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Kirishima flexed his wide shoulders, rolling his neck as the roar of the crowd swelled above him, drawing his lips into a wide smile. Sharp teeth and pointed claws, scales rippling down his chest and back, the very pinnacle of strength and skill. The best that the arena had ever seen. 

“They’ve got a real feisty one for you today,” his aide and friend hissed, hastily rubbing salves into his exposed flesh to help it harden into ever more rippling scales, pressing a great sword into his hand that was more for show than anything else. “Lord knows where they found her but—”

“Her?”

“Yeah, but don’t think that means you have to go fucking easy on her. I’ve seen what she did to the people who brought her in.”

It had to be a beast, Kirishima reasoned, some great huge creature that had taken a huge team to bring back to the city. A being that would finally prove a real challenge for his skills. Maybe another graced with the ancient blood of the dragons who could go toe to toe with him in strength, if not in anything else. 

Whatever they had brought, in the end it wouldn't matter. 

He always won.

The horns above rang loud and low, drums in the distance thrumming in time with the peasants chanting his name. Over and over and over, demanding to see their champion. For the fight that they had waited all week for to finally begin. 

Riot! Riot! Riot!”

“Ready?”

“Let me at her, bro.”

“Good fuckin’ luck.”

Chains snapped taught and the platform where he stood began to rise, higher and higher, lifting him onto the stage. His stage. The light was bright but he was ready, eyes closed from the moment that the doors above him opened, breathing deep and steady. Calming himself for the second when the platform he stood upon would come to a stop. 

As soon as it was in position, after all, the fight would begin. 

Stillness. Silence. A hushed whisper running through the crowd as he heard the second platform snap into place. The only sign he would receive that his opponent was in place. Waiting for him to arrive. 

It was unusual that they would be there before him, but it wouldn’t matter. 

None of it really mattered.  

The chains stopped, his platform stilled. With a roar Kirishima opened his eyes preparing to leap and—

Stopped.

He was staring back into the face of a woman. A tiny woman, standing with a staff in one hand and a rock in the other, feet spread and lips curled back in a snarl as though she was preparing to meet him head on. 

It had to be some kind of joke. 

She wouldn’t last two minutes against him, even if he held back. 

And why was she smiling?

There were so many things that he had thought might happen in that moment, but for her to charge at him with a bellow so strong in her lungs that he could all but feel it in his chest was not one of them. He barely had time to ready himself before she was upon him, leaping with insane agility clean up off of the ground and landing with her thighs wrapped around his neck. 

A single twist of that fine solid muscle that wrapped around his throat and he was on the ground, his head spinning. 

“Is that all you’ve got, giant!”

She was shouting at him! 

Confusion turned to glee when she tightened her grip on his neck, tight enough to have him seeing stars. Perhaps he was going to enjoy the fight after all. 

With a roar of his own he grabbed her legs, pulling himself up and lifting her right along with him. Her grip was incredible , tight and strong even when he pushed them both into a fast spin that he had been sure would fling her away. 

She wasn’t unseated, but it didn’t matter. He had other tricks up his sleeve. 

He strained and flexed, his shoulders stretching and bulging, the power of the ancient blood that he so rarely had to use making him swell and grow to even greater heights, loosening her grip just enough that he could grab her and send her flying back towards the dirt. 

But she landed on her feet, sliding backwards and looking up at him with another feral smile. 

“That’s more like it!”

He had just enough time to brace before she was on him again, snarling and spitting, using the staff in her hands to throw herself into the air so that she could jam an elbow into his nose. For the first time in years he tasted the heavy tang of blood in his mouth. A drip onto his lips that was hot and thick and exciting . 

Nobody had ever managed to get a hit on his face before. But she was already preparing for the next one, landing lightly on the sand and rolling backwards, sliding up onto her feet and bracing as though waiting to see what he did next. 

She was so fast . Much faster than anyone he’d faced before. 

And strong, too.

They brought him warriors and they brought him beasts, men from cities all over the continent who claimed that they could be a match for the great drake who reigned champion over them all. 

