Chapter Text
“... and as he lay there on the ground, bleeding, humiliated, and defeated, the man he had been forced to take as his wife, the one he had hated, resented, and tortured for years, stepped forward and looked down on him. Behind him, the prince could see countless familiar faces.
The old council he had fired from their position when they tried to oppose his plans for war.
His once trusted friends that had turned away from him when they could no longer condemn his cruel actions towards his people and the man who had been his wife by law.
All the servants he had treated like less than dirt.
The prince of the neighboring kingdom who had been his ally once upon a time.
Even the portrait of his dead parents hanging above the throne seemed grieved and disappointed.
No one said anything or tried to give him a helping hand. And at once the prince understood that he was utterly alone in this world.
His eyes wandered back to his wife, to the man who had been a constant in his life for years. Deku stood over him, a sad but determined look on his face.
“In the years that I have come to live with you for the sake of my people, I have never seen you act with compassion or kindness, not towards me nor to your people. You only use them for your own gain and sick amusement. You are cruel on purpose and you enjoy hurting others.”
The Prince wanted to shout, to hurl insults at the man standing over him, but the gag in his mouth prevented him from speaking.
“Still, I tried to stay with you,” Deku continued. “I offered you my support and companionship and you only laughed at me and tore me down until I was a shell of my former self. But no more.”
Deku placed a gentle hand on his stomach and the Prince's eyes widened. Behind his wife stood the maid he had forced into his service and who had been responsible for brewing the contraceptive tea that was meant to prevent any heirs. The Prince had been very vocal about not wanting children with his wife, mostly to hurt him and make his life harder by denying him what he desperately wanted. But it seemed even she had turned against the Prince and had joined the rebellion led by Deku.
“Before you die,” Deku said and there was something in his eyes that frightened the Prince. Something new and cold, a resolve hardened into steel by his suffering and the love for his unborn child. “I want you to know that your name will be forgotten. Your child will not know it and we will delete it from our history books. Nothing you did will be remembered and no one will mourn you. This is the fate you choose for yourself.”
And then the executioners lifted their blades while the Prince struggled against his bounds. There was a flash of cold steel, a dull thud of something soft hitting the ground, and then the story of the Tyrant Prince was over. And finally, the kingdom got a second chance to relearn the meaning of happiness and peace.”
With a sigh, Katsuki closed the book. He looked down at the cover and couldn't help but scowl a bit. The cover showed two silhouettes, one golden, one dark green. The golden one was wearing a crown and a cruel smile could be seen on his face through the shadows. To his feet, the green silhouette was kneeling, a defeated air about them. The title of the book was “The Tyrant Prince” and Katsuki’s cousin had given it to him to get his mind off his own problems.
He could see why she had thought it would be a good fit for him. A cruel tyrant being overthrown by his people was always a good thing in his opinion. What he hadn’t expected had been just how much he had come to despise the prince in the book. He had everything in life: supporting parents, a flourishing kingdom, loyal friends, and the most perfect spouse one could think of. Or at least, that Katsuki could think of. He was sure someone as lovely as Deku, no Izuku, could not exist outside of a storybook.
He felt for Izuku, who had wished for nothing but to support and to love the prince and to start a family together. For years he had reached out to his husband, despite the many times he had been mistreated by him, just for him to shun Izuku time and time again.
When Katsuki thought about Izuku's simple wish for happiness and a partner to grow old with, he couldn’t stop tearing up slightly and he had to clear his throat to get rid of the knot threatening to block his throat.
His eyes landed on his left hand and the small patch of skin on his fourth finger that was lighter than the rest. It would take some more time for the sun to erase the last remnants of his failed marriage and Katsuki let out a frustrated sigh.
If Izuku could find people to rely on and fight for his own happiness again, maybe Katsuki could too. He hadn’t been tortured by his wife, not like Izuku had, but the betrayal felt just as bad. For years, Katsuki had thought he was the problem in their marriage.
He was too loud, too volatile, too unstable and that was the reason his wife wasn’t ready for children yet. She always convinced him it was better to wait for their situation to be more secure and he believed her. But when he got his last promotion and could finally afford the big house he always wanted for his family she was still making excuses. They were both in their mid-thirties by then and Katsuki could feel himself grow restless. So one day he confronted her about it.
After a lot of arguing, she finally confessed her lies: She never wanted children. She had told him lie after lie to keep him with her in the hopes of one day changing his mind or pushing the idea away long enough for it not to be possible anymore to have children. She wanted to live her life free of responsibilities and simply revel in the luxuries Katsuki's job and money could provide her.
