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lxiewrites · 2 years

Text

a love like that lights up the sky

Hello! It’s been a long time!

I’ve joined the TodoDeku Big Bang for this year, I hope you like it!

My partner in this is KatTory! Her socials are Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, go check her out! She’s super awesome!

Shout out to my beta BarelyFragile! You were super great to work with and I really appreciate all your help!

Ao3 Fic Link

Summary:

Shouto is the beloved god of Autumn and the son of Enji the god of the Sun and Rei the goddess of the Moon. One day, the Moon goes missing, and without the Moon to help curb the Sun's temper he's destroying life on Earth with little regard. Shouto, faced with the ultimatum to search for his mother or become the Sun himself and follow in his father’s footsteps, must go on a journey to find her.

On his journey, Shouto is led to go to the Unseen, the place where gods go to die. He searches out Earth to allow him access to the Unseen and instead finds an unknown god who volunteers to help him on his journey to find the Moon, though it seems like he had his own reasons for traveling to the desolate place.

Together, they travel down to the Unseen. There, they learn more about each other, what it means to do the right thing, and whether or not they have a choice in anything.

As the legend goes, in the dawn of time there was only One Being. And while there are many stories about creation and many that explain the intricacies of this world, we shall focus not on how humanity was created, nor on the conflict between good and evil, but on a love story.

The One Being made the first of the Great Celestials, the Sun, for his human creations at the behest of the Earth. But the Sun raged and scorched the Earth, destroying the life on it instead of nurturing it. So They created the Moon to soothe the temperamental Sun, softening its harsh rays and gentling the light. As the Moon was made for the Sun they fell in love and from their union the Sun and Moon created the Four Seasons.

But it was not a happy ever after – someone had stolen the Moon, its gentle light missing from the night sky. The Sun raged ever hotter without his partner, once again stealing life from the Earth in his efforts to find the Moon. The destruction was so great and vast, the Earth cried out in distress, not only for the humans, but for Itself – for the rivers and lakes, the forests and animals – for so long and with such agony that the One Being declared that the Sun must be removed and one of the Great Celestials' children must take up the mantle. The favored ones were Spring and Autumn, for they would not burn too hot nor melt under the pressure of being the Sun, yet both refused. Perhaps though, the two thought, if they found the Moon they can avoid the terrible fate of becoming the Sun.

Fuyumi paced back and forth, thumbnail in her mouth in an unladylike fashion, her feet making soft pap pap paps on the marble floor. Shouto ignored her quick, shamed glances toward his face. “Are you sure about this, Shouto?”

Shouto nodded, eyes tracing her path, face impassive. “Yes, I am sure. You will handle Autumn while I’m gone?”

She stopped abruptly, worry lines creasing her eyes, far too soon for such a young deity. As far as his memory goes, she was always the worrier. She had probably had those lines when she was just a few centuries old. They were especially pronounced now but he understood it in a way he never did before. Their father was proving too volatile to keep his position. The pressure that was put upon him and his sister ever growing as Father became more and more temperamental.

It was one hot summer evening, the last of the season, directly after Their decree when Fuyumi contacted him and they devised their plan. By mutual agreement he would go searching for Mother and Fuyumi would handle the politics of dealing with the other gods as well as attempting to mollify Father. If he failed in finding and bringing back their mother then one of them would have to become the Sun. Despite the love and forgiveness Fuyumi extends to their progenitor, the fear in her eyes mirrors the fear threatening to clog his lungs.

Her hand reached out before retreating to grasp hold of her robes in an iron grip. Her mouth opened and closed, her mind whirring, the words in her mouth changing with every breath. He knew what she wanted to say. The unasked question hung in the air between them, but he knew that she was a coward just like him. “Of course, Autumn is not too different from Spring, as you know.”

He nodded in an affirmative. “Don’t worry, Fuyumi, I’ll find Mother and bring her back.”

She gave him a wobbly smile, the unsaid what if like a string pulled taut waiting to snap, but they paid it no mind. Instead, she wished him luck, reminded him of the three-month deadline, and sent him off.

First, he visited his brother, Summer.

His palace was located in the west, closest to their father, which he never failed to complain about. Shouto always found it ironic how Touya was the most vocal against their father, and yet had ended up the closest to him in both location and temperament.

He supposed that was the One Being’s brand of humor.

Yet, it’s exactly that temperament that prevents Touya from being a candidate for the Sun. Not that he would want it anyway.

But for all of his brother’s faults, he loved their mother. And if anyone knew where she would be it would be him.

The air was sticky and humid around Touya’s palace, so much so that it made Shouto’s clothes cling uncomfortably to his body. He ignored the oppressive heat, pushing through the burning doors and thick air.

“Touya!” he called out, his voice ringing in the empty halls. No answer. He called out again, reluctant to walk further into the heat.