But he’d never been quite so well matched as he was with the ragged, wild looking woman who stared him down as though she was intent on killing him where he stood. Bare feet and bared teeth, her hands wrapped in cloth, tight lean muscle rippling down her arms when she gripped her staff and charged him for another strike. 

He was strong, the strongest that the arena had ever known, but she was fast and more agile than anyone he had faced before, and that combination was turning out to be a problem that he hadn’t accounted for. When he reached to grab her she was already gone, slipping behind him and out of his view so quickly that he wasn’t quite sure that she had ever been in it. Before he could turn she was on him again, three short strikes one after the other into where — on a normal man — his kidneys should have been. 

It wasn’t enough to break through his hardening, not enough to do more than shake the scales that sprouted from his back. But he felt it, and when he turned he saw her eyes narrow. Appraising him. 

Studying him. 

Fascinating. 

“Who are you?” He called out to her, moving in a slow circle, trying to watch for her next move but finding himself lost in just gazing at her with the curious wonder that was building more every second that she stood against him. 

The reply came in the form of a snarl. “Someone who isn’t here to make friends.” 

She threw herself at him again and — whether by luck or reflex — Kirishima caught her, hauling her up and over his head amid a roaring cheer from a crowd that had been unusually quiet since the start of their fight. It was his big move, the show of strength that was so often the very end of a stint in the area. 

Usually before it had even really begun. 

But she wasn’t going down so easily. 

Before he could move to throw her she twisted , spinning out of his grip and kicking him in the side of the head, dropping to the ground with a heavy thud that didn’t even seem to slow her down. Whilst Kirishima processed the fact that she wasn’t in his hands she was already moving, scooping a handful of dirt to throw up and into his face, kicking out at a knee that buckled enough to make him stagger if not fall. 

She wasn’t hurting him. 

In truth there would be almost no way for someone like her to hurt him, given the weapon she wielded and the ancient power that he had on his side. 

But she was coming close.

And with every strike it seemed that she was starting to realise that there was no winning from brute strength alone. Instead of charging him she pulled back, glancing around her as though forming a plan in the seconds between blows. Something that might work against him that she didn’t yet have a hold of. “You fight really well.” He called out to her again, blinking away the dirt with a grin and readying himself to block whatever she threw at him next. 

“I fucking know that.”

It was more of a response than he expected, and once again Kirishima found himself lost in that determined set of her stance, the focus in her eyes that was so strong . 

Distracted enough that he didn’t notice her moving until it was a second too late. 

One foot on his knee, propelling her up with enough force to bring her to eye level. That grin spreading on her face before she slammed into him. Both feet driven into his chest for a kick that had him staggering backwards. 

Somewhere behind him he registered the gasp from the crowd, someone shouting that the mountain had been moved . It should have shamed him, but all he could think about was that power. The sheer force of will that must have come from years of dedicated training. 

She was someone who worked as hard as he did to hone her skills. 

Someone who was truly a match for him. 

She was incredible.

He had to know more about her.

“Why did you come to fight?”

“I didn’t have a damn choice!”

His brow furrowed at the words. It hadn’t been his choice, either. Not at the start. He could still remember the bite of the chains, the shackle around his ankle when he wasn’t in the ring. The sting of the lash when he had lost. The healing woman with kind eyes who had stopped coming in the days after he started winning. 

He’d been scared. 

But she didn’t seem scared. 

Not at all. 

Maybe she was stronger than him. 

“Will you fucking focus and finish her already? Shitty fucking lizard!”

The voice of his friend pulled him back to himself. He was a champion. He didn’t get distracted. And he definitely didn’t lose . 

When she ran for him again he was ready, locked onto her movements instead of her huge brown eyes. She leapt and he dropped, getting just out of the way enough that he could grab her out of the air, tugging her in tight, fully intent on not letting her go again. 

The shriek of frustration when she couldn't break his grip was followed by a sharp sudden headbutt, the front of her skull cracking against his already throbbing nose. But instead of dissuading him the pain made it easier to focus, a roar rising up in his chest when he slammed her onto the ground. Hands still on her, holding her so she couldn’t twist or flip away again. 

They were nose to nose, her pinned beneath him, breathing fast and hard but not straining like she had seconds before. 

