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Ochako looked up to the sky, casting her bones with a quiet whisper on her lips. The nights were drawing longer, the energy of the world thrumming around her with every passing day. She was close – closer than she had ever been – but all of the power of the oceans would mean nothing if she missed her chance. The great blue moon that would shift the planes and thin the veil between the living and the long dead would come but once. If she missed it she would have to wait until the turning of a new century to have even the smallest chance of finding him again.
She would live that long, perhaps, but to carry the ache in her heart for so many more years would be more than she could bear. From the moment he was stolen from her the pain had propelled her, taken her to the furthest reaches of both land and sea, learning, growing, pulling powers into herself that most would never dream to tangle with. Some that many mortals would not survive.
When she began her journey she had been little more than a mortal woman. A witch shifter with a poultry handful of magic to her name. Enough to move her through her form with ease, but little more than that. The years had been as cruel to her as they had been kind, and she had all of the power that she would ever need…but at the cost of not knowing quite what she was anymore. She looked down at her hands, the strange glow that came about them when she cast that had not once been there throbbing and pulsing. The crackling energy just below her skin that broke her open and marred the flesh on the days that she was too weak to contain it burning a path that could never be healed.
But it didn’t matter. If the magics surging within her tore her apart she wouldn’t care, as long as she got to see him one more time. To brush her hand across his face, look into deep carmine eyes and tell him that she was sorry. That she should have been there to protect him from her own kind the day that they had come with their spears and their harpoons. That she should have done more to save him whilst he lay in her arms, bleeding into her apron and using his last breath to ask her to remember him.
She’d promised him then, kissing his cold face as life slipped from him, that she would see him again. That she would do anything.
And she meant to keep her promise.
The bones clattered across the stone, and finally she looked, reading the message laid out for her.
After long years of waiting, the night had come. The moon would rise, the veils would thin, the great power that the oceans had gifted to her would be at their very strongest, and she would use every ounce of them to pull him back from the other side for as long as the will of the universe allowed.
As soon as she had her answer she started to move, collecting her supplies and running into the water, changing the moment that her head was submerged. Her bones cracked and skin stretched, fins and scales forcing their way out of her human flesh, warping and contorting until finally she was blessed with a strong tail, gills cracking open down the side of her ribs allowing her to take in one huge deep breath, a film sliding in place over her eyes to let her see even in the deep salty waters. And the glow that followed her everywhere, lighting her way down into the depths where she had laid her love to his temporary rest.
Down and down, feeling the moon begin to rise, the water lashing against her as she pushed her way through. As soon as her hands met the sandy ground she began, racing the rising of the great blue moon. She drew her circles and cast her bones, chanting in a voice that had long since stopped sounding as though it was her own. She felt her body twisting and contorting, flares of energy spiking out of her scars, a scream held at bay by the magics that were using her more than the other way around.
Finally, the moon hit its apex, and she thrust her hands deep into the earth, letting her desperate cry ring up, forcing her fingers apart and tearing a hole in the very fabric of the world, sobbing though she couldn't feel the tears, begging for him to be there waiting for her.
“Ochako?” A voice barely there, whipping past her in the tides.
“Katsuki!”
Hands grasped hers, closing around her wrists and pulling her down. But she was strong – stronger than any mortal who had ever attempted a calling ritual – and she pulled back. Tugging and hauling until he came free. The body was not quite that of the man she had lost. Where there had once been muscle and skin there was now only magic, bone and moonlight weaving together to contain the soul that she had summoned. But the smile was his, the sharp knowing look in his eye and the sound of the laugh that bubbled up in his chest when he tugged her into an embrace that was comforting and familiar.
“I said that I would come for you,” she sobbed, weakened by the casting, clinging to him with all that she had left. “I’m sorry that it took so long.”
“I never doubted you, my love,” he said, pulling back to press their lips together. “But you know that I can’t stay? Not like this.”
“I know. I just wanted-”
“I know, Angel. I’ve been watching, waiting this whole time. I know.”
She let herself collapse into him, the hurt of the loss finally surging out of her in huge sobs, cries that shook her shoulders and left her feeling tiny and helpless despite the enormous power that she held. But he cradled her as he had always done, wrapping his tail around her own, running his fingers through her hair with soft shushing sounds, kissing away any fear or doubt that remained and finally pulling back until their eyes could meet, one hand under her chin, the other sliding down and around her waist.
“I’ve missed you so much, Katsuki”
“Fuck,” his voice cracked, and all he could do was cling to her. “I’ve missed you too, Ochako. More than you know. It’s been so fucking hard seeing you every day, watching you hurt and not being able to be there. You’ve grown so strong, and I’m so damn proud.”
“You are?”
“Of course I am. I always will be. But Angel, we have so little time,” he whispered, bringing their lips together in a slow, sensual kiss that made her heart flutter just like it had the first time. “Let’s not waste it on tears, mm?”
When he pulled her closer she didn’t resist, melting into a touch that felt like coming home after so long apart. His tongue grazed her lips, slipping by as soon as they were parted to lick against her teeth, a groan rising in his throat at his first taste of her in nearly a hundred years. His hands ran up and into her hair, taking hold and tugging her closer, their bodies pressed flush together as they gave in to the desperate need to feel.