“I’m here, I’m here,” his brother’s voice called out, a yawn partially disguising his words. He rounded a corner, robes barely hanging on, clinging to the back of his shoulders by either determination or magic. “Why are you here, squirt? It's not my time.”

Shouto crossed his arms in an effort to show his displeasure and immediately wanted to uncross them. Instead, he pushed out some of his power against his brother’s domain, just managing to cool the immediate area around him to a more manageable temperature.

“Are you really this ignorant or are you trying to play me as a fool, Touya?”

His brother smirked, slouching against a wall. “Aren’t you always, little brother?” At his silence, Touya rolled his eyes. “Mom’s not here.”

“So, you know.”

“Of course, I know! It’s why I keep getting prayers to stop Summer, even though it’s not my fault .” Bright blue eyes looked him up and down. “Runnin’ yourself a little ragged, little brother?”

Shouto ignored him, unsure if that question was a barb at his pallid appearance or genuine concern. He could never tell with his older brother. He’d help with the autumnal bonfires in the same breath as pushing Summer’s influence to confuse his trees and make him late for the Equinox.

“If Mother’s not here then where is she?”

Touya scoffs. “Even if I knew, why would I say anything? She deserves a break from the old man.”

Shouto furrowed his brow, conflict twisting itself up in his stomach. Out of everyone, of course, she deserved a break from the old man but– “The humans can’t survive like this, Touya. If this isn’t resolved soon, they’ll die.”

He shrugged. “Let them, we can just make more.”

Shouto almost flinched, shocked at how heartless he was towards the beings they were supposed to protect. He glared at him, shock turning to disgust turning to anger, and firming his jaw. “You are callous and cold. But I suppose it goes along with how much like the old man you are.”

“Oh?” Touya sauntered over, the domineering heat pushing against Autumn’s chilled guard. “Would you rather have Summer’s power, little brother? Spend even more time with dear old dad?” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, lips twisting into a sneer. “Or, from what I understand, if your little endeavor doesn’t go well, you’re going to have to be the Sun. So, which is it gonna be, Shouto? The little humans or becoming a monster?”

Shouto pushed back against him, hands burning, the Autumn chill wavering under the waves of heat from his brother. But he wasn’t going to back down. “I’m not becoming the sun. And neither is Fuyumi,” he spoke through gritted teeth, “I’m going to find Mother and she’s going to fix all of this.”

Touya barked out a laugh and started pushing him towards the door in short jabs, handprints burning through the fabric of his robes. “You’ve always been a spoiled, selfish little shit. Putting this on mom.” He sneered when Shouto grabbed the threshold, his hand burning where it laid over his heart. “This is going to end in one of two ways. Our father being his charming self and destroying the humans, or you following in his footsteps in the next millennia and we’re right back where we started.”

With one last shove, Shouto stumbled back over the threshold, the fresh air a relief over his skin. Touya loomed over him, a lazy smile in place but his eyes were cutting. “You’re a lot more like us than you think, little brother, but I’ll throw you a bone. Check with Earth. Maybe they know, it’s the only way to get to The Unseen after all.”

Shouto recoiled. “Why would Mother go there?”

“Where else would you go to hide from the old man?” Touya said glaring up at the sky. Before Shouto could question him more, the door slammed in his face.

Finding Earth on a dying planet was a monstrous task in and of itself. Shouto could deduce that she was either somewhere safe and secure to keep her domain stable or everywhere at once to keep up with the amount of damage being dealt to it.

He spent a few days searching, talking to other deities about her whereabouts, being sent to places all over the world with nothing to show for it. Days turned into weeks and he could feel the slow drip of time slip through his fingers.

He wandered through a desolate village, the windows shut against the light, no human in sight. Part of him wondered if it’d been abandoned but Keigo told him that the humans intended to redirect water to their village from a shrinking stream. He would normally take Keigo’s word with a bit of caution, the wind god was known to be playful and mischievous, but even he was worn down by the effect of the Sun.

He once again pondered if it was a fruitless endeavor, if he would have no choice but to become the same monster, that, given a couple of years, the world would be back in the same state because he couldn’t handle the responsibility, that his—

“Lord Autumn!”

Shouto looked up to see humans bowing low and an impressive trench in the land, a dark crumbling slash through the dry earth. The human at the forefront spoke from his bowed position, sweat dripping from his curly hair to the ground.

“Please, Lord Autumn, if you could do us the great service of aiding us, we’d be in your debt.”

Shouto hesitated. “I’m unsure how you think I could help. My powers cannot move the earth, nor move the water closer.”

“If you could make the weather cooler it would be a great help, Lord Autumn.”

The spring was in sight, yet this was still several days’ worth of work. There were only a handful of men digging, drenched in sweat and looking on the verge of passing out. How many humans had already died from dehydration?