“Do you want to get out of this place?” He whispered, searching her eyes for anything other than anger. 

She lurched forward, teeth closing around the only thing she could reach. His poor, shattered nose. 

“Ah!” Reflex had him slamming her back down against the dirt. 

“Of course I fucking want to be done with this.”

“I could help you…”

He had earned his freedom years before. He could show her how. He could give her what he had never taken for himself. 

“I think I’ll earn it on my own, thanks.”

Pain. The like of which Kirishima had never felt before. It radiated from the spot where she touched, two fingers jabbed up into his chest that stole his breath and made his head spin. 

It was impossible, but he couldn’t stop it. 

Stunned and stupid, thrown backwards by a kick to his gut that had him heaving as his back hit the dirt. 

She appeared above him, rubbing the dust from her face with the back of a wrapped hand. 

“You can yield,” she spat. “Or I can do that a second time and we’ll see how long it takes you to get up.”

He groaned, trying to push himself to standing and finding that he couldn’t. His limbs were too heavy, eyes too hard to focus. 

He was the champion.

This wasn’t how champions went out. 

“A fighter till the end. I can respect that.” 

She knelt beside him, and hand curled in that strange two fingered grip, and then the lights went out. 

***

When Kirishima woke up it was in the darkness. The smells familiar enough to tell him that he was back in the space below the arena. The holding rooms that he usually didn’t see much of after his fights. 

But there he was, spread out on his back, a throbbing in his chest and a worse one in his head. The sounds of a commotion above him pulling him back to the present. 

He had lost. 

The champion of champions had been bested by an unimaginably small woman, and it sounded as though there was going to be a lot of trouble for the organisers of the events as a result. He almost hoped that someone had bet against him, just so that their lives could be changed by the money that they’d won. 

It had been a long time since any wagers on him were worth much. 

“Oh, you’re awake.”

The voice was familiar, though he was sure that he didn’t know it, forcing him to turn his aching head to look at whoever had spoken. 

He didn’t expect to see her. Sitting with her legs crossed on top of a barrel, smiling at him, picking dirt from between her nails, as though she hadn’t just won the most impressive prize of her life. 

“You know,” she hummed. “It’s never taken me two nerve strikes to take a man down before.”

“Yeah well.” He tried to sit up but whatever she’d done to him was still making his stomach lurch and his lunch threaten to make a reappearance, forcing him to stay laying where he was on the bench. “I’m not exactly a normal man.”

“So I see. Dragon blood?”

“Yeah.”

“Rare.”

“I know.”

“Ochako.”

“Huh?”

He peered at her again, and a whole new smile stretched across her face. Not the manic grin from the arena. Softer, filled with an almost innocent amusement. 

“My name, idiot. You asked for it in the arena, which for the record was a really stupid thing to do. Figured you out pretty much as soon as you started talking when you should have been paying attention to what was going on.”

“Figured out… what?”

“That it had been a really long time since you’d lost. It’s made you sloppy.”

He lost. 

The words made the reality of it sink in. 

“You’re the new champion.”

“Yep.”

“Damn. That’s manly as hell.”

“Manly?”

“Yeah. You came into my ring and kicked my ass all over it. Sounds pretty manly to me.”

The smile turned into a low laugh, the shake of her head loosening a little of her hair from the tight knot at the back of her head. 

“I think you’ll find that I kicked you very little. Like slamming my legs into a tree.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sturdy.”

“I’ll say.”

He gave her a toothy grin of his own. “Maybe you’ll do better in round two.”

“Better?” Ochako snorted. “Than beating you? What, you want me to do it faster now that I know how?”

Faster. Slower. He wasn’t sure that he cared. All he wanted was to step into the ring with her again. To feel the rush that came with finally having a worthy opponent standing against him. 

Their eyes were locked, his grin spreading for just a little too long. Long enough that her cheeks flushed pink and she finally looked away. Smiling at her hands. 

“Well fine, if you want to have your ass kicked a second time I guess I could be persuaded. But… I think maybe you should take your new champion to dinner first.”

It was impossible not to be transfixed by that smile. 

“Dinner I can do.”

