Level Pair (Haikyuu!! Winged AU)

Level Pair; Opening 2/2

The best way to find what matters the most is to lose something precious to you. ~Wazim Shaw

The dark haired boy splashes into the rushes following the blood trail. It is much heavier here and Kageyama is sure that Hinata somehow managed to escape his attacker's hold and had been running on foot by this point. There is just enough light for him to see the blood still tinting the water between the cattails and he hurries forward. He stumbles over a submerged rock before coming to a stop, his gut bottoming out. It ends in a river and Kageyama feels despair set in.

He'd followed the trail until he'd found the rest of the shorn wing and later the other one as well. He grits his teeth and has to stave off the urge to throw up yet again when he thinks about it. That second wing had been busted to hell, the long bones shattered before they'd been taken from him altogether. Now, a half mile later, it looks like Hinata had finally broken free only to rush headlong into a moving rush of water.

This was death for them. Their wings became nothing but a cumbersome burden in deep open water let alone the swiftly running currents of a river. And Hinata had lost a lot of blood by this point, too. Kageyama can feel his mind going numb. His dark blue eyes glaze slightly and he resolves to head down river to find his companion's body. If nothing else, he will give him a burial. He doesn't think he has the capacity to really consider or take in the truth right now, so running on instinct and reflex is the next best option.

He drops over a spit of rapids, ignoring the serious stiffness that is settling into his wing. His head still pulses and his body has largely gone numb but he is pretty sure it is just exhaustion. He scans the banks on autopilot, looking for the pale gray complexion of a drowned body, the shriveled wrinkles of long soaked skin, a limp hand that is probably already stiff. He rounds a bend and nearly falls into the river himself. The only thing that saves him is that engaged autopilot, that distance from a reality he can't yet accept.

There, on a slightly sandy, shallow curve, the ground is disturbed. Long meandering drag marks—as if someone were drunkenly crawling along—lead up to a large fallen tree, the exposed and long weathered roots of another sheltering a small area up against it. And in that little windfall, lies Hinata. Kageyama freezes for a long moment, his lungs constricting.

In the oncoming twilight, Hinata's skin stands out against the dark bark of the wood behind him. He looks so small and pale, and totally alien with no wings surrounding him, but Kageyama would recognize that patch of orange hair anywhere. He blinks and when the smaller boy is still there, his muscles unbind and he pumps his wings to jettison himself the rest of the distance to him.

Hinata had been alive when he left the river—the drag marks proved that much. The taller boy drops beside him and catches the barest rise of the redhead's chest and against everything his gut tells him, he allows himself to hope. He looks like hell with scratches and bruises all over and a solid cut on his cheek... and the obvious that his wings are gone, leaving nothing more than bloodied patches of feathers across his shoulder blades... but he is alive.

Kageyama reaches out and calls to him, shakes his shoulder gently, but Hinata yields no response. The smaller boy is completely out. Kageyama can understand. In less than a couple hours, he's been through a brutal hell. He is soaking wet and battered nearly beyond recognition. Moreover, Hinata is dangerously cold and having lived through the trauma of losing his wings and that much blood, Kageyama is sure he is running on nil for energy reserves to generate any heat.

It is too dark at this point for Kageyama to build a fire—he'd never be able to find enough kindling and put it together with his poor night vision. Glancing around them, Kageyama has to give the kid props; he couldn't have found a much better spot to hole up for the night...although he doubts the location was anywhere on the list of things Hinata was thinking when he'd dragged himself out of the river at this particular spot.

Gently cradling the smaller boy up against himself and mindful of the destroyed feather base on his back, he curls his own battered wings around them to trap heat, his strained wing joint already starting to throb. His own energy reserves are definitely waning, but he still has warmth at least. If he can keep the other boy warm enough through the night, maybe, just maybe, he'll still be there in the morning.