Katsuki was devastated after that. The one person in his life he thought he knew better than anyone else and she had lied to him for years. His trust in people was shaken and the
divorce was taken care of in record time. After that, he spent most of his days either working or wandering his big, empty house, unsure what to do with himself.
His cousin had given him the book to shake some sense back into him and to show him there was always a way to pick up the pieces after, no matter how bad things could be.
A small smile made its way onto Katsuki’s face and he let out another sigh while he pushed himself out of his armchair. He grabbed the book and shrugged on a coat before leaving the house. It would be good to try to reconnect with some people and his cousin was right at the top of that list. Since it was a nice day, Katsuki decided to walk. The distance wasn’t small but he figured he needed the exercise after staying cooped up for so long.
While he walked, his thoughts drifted back to the book. He just couldn’t understand how the prince could’ve been so cruel to Izuku. Not once had he been gentle with him, always playing mind games and asserting his position of power that Izuku wasn’t even threatening. He took mistress after mistress into their bed and made Izuku listen.
When he thought about it, he felt a grim sense of vindication at the prince’s fate. He had deserved everything that had happened to him, from the treason to his execution. He just hoped Izuku would be able to find his own happiness, now that the prince was dead.
After he had started reading the book, his cousin had actually told him that she owned the second book of the series as well. She didn’t want to spoil anything, but apparently, it focused heavily on Izuku and a possible new love interest from another kingdom. Maybe she would lend it to him when he returned the first book.
He was ripped out of his musings about Izuku and his potential happiness in a second marriage by a loud scream from the other side of the road. He saw a woman sprinting from the small park towards the road. He looked closer and saw a small toddler sitting on the side of the road, its eyes focused on something on the ground. And from behind him, he could hear a truck approaching. And from the sound of it, it was approaching fast.
It only took a few seconds, but before he knew it, he was running as well. It was clear that the woman wasn’t going to make it and he couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. His body moved on his own and the next thing he knew there was a blinding pain as his body collided with the truck and was thrown through the air.
When he opened his eyes again, he was still lying on the road, but his body was strangely numb. That couldn’t be a good sign. People were screaming around him and he could hear a toddler crying. So he had at least managed to save the child.
His eyes were falling closed and the last thing he saw was the cover of his cousin’s book that had fallen out of his pocket when he had been thrown and was now laying on the wayside of the road. The golden silhouette of the tyrant prince towering over the green silhouette of Izuku almost burned in his eyes and his last conscious thought was regret.
Now he would never know if Izuku got his happy ending.
And with that thought Bakuguo Katsuki took his last breath.
Or so he thought.
Katsuki had never been sure if he believed in the afterlife. Therefore, when he opened his eyes next he was mildly surprised. He hadn’t expected the afterlife to feel so much like… well, being alive. His surroundings were unfamiliar, and even as he pushed himself up in the surprisingly soft bed nothing in the room sparked recognition in him.
It certainly looked luxurious enough to be some kind of reward for good behavior, but Katsuki was still not convinced. There was no way he was really dead. Something else had to be going on here.
He climbed out of bed, still too focused on the ostentatious decor around him, and promptly stubbed his toe on the bedside table. With a small curse, he fell back onto the bed and rubbed his toe.
Definitely not dead. That still hurt like a bitch.
But if he wasn’t dead, then where the fuck was he?
He was pulled out of his thoughts by a small knock on the door and a timid voice drifting into the room.
“My Prince? Are you awake?”
Prince?
“Uhm,” Katsuki answered, unsure if he even should, but too curious for his own good. “Yes?”
“Do you need anything before breakfast? Her Highness the Queen wants you to join her and the King today.”
“Uhm,” he answered again and wanted to kick himself. “No?”
“As you wish. I will inform Her Majesty that you are awake and will join them shortly.”
Katsuki was left speechless and unsure of what to do. Had there been other people involved in the accident? Had someone mistaken Katsuki for someone else? But a prince ?
And why was his body completely unharmed? Even if he had the best luck in the world, there was no way there wouldn’t be at least bruises left over from where the truck had hit him or when he had collided with the pavement.
Carefully, he stood up again and started exploring the room. Maybe he would find some kind of clue to where he had been taken or what had happened before he woke up.
