the clouds and… gotcha fucker.
There is something there alright. It looks big enough to be a dragon, and it’s trying to be stealthy hiding between fluffy clouds so Bakugou can barely see its shape in the sky. But if Bakugou can’t see it, the dragon probably can’t see him properly either. The lizard is too high to kill with a sword, but Bakugou brought his bow thinking about that.
However, as Bakugou is preparing his arrow, the dragon dives towards the floating piece of goat. Shit, the fucking lizard is stupid. The dragon is all black and doesn’t look too big from where Katsuki can see it. He didn’t think any dragon would be dense enough to actually go eat the goat, he thought they would be lured by the smell but notice it was a bait since dragons supposedly were so damn smart. Not this dragon, though. This loser was going at it like he hadn’t eaten in a whole fucking week.
Well, even fucking better for Katsuki. Bakugou fixes his hook on an arrow and untangles the rope. He can’t have the shitty dragon getting away from him in the sea. Katsuki pulls his bow aiming at the beast just as the dragon finished eating the goat piece and is preparing to fly away again. When the big lizard flaps his big black wings to impulse himself up, Katsuki shoots his arrow. And hits.
The arrow itself barely scraps the dragon’s thick hide, but the metal hook grabs on the scales of its back and comes ripping down until it catches the dragon’s wing. The beast trashed and pulls against the rope, but Katsuki was ready. He tied the end of the rope to his boat and is holding at it as his life depended on it.
“DIE, YOU FUCKING BEAST!” Katsuki screams as the dragon’s force makes his boat slide across the waves.
Every time Bakugou pulls harder on the rope, he can feel the tension of the hook on the dragon’s wing. The animal is clearly distressed making horrible sounds. With one last pull, the metal hook slashes the rest of its wing and falls on the sea. The dragon flies pitifully, barely above the waves, completely without balance since his left wing was so torn as he tries to get away from Katsuki.
“Not so fast, you ugly monster!” Bakugou takes the boat’s oars and goes after the big lizard. The stupid beast is going towards the small island where probably there isn’t any other dragon to help it. Katsuki has this one in the bag. Now all he has to do is get on the island, finish his kill and grab his tooth.
Katsuki rows faster than ever from the amount of excitement he is feeling. His face is contorted in a huge maniac grin at the perspective of taking down his first dragon. He gets to the tiny island in no time at all, pulls his boat to the sand (no use in taking down a dragon just to be left stranded alone in a shitty island) and runs to find his prey. The island’s jungle is thick, but Katsuki hears the beast wailing close by.
He finds his dragon by the roots of a giant tree (it would take at least five grown men with their arms opened wide to even hug the tree’s trunk), curled around itself and wailing in pain. It was an ugly sound and an ugly sight. The dragon was all black, but where the light that peeked from the foliage touched his scales it shined green. It was slightly bigger than a horse, but that was still very small for a dragon.
However what made the sight so ghastly was the damage his hook did. The scratch started between the dragon’s wings on his back, then you could see the point where the hook pierced the dragon’s wing and carved itself out in a big slash that poured red blood on the floor. There was no way that beast could fly out of here with that injury. At this point, it was probably an act of mercy to finish the kill.
“Hey, shitty lizard. Now it’s just you and me. Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.” Bakugou unsheathes his sword from his hip and walks carefully towards the beast.
The dragon turns his face towards Katsuki with terrified eyes. Can dragons cry? Because Bakugou swears he can see fucking tears coming out the animal’s huge green eyes. And how can eyes be so green? It’s like there is every nuance of the color painted in the beast’s irises. Then the lizard makes more awful wailing sounds at Katsuki, its drool dripping, its big pink tongue moving as he was trying to talk, its teeth…
Where. The. Fuck. Are. His. Teeth??
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Katsuki launches at the animal and forces its big mouth open with his bare hands. The dragon gets so confused it stops its crying and stands still at Bakugou’s examination. “WHAT THE FUCK? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR TEETH? YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT! WORTHLESS DRAGON! ARGH!”
Bakugou takes a step back pulling his hair in anger. He can’t believe it! The first dragon he brings down doesn’t have teeth! How can a dragon not have teeth? What the fuck? How can the Gods hate Katsuki so fucking much? Fucking fuck!
Okay, alright. Take a deep breath, Bakugou. All is not lost. You can try again another day. Except that he can’t because once his mother finds out he took a boat and went to the dragons’ archipelago, she will flip the fuck out and hang him from the ankles in the middle of the village!