He started rolling up his sleeves.

“L-Lord Autumn?”

“Hurry, send one of your men to the river. Entreat the spirit of the river to assist, state how you’re going to take care of its new home. The faster we start the faster we will be done.”

“Of-of course!” The man turned, muttering something under his breath before jogging with too much energy for a human working under the hot Sun all day.

The rest of the men gathered around Shouto in a loose circle. He called upon his powers, not as effective or as far as he wished but enough to see the men slump in relief.

“We are incredibly grateful to you, Lord Autumn,” another human said, voice exhausted.

He waved off their praises, lowering himself into the dug-out earth. Ignoring their attempts to thank him in favor of digging a borrowed shovel into the dirt.

He could see the man from before speaking to the spirit, her hair long and slick down her back, green in the sunlight. With a nod and a handshake—odd, but he supposed that most spirits were more casual with humans than most gods he knew—started redirecting the river to erode at the earth.

For hours they chipped away at the dry earth, the men still sweating despite Shouto’s influence. One by one the men dropped their shovels for a rest, taking advantage of the cool air emanating from Shouto and drifting off to sleep before it could register.

They all no doubt had earned their rest, all but one succumbing to Hitoshi’s influence. But it was strange. The one who had spoken to the nymph looked to have much more energy than the others, a smile on his face, hands scarred from hard labor relentless in his digging, never faltering even as every other man gave in to the exhaustion and the brief reprieve set from a Season.

His shovel finally slowed and Shouto wondered if this would finally be the time the man sat and rested. Instead, he tossed the shovel from their dugout and faced him with a bright smile and crescent eyes.

“Thank you for the assistance, Lord Autumn! I believe I have it handled now.”

Shouto blinked in confusion. He looked at the miles they had left to reach where the river spirit was eroding away and back at the man.

He at least had the decency to blush. “W-well, I suppose I still need help moving these men from the ditch. It’s not necessary but I would greatly appreciate the help. Thank you for helping these men, Lord Autumn!”

He finished with a low bow. While confident, Shouto still wondered how this man expected to continue—or how much he even could continue—when there were still several days-worth of blistering work. Perhaps he was worried about taking too much of a god’s time?

Which is not untrue, but Shouto was in part responsible for their misery.

“It is fine. But, how much work do you expect to do single-handedly? I shall continue assisting.”

The man shot up, hands out in a flailing placating gesture. “No, no! Please, it’s alright! I still have a good handle on my powers and it should take me no time to finish. I just needed to wait until the men fell asleep. I saw you and thought it would be the perfect opportunity. I’mtrulysorryforinconveniencingyou!”

Shouto was once again left floundering in front of the man in front of him, unsure if he heard wrong because he was surely a mortal. “Powers?”

The man turned red as a sunset red from ears to neck, his hand fluttering around him like falling leaves. “I-I am so sorry! I didn’t properly introduce myself and I haven’t taken off my disguise. You must feel so deceived. Here, I’ll—”

Still a blushing mess, the man let his disguise fall away, the plain and nondescript veneer being outshone with vibrant green hair and eyes to match. The subtle glow of goodlihood and power sparking to life across his skin. The god practically fell over to bow. “Midoriya Izuku! God of the soil and plant life and son of the Earth!”

Truly the god did not look that different in his True image from his mortal one; he still had the freckles and same face shape and build. Even the scars on his arms stayed the same. While Shouto was no stranger to scars he had to wonder who hurt this god in order to make him scar.

With the disguise melted away Shouto could see how obvious it was that he was a god. It made Shouto wonder how he was able to conceal his power or if Shouto was so isolated from his fellow gods he forgot what to look for.

“Oh,” Shouto said, hesitatingly, stutteringly bowing back in return. Not quite bowing his head like he should, stunned enough to forget about formalities and to instead stare at the top of a curly flop of hair. “Shouto Todoroki. God of the Autumn season and all it entails.”

Izuku straightened. “Ah! Yes! I-I know. N-not that—! I mean—you’re pretty well known amongst us minor gods. That’s—that’s what I meant.”

“I’m afraid I’m well out of loop with the other gods, I’m not sure if I’ve… heard of you before. I didn’t even know that Earth had a son.”

“Don’t—don’t worry about it, Lord Autumn! Not many acknowledged my godhood, I was very weak when I was younger. I’ve only been actively assisting my mother in her duties the past couple hundred years! Nothing to worry about!”

Shouto inclined his head in acquiesce, pausing, then, “I actually have a request of you and your mother if you’ll be willing to hear me out.”

“You did just help me out a great deal here, just give me a few minutes to finish out the new stream and I’ll be happy to help you!” The enthusiastic acceptance was accompanied by a smile so bright and warm that Shouto had the thought that if the sun was like that, he wouldn’t mind it so much.