***

Taking someone home with him — someone who wasn’t his friend and handler, anyway — was strange. Walking the back roads through the city so that he wouldn’t get spotted after his landmark loss, ducking his head and doing his best not to listen to the gossip about the fight that seemed to be around every corner as they passed. 

The crowd had always been fickle. Cheering for new champions only to cheer louder for him when he inevitably won. They had adored him on the days when he had fought well. Swarming him when he stepped out onto the busier streets, begging him to train them. To show them what he knew even though there was no way to teach someone to be born as he had been. To shake their hands and hug their children and bless their homes with strength as though he was some kind of god among men. 

But they shunned him as often as they praised him. Painting him as some kind of villain on the days when the fight had ended too fast. Or when he had shown too much mercy to an opponent that they wanted him to tear to pieces. Turning from him and grumbling that they had wasted their money going to see him. That they should know better than to expect anything other than a fast fight too easily won. 

If they didn’t always love him when he was a winner, he didn’t want to know how they would be when he wasn’t .

Once they were inside his little home though it was easier to relax. Hanging up the straps and belts that made up most of his fighting gear, pulling a soft linen shirt over his head and stretching out the aches that were still resting in his shoulders. 

“It’s not a lot,” he said, turning to scratch the back of his head, waving a hand as though that was enough to show him around. “But I earned it fighting, and it’s more comfortable than staying below the arena all of the time.”

“You… won it?” Ochako looked around, appraising his space the way she’d appraised him on the field. 

“A challenger bet his house that he would win against me a few years back.”

“That seems foolish.”

“Until today I would have said it was impossible.”

That made her smile, looking up at him with a flash of that fire back in his eyes. 

“I wonder what else you’ll find out I’m capable of.”

Something about those words made him swallow, heat surging in his chest, a response sticking itself on the back of his tongue and refusing to come out. It only made her smile wider, patting him on the arm as she breezed by. 

“Do you have somewhere where I can clean up? Not really fit for dinner with all this dirt on me.”

“There’s a well,” he managed. “Water’s cold but clean.”

“Cold isn’t a problem. Back in a minute, Champion.”

He didn’t have time to do much more than start the fire, warming a large pot over it in case she did want something hotter to bathe in after all. He usually dunked into the lake, but that was a half hour away and he didn’t want to be out in the world for all to see. Not right then. 

She came back through the door as he was cutting bread, shaking droplets from her hair that sizzled and hissed when they hit the fireplace, leaning against the doorframe and appraising him with that same careful smile. 

“Well this is cozy.”

“There’s meat and cheese in the cold store.” He said over his shoulder. “I could make a broth. Some grains…”

“Anything is better than the swill they fed me on the journey.”

“They…” his hands stilled. “They didn’t feed you?”

“Oh they did. I just don’t think they cared if it was good .” There was that angry sting in her voice again. The one he’d heard in the arena. Cold and sharp and dangerous .

“How… did they persuade you to come?”

“They didn’t.” The words were spat. Venom dripping from every syllable. “The first group who came to our home found out the hard way what happens when you try to take a woman from the mountain who doesn’t want to be taken. But the second… by then they had learned all they needed to know. They brought a toxin with them. Enough to weaken even the strongest of us. Enough to let them put us in irons.”

Irons. 

He’d been in irons. 

How many of the champions that had come to face him had stories the same as hers? How many would have told him something so terrible if he had just thought to ask them?

How much of his life had been a lie?

Ochako stepped up beside him, her hands taking the knife out of his stiffened fingers, sliding the bread towards her to cut slices that were far more even than his.

“Something tells me that your story might be more interesting than mine, Champion.”

“Not really,” he shrugged, trying to shake the itching thoughts in the back of his mind. “The arena’s all I know.”

“Well I guess that’s not so bad if you like it.”

“I…”

A knot was forming in his chest. 

He loved fighting. Loved the cheers and the thrill and the glory.

Didn’t he?

Or was it simply that he didn’t know any other way to be? 

“I should get some things from the cold store.”

The silence stretched between them even after he returned, thoughts swirling in his mind that he’d never had before. 

Questions that he had never had a reason to ask. 