Like before, nothing in here was familiar too him. At least until his eyes landed on a golden crest mounted to the wall. He knew that symbol. It was the same one as the one printed on the inside cover of “The Tyrant Prince” . His pulse started to speed up as he looked at the clothes that were laid out on a dresser, presumably for him. The red cloak with fur collar and ostentious juwelery were a frightening match to descriptions in the book.
He walked over to the desk in the corner of the room and started rummaging around in it frantically. If his theory was correct, there was one way to prove it. He opened the top left drawer of the desk and pulled out a rolled-up parchment roll, the wax seal on it broken. It had been crumpled in anger but it was still legible.
It had been right where it had been in the first chapter of the book. Katsuki could feel his hands shaking slightly as he unfurled the parchment.
“With this notice, we are happy to agree to a merger of our countries,” Katsuki read out loud, his eyes not believing what he was reading. “Crown Prince Izuku will arrive in your lands shortly to solidify his betrothal to Crown Prince Katsuki of the Barbarian Kingdom.”
This was where he stopped in confusion. The Prince’s name had never been mentioned in the book. Up until the end, no one had used it to address him and the book had been written from the perspective of the prince himself. Now he knew it had been a narrative plot to show Izuku’s decision at the end to remove the prince from history, but it had always caught his mind as odd.
Now that he finally knew the name, he wasn’t sure what all of this meant. Why was it the same as his?
There was another knock at the door, this time a lot more forceful and a voice that was strangely familiar to him drifted through the wood.
“Brat! Your father and I are tired of your behavior! You will join us for breakfast and you will do so now!”
The door opened and in walked a woman, a golden crown on her head and Katsuki’s breath stopped. She reminded him so much of his mother that his head was spinning. Her face, hair and eyes were the same as his own mother's had been. The Queen was more muscular than his mother had been and had obvious scars covering parts of her body, but the resemblance was still strong enough to make him dizzy.
“You’re not even dressed yet! Masaru, what are we supposed to do with him?”
Behind her, a man stepped up and placed a calming hand on the queen’s shoulder. He too was wearing a gold crown and on his nose a pair of spactacles twinkled in the light.
“Now, my dear,” the king said with a small smile. The smile was almost too much for Katsuki to bear, conjuring up images of his father that were close and dear to his heart. How was this possible? His parents were dead. “Don’t be so harsh with him. It is not every day that you meet your betrothed. He was probably still thinking about what to wear to make a good impression.”
“He better,” his mother, no the queen, growled out, but the hand she used to cover the king’s with was gentle. “Now hurry up, or I’ll be really cross with you.”
The resemblance to his parents was uncanny and the way they talked to him and to each other made Katsuki doubt for a moment if he hadn’t died after all.
“Uhm, yes,” he answered, still too confused by everything to even think about disagreeing with her and she raised a confused and concerned eyebrow. With a few quick steps, she was in front of him and placed a hand on his forehead.
“Katsuki, are you feeling alright? You’re not getting sick, are you?”
His body reacted on instinct and he pushed her hand away with a disgruntled sound.
“What the hell, hag! I’m fine, stop nagging!”
Cold dread settled in his stomach as he realized how informal and rudely he had addressed the queen but she only laughed and ruffled his hair.
“There is my rude brat! Now, get to it before I’ll make good on my threats. Izuku will be here in a few hours and we need to discuss a few things beforehand.”
“Izuku?” Katsuki whispered but the queen had already turned away from him and was walking out of the room. The king smiled at him one more time before following after his wife and closing the door behind him.
Katsuki was left alone in the silence of the bedroom that was so different from his. His heart picked up speed as he thought about everything that had happened.
He had been hurt, bad enough that he should’ve died. Instead, he had woken up here and the king and queen, who were so familiar to him that it hurt, were treating him like their son. His eyes raised up until they landed on the mirror across from him. He was startled by how muscular he appeared. His arms and chest were huge and there were scars scattered around his upper body. His face was still the same as he remembered, even if maybe it looked a bit younger.
He was still Katsuki.
But now it seemed everyone around him thought he was the prince of the story. Or more accurately, to them it wasn’t a story at all but their life. And Izuku, wonderful, poor Izuku, who had been treated so horribly by the prince in the book, was on his way here to be betrothed to him.
Except, the Tyrant Prince was gone and Katsuki was in his place now.
Excitement coursed through his veins and he grabbed the clothes laid out for him. He wouldn’t find out what had happened to him while staying in his room. And if there really was a chance for Katsuki to meet the Izuku he had read about in the book he was going to take it.