He assisted Izuku in moving the men over, standing near them to help keep them asleep comfortably. Or at least enough to not be woken by the Unseen’s armpit that is the Sun. He watched in fascination how Izuku stood in the middle of their hard work and reached out, hands fisting in the dirt and arms pulling like he was tearing something apart. The earth before him gave away, crumbling and getting shoved onto shore from where his hands were. The earth roiled like the waves, flowing down to where the nymph was working on her end of the new stream and cascading up and over the new banks.

A completely new stream in under a minute.

Izuku brushed off his hands and hopped up to stand in front of him. “Thank you again for helping me out with this. It was just too uncomfortable for them to properly rest and I didn’t want to force them to sleep, that’s just rude, and if I revealed myself they would get all worship-y and it would be so awkward and—” he cut himself off, his hand waving away the topic “—I really didn’t expect you to help out help out but it’s very much appreciated! What was it that you wanted to ask?”

Shouto blinked at the onslaught of words. He tried to remember if he had met anyone who spoke quite as fast or as much as Izuku and failed. Everyone he knew spoke very deliberately—his siblings and those associated—and with purpose. Izuku seemed to ramble on without a care, words falling from his lips uncensored and authentic. Perhaps it was a trait shared by those under Earth’s domain.

“I wanted to request help from Earth if she could help me find my mother, the Moon.”

“Oh! You’re looking for your mom! Of course, that makes sense with all the commotion and the Sun…” Izuku furrowed his brows, a hand coming up to his lips mumbling something Shouto couldn’t quite make out before shaking his head. “I’m afraid she’s nowhere on Earth. If she was, we definitely would have known.”

Shouto hesitated. For the most part, no one spoke of The Unseen. Only the One Being and desperate fools stepped foot down there. Izuku was not like his brother, he seemed kind and genuine and too good. He was unsure if the other god would approve of him traipsing down into the place where gods go to die.

“I believe that she may have retreated to The Unseen. I need Earth to allow me passage.”

That seemed to stun him into silence. Green eyes wide and mouth agape. He blinked a few times, hands coming up to twist into mindless shapes before deciding to clasp into fists in front of his chest. “You do realize that if you go there the Devourer will take your immortality and you can die, right?”

Shouto nods. “Yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.”

“What makes you so sure she would be there? Why would she be there?”

He huffed in frustration. He knew it would be a poor bet for Izuku to help him. “I’m not sure. I just know that’s a place where she can hide. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just,” Izuku looked off to the side and took a breath. He looked back, eyes sparking with grim determination. “When you step into the Unseen it will take your immortality. You can die there. The Devourer may be weakened and only speak in whispers but his prodigy is just as deadly and should not be underestimated. If we go you have to be sure that she’s there.”

He clenched his fists and could feel the air around him grow colder. “I don’t know for certain if she’s there but I don’t know another place where she would be. My brother has connections in the Unseen. He knows them. I can imagine him pulling in a few favors to make sure she’s safe there.”

“There’s no guarantee that she’s safe down there, Shouto.”

“I know that!” he snapped, the temperature dropping enough to see a little shiver run through Izuku’s shoulders. He looked away, drawing the cold back. “I don’t have any choice. I can’t find her anywhere else and I need to be able to bring her back to the One Being by the end of next month. I just need to get to the Unseen. Please.”

Izuku was silent and Shouto refused to look at him. Something gross and uncomfortable twisted in the pit of his stomach while he waited for his answer. The new stream was flowing steadily but he could see the river nymph a way away, her large eyes watching from a distance.

Finally, after an eon, Izuku said, “Alright.”

Shouto turned to him in shock, searching green eyes for any deception, so certain he was going to get a refusal. “Alright?”

“I’ll show you where an Entrance to the Unseen is and we’ll go down to find your mother.”

“We—?”

Izuku held up a hand, silencing him. “Yes , we. You are not going alone. It’s too dangerous. I’m coming with you or you’re not going at all.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.” Shouto tried to bite out but it came out bland and toothless.

Eyes shining and a grin a shade too impertinent to be unassuming— Shouto had a sinking feeling that Izuku Midoryia was anything but unassuming—he said, “It’s a good thing you have a friend.”

“Unfortunately, we do have to go to an already existing location.” Izuku threw a grin over his shoulder, expertly trekking through uneven ground and ducking under branches. “I don’t think Mom would approve of us going into the Unseen.”

They had already been walking for an hour or two, following the main body of the stream they had altered. The entrances could only be accessed through the mortal way, Izuku explained, waving a cheery goodbye to the nymph. They were enchanted to make it even more arduous for both mortal and god alike, to keep out “troublemakers”.

Izuku had been chