Oghenevwogaga

Chapter 43.1- And so the Dragons Danced

Added 2025-01-29 21:34:03 +0000 UTC

This time, when they crashed, it was not beautiful. It was not artistic, the kind of thing you’d find in a painting or a tapestry, but it was beautiful none the less. There was a savagery to it, an animalistic intensity. Iroh was enraged by the words Natsu had told him both before their fight and during. Natsu himself? He had no rage on his bearing, but he had a hunger. The hunger an alpha feels when matched with a contender. He had the hunger for putting down this threat to his dominance, except that it was matched by an equally pervasive enjoyment of the situation itself- being equally matched with someone else.

Flames surrounded their bodies, every attack was matched with fire aplenty. Natsu’s a dark green that seemed to eat at the light itself when it was called forth, while Iroh’s flames, red as his fury matched the ethereal green, if not in beauty then surely in intensity. The men fought, Iroh’s face marked with a frown while Natsu’s held a grin that grew by the second. He punched at the older man’s head and dodged a knee aimed for his chest in return.

The distance between the men began to glow as their fires clashed again and again. Natsu went underneath a swipe enhanced with flame claws and retaliated with a kick that forced Iroh two steps back. The older man was the first to give ground, and Natsu pounced on the weakness. Practically running forwards, he lashed out with a roundhouse kick. Iroh ducked beneath it, and Natsu stopped the kick in the middle and brought it down right upon the older man as an axe kick.

Iroh caught the kick and the ground around them shattered from the force that flowed from the kick into his body and into it. Natsu, leg still resting against Iroh’s crossed forearms, used said leg to push himself upwards into a spinning kick with his other leg that sunk into Iroh’s unguarded midsection. The older man caughed out blood as the kick went further and further before he was sent flying. He rolled across the rock garden for a few feet before his body came to rest against the remains of a statue that had been so damaged that even the best historians would struggle to identify it.