Katsuki was insatiable, kissing down her neck and chest, mouth latching around a nipple to bite and suck before he worked his way back up to catch her bottom lip in his teeth with a growl.
“I’ve missed the taste of you so damn bad,” he whispered, licking a strip over her gills to suck a bruise into her shoulder. “Been desperate to touch you every fucking day.”
“Ah- I’m all yours, Katsuki.”
“Fuckin’ right you are, and I’m going to spend every second we have left memorising you.”
He pushed her down, her back crashing into the sand where he had been buried mere minutes before, his arms caging her either side of her head, carmine eyes looking down at her so full of desire that everything else fell away.
With movements that were torturously slow he kissed and licked his way down her body, hands and mouth never stilling for long as he worshipped every part of her that he could reach, pulling the same tiny sounds that he had from her every time since the first time. But finally his lips met her parting slit, tongue darting out to lap up her slick, one thumb grazing the surrounding scales making her arch and whimper into his touch.
“Always so ready for me, even now,” he moaned, teasing her with the lightest of kisses and licks. “So perfect and eager, my little witch.”
“Katsuki.”
“It’s okay, Ochako, I won’t make you beg tonight.”
There was the tiniest pang of sadness in his voice, but before it could register he was back on her, diving into her folds with the desperation of a man starved, thrusting into her with his tongue and sucking up any drop of slick that slipped by. It was all she could do to fist her hands into his hair and hold on, bucking into his touch, moans and wails rising in her throat that she couldn’t have stifled if she wanted to. Every touch, every slurp of his tongue and press of his thick fingers into her set a blaze in her core, and before she knew it she was falling, sucking him in deeper, his name a desperate plea on her lips.
“There’s my girl,” he whispered, moving up to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “Still falls apart so beautifully for me.”
She didn’t have the breath to respond, instead grabbing his hips and using all her strength to pull him upwards until his tail rested on her chest, his protruding tentacle dicks resting perfectly above her open mouth.
He didn’t need to ask any more, fisting her hair once again and slipping the first into her, groaning when she closed her lips around him and sucked, swallowing him down almost as soon as he reached the back of her throat.
“Take a deep breath, Angel,” he growled. “I’ve missed this too much to hold back.”
She only had a moment to prepare before he was thrusting fast and hard into her, pulling back just enough to twirl both appendages together before driving back in, stretching her lips to their limit, drool pooling on her tongue and dribbling over her chin with every stroke back. He had one hand braced next to her head, grunting and groaning, getting deeper with every thrust. Her hands whipped up to take hold of the soft fins down the back of his tail, fingers tangling up in them and tugging just enough to make Katusuki’s eyes roll back from the heady mixture of pleasure and pain.
He threw his head back when she pressed her tongue to the base of him, sucking as hard as she could when he bottomed out in her, his hips jerking and gills flaring, but nothing filled her mouth, no familiar flood of heat, and when he pulled back he was panting and flushed, grinning at her.
“Looks like this body doesn’t need any time to recover at all. If I didn’t know better I would think you planned it that way, beautiful.”
His smile was contagious, when he moved back down to catch her lips in another kiss she could feel that he was still beaming against her.
When he slid into her again it was tender, soft and gentle. They stayed nose to nose, his forehead resting on hers as he rolled his hips, finding the space that he’d carved inside her for himself and relishing the feel of her squeezing around him. His fingers brushed the hair out of her face, whispered praise falling from his lips as he fucked her so slowly that he could feel every inch of her.
“I love you,” he whispered, “I’ll love you every second, in this life and the next.”
“I love you too,” she replied, tears rising in her eyes. “And I’ll always find you, I promise.”
“I know you will, Ochako. My wonderful, powerful little witch.”
He kissed the tears away, grinding into her, holding her and cherishing her in the best way that he knew how, bringing her to the edge and pulling her close when she finally tipped over.
They remained that way, tangled up with one another, nose to nose, talking about everything and nothing as the night passed them by. Katsuki ran his fingers through her hair, doing his best to memorise the feel of it passing through them, the way that she smiled and sighed into him, all of the little things that he hadn’t realised before that he might never get to experience again. Too soon the sun began to rise over the horizon, and with it Ochako’s grip on his magical form began to slip.
“I have to let you go, don’t I,” she whispered, clinging closer for as long as she could.
“I think so,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s not time for you, Angel. There’s more for you to do here.”
“I don’t know what to do without you.”
“You will, you’ve come this far, haven’t you?”
“What if-”
“No what if’s. I’ll see you again, Ochako, whether it’s in a hundred years when the veil thins, or when you finally cross over to join me. I’ll be waiting.”
He pulled her into one final kiss, eyes closed. And the moment that she pulled back he was gone, his form turning back into water before her eyes, the bones drifting down into the sand where she had raised them from. She took her time to bury them again, laying her hand over their resting place and casting a small shield to protect them from any harm.
“See you soon, Katsuki.”
Then, with one final look she turned and made for the surface. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but knowing that he would be waiting made it easier.
She would see him again, it would just take a little more time.