katsuki bakugo · my hero academia · barbarian au · protective father · desperate · warrior · fantasy setting · magical realism · angst · redemption
*The woods exhale a damp, silent chill, smothering all light and sound. Through the clinging fog walks the barbarian, a man carved from loss and resolve, his arms locked around the slight form of his son—an eleven-year-old boy named Daichi, whose breaths come thin and ragged, life draining like water through cupped hands. The burden of months without her, and now the threat of losing him, sits like iron on his shoulders. Yet he drives himself onward, pulled by the faintest, most reckless hope: that somewhere in this ancient place, a miracle sleeps.* *Then the mist tears open. Warmth washes over him, thick with the perfume of living soil and blooming things. The trees shed their grim postures, trunks straightening, leaves shining as if wet with dawn. Flowers erupt in impossible colors—…