“My home is on a mountain,” Ochako hummed, stepping closer to him with a smile. Reassuring, kind even though she had no reason to be after everything that his people had done to her. “It’s icy almost every day of the year, but that’s how we like it. It makes us strong, living there, training among the clouds.”

Even the sound of her voice was soothing. Letting some of the tension ease back out of his body. “Is that where you got so fast?”

“Among other things,” she laughed. “I learned a lot up there on the mountain. Trained to be a lot of things. Not that an arena fighter was one of them.”

“So manly.”

Again that laugh bubbled out of her. Warm and round and pleasant. 

The fights. The crowds. 

They were all he had ever known. 

All he had ever wanted. 

But when she laughed, for a moment he wondered if there might not be more in the world that he could want.

“You know,” Ochako hummed, reaching out to pop a slice of the cheese he was half finished cutting into her mouth. “If you keep looking at me like that I’m going to start to worry that I’m the second course of this meal you’re preparing.”

Kirishima flushed and spluttered, staring at her with his mouth slightly open. She was just smiling at him, batting her eyelids as though she hadn’t just said something overtly suggestive. 

He’d been propositioned by more than one woman in the town, and he’d shaking it off as easily as he had the attacks of their husbands but…

There was something different about it when it came from her. 

“I… I have cream in the cold store. If. If you want dessert?”

Her laugh bubbled up again, a hand resting on his arm and tears welling in her eyes when her shoulders started to shake. 

“You are far too sweet.”

Then she was pulling him closer, fingers still resting on his bicep. 

“So if I do want something sweet later, maybe I’ll just have you.”

The knife in Kirishima’s hand slipped, something sticking in his throat that made the next word come out of his mouth as a strangled whine. There was heat suddenly in his face and on his chest, a tugging down lower that he had to turn his hips to hide. 

“I don’t— uh—”

“Don’t…” It was her turn to flush, moving to step away from him with her eyes cast down. “Sorry. I overstepped.”

“No! It’s not that I don’t… It’s just.” His words fell from his tongue as fast as the thoughts that raced around his head. “It’s just… Well I haven’t exactly… So I’m not sure that I would be much good and…”

The smile returned to her lips, hands moving to slip over his, turning him away from the counter so that she could tug him closer. 

“Then I suppose we’re lucky that I do know what I’m doing. Isn’t it?”

All he could do was nod, swallowing hard when she pressed herself up on her tiptoes to brush their lips together. 

“I showed you a few things in the arena,” she whispered. “Imagine what I can show you out of it.”

***

Their food was forgotten as she guided him down onto the pile of sleeping furs in front of the fire. Climbing into his lap with every bit of the confidence and determination that she had shown him in the arena. 

Kirishima had spent most of his life relying on his instinct, and somehow as her arms came up to wind around his neck, legs curling around him, that instinct took over again. 

Hands on her waist pulling her closer, lips grazing against hers as though he had been drawn to her by some unseen force that demanded they be bought together. She tasted sweet and her lips were soft and the moment that she leaned into him with a hum he was lost. 

The slow roll of her hips against him made him dizzy, kisses quickly deepening into something fervent and needy. Tongues brushing together, breaths gasped into each other's mouths whilst fingers tugged at what little clothing still separated them. 

“I don’t—” Kirishima gasped, pressing their foreheads together when her fingers slipped between them to graze the tip of his cock. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then we’ll take it slow.” 

“But you’re so small. And I’m…”

“I had enough strength to best you in the arena, dragon blood.” She moved to run her lips down his neck, sliding her hips over him, drowning him in incredible heat. “I’m sure I can handle you here.”

It was slow, but somehow that only made it more intense. The way she looked into his eyes when she sank onto him, leaning in to bring their lips together again. Time was still for them, the earth falling away outside of the walls of his little cabin. Insignificant compared to the incredible feeling of them moving together. 

When their hips finally met a choked sob mingled with her breathy moans, his forehead resting onto her shoulder whilst he tried to adjust to the feelings that were surging in him. The next time that she rolled her hips he had to let go of her for fear that he would hold her too hard. 