Shit, fuck! Double fuck! How can he fix this shitshow? The dragon doesn’t have teeth, but its hide is not that ugly. Maybe he can skin it and make armor pieces for himself? Could the dragon’s wings fit on his boat? And the shitty lizard should have claws…
“Alright, shit. I can make this work. You have claws, right? Whatever, I will just kill you and take back home as many pieces as I can.” Katsuki says taking his sword from the floor where he dropped it while checking the dragon’s mouth and raises it to strike the beast’s neck and get this shit over with.
Just as Katsuki goes to slice the dragon’s jugular, somehow the dragon disappears and in its place shows up a skinny boy stark naked crying and screaming.
“Dusont kill meey! Zont kill! Djiku no wants to die! Pwease! Pwease!”
Katsuki lowers his sword without noticing as he is completely stunned at the sight in front of him. It’s a boy. But it was a dragon. But now it’s a boy. The boy is skinny, looks to be around his age, has a big mop of dark green curly hair on top of its head, freckles scattered in the pale skin of his face, shoulders, and chest, and big green eyes. Very green. All shades of green. Exactly like the dragon’s.
“What the fuck? Who are you? Where is my dragon?” Katsuki furiously screams at the boy. This was not what he signed up for. He just wanted to hunt a dragon and bring his tooth back to show his mother he was ready to be First Warrior. But first the shitty dragon doesn’t have teeth and now he has to deal with a crying naked idiot that took place of his shitty dragon!
“Donty kill! Dontu! Pwease! Pwease!” The kid pleads while crying big fat tears.
“I will not kill you if you say where the fuck is my dragon, dipshit!”
“Me! Me Djiku! Djiku dragon! Don’t kill Djiku!”
“Deku? Useless? What kind of fucking name is that? And answer me straight! Where is my dragon?”
“Djiku is dragon! I’m dragon, don’t kill me! Please!”
What? Katsuki takes a step back looking around to see if there is any indication that he is being pranked by some evil spirit or something of sorts. But he finds nothing, just a boy in a pool of blood. Actually, the blood is still dripping down heavily from the boy’s arm. Bakugou gets closer again and pushes the boy’s body to the floor belly down so he can take a better look on his back.
And there it was, the huge wound his hook did. It started between the boy’s shoulder blades and goes down to the middle of his triceps. Fuck, his dragon transformed into a boy.
“How the fuck are you a boy? You were a fucking dragon five minutes ago!” Katsuki screams confusedly at the kid. He can’t kill a boy! He needs to kill a dragon! He is not a shitty asshole that kills people without being attacked first, that is not the kind of warrior he is going to be!
“I’m still a dragon. It's jut magic twu be buy and twu twalk!” The kid says looking at Katsuki with those big green eyes. The boy holds his wound with his other hand and mutters quietly to himself. “Tzalking is hard. With this tung. Tung. Tungue. Tongue. Tongue. Talking is hard with this tongue.”
“Wait, wait! Focus here! You are a dragon, right?” Katsuki says trying to make sense of the situation.
“Yez.” Deku nods making his curls bounce.
“And you have magic?” Another nod. “That allows you to become human?” He negates with his head.
“I’m not hooman, just appear hooman. For a whale.”
“Whale? You mean awhile? You can appear to be human for a little time but not a lot of time?” Deku nods again his confirmation. What the fuck? Why hasn’t anyone told him dragons could look like humans? Does no one from his village know that? “The other dragons can do that too?”
The boy nods again, “Yieah, but itz hard. Weve train magic. Be strong.”
That is the most incredible and crazy thing he has ever heard. Dragons have magic! They can transform into humans! And they can talk! The shittiest pronunciation Katsuki ever heard, but they can talk nonetheless! As Katsuki is thinking about the huge implications of his discovery, the boy falls to his side with closed eyes.
Shit, he is hurt. He probably passed out from too much blood loss! Fuck! He can’t let this shitty dragon die before Katsuki can find out absolutely everything he can about this!
“Shit. Okay. What do I do now?” He needs to stop the bleeding, make sure the boy doesn’t get too cold and take care of him for the night. He can do that, he is not only the strongest but the smartest warrior in his village. He learned a lot about first aid to use in battle when needed, so now was the time to put that shit into practice. He will not let this dragon die today.