Hardened scales rippled down his arms and shoulders. Teeth and claws sharpening when she squeezed around him. Something deep stirring in his core that he could barely keep at bay. 

“Easy.” Ochako whispered. “Maybe next time I’ll want the monster. Let you take the reigns and see how hard you can go. But this time…” She brushed her fingers over his cheeks. Her voice soothing him almost as much as the featherlight touch. “This time let me lead.”

The words that he tried to speak escaped as a growl. Rumbling through his chest and into his throat.

“That’s my boy.” Ochako giggled, rising a little higher to drop herself onto him with a satisfied hum. “So good for me. Just keep looking in my eyes. Keep that dragon at bay.”

He could only nod, letting himself hold her, letting her take what she wanted from him. What she needed . She had wrapped him in bliss and he would have given her anything in that moment that she asked of him. Anything and more. 

“You think that you’ll cum for me?” she hummed. “Pump me full and see if that’s enough to pull me over the edge with you?”

His hands tightened on her again, tugging her down onto him with another low growl. 

“Mmh that’s a yes, is it?” 

She rocked against him. Meeting the intensity that was threatening to overspill in him. Moving faster. Harder. Dropping herself onto him like she wanted to feel him for hours after they finished moving together. 

“Ochako—” 

The word spilled over his tongue. Tension coiling in him that he was powerless to control. 

“So soon?” She snaked a hand between them again, leaning back and pressing against herself with a groan. “Guess I should catch up.”

She rolled her hips and slid her fingers across herself and the face that had been so perfectly captivating was bathed in bliss. Eyes fluttering closed, mouth falling open with tiny breathy sounds that Kirishima wanted to hear in his mind forever. 

Her body tightened around him, and it took everything he had not to push her onto her back, ramming himself into her the way that his mind was screaming for him to do. 

“N-now,” she whimpered. “You can— ah— fill me now, big guy.”

For a moment the instinct took over, letting him grasp her tightly in enlarged hands, driving into her with short hard thrusts that almost immediately blinded him, surrounding him in white, hot pleasure. 

Seconds. Hours. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the feeling. 

The breathy, pleased laugh that fell from her lips when he spilled into her and she collapsed against him. Nuzzling into his neck with a contented hum whilst his senses finally came back to him again. 

“Wow…”

“You can say that again, Champion.” 

He pulled her closer when his body started to soften. Breathing her in, determined to memorise her scent. 

“Should get some food.”

“No.” She hummed. “Stay here. Stay with me.”

It was easy to do what she asked. To slide backwards and settle onto the furs, holding her gently against his chest, listening to her breathing even out. Feeling her body relax against him a little more with every second that passed.

His eyelids were heavy. Heart thumping in his chest with a steady beat that he didn’t think he had ever felt before. 

Satisfaction. 

Bliss. 

He hadn’t known many things. But even then he was sure that it was the best night of his life.  

***

When the dawn came Kirishima woke to a gentle sun on his face. An ache in his limbs that the arena never blessed him with. 

“Mmh.” He hummed, reaching towards a form that was even then slipping out of his arms, leaving a chill on his skin in the space where she had been. “Come back…”

A low giggle forced him to open his eyes. Looking at the woman who was already shrugging into her robes. Pulling her hair into a knot and rebinding her hands the way that they’d been before. 

“Where are you going?”

“You won your freedom, didn’t you?” She smiled over her shoulder. “Maybe it’s time to take it.”

“But…”

“I’m going , Champion. They might try to stop me, but I won’t be caught by them again.”

“Going where?”

“Back to the mountain. Back home.”

He pushed himself up, frowning at her, trying to muddle through the words in his still tired mind. 

“You. You could stay. Here.”

“Or.” She leaned forwards, stealing another kiss that had him leaning into her as soon as she pulled away. “You could get that giant ass out of bed, pack up your things, and come with me.”

“Come… with you?”

“That’s what I said. There’s a mountain waiting, after all.”

He hadn’t known much in his life. But one thing Kirishima knew for sure when she pulled away was that for her smile. For that gentle kiss…

He’d go just about anywhere. 

And if they were together, there wasn’t a person alive who would be able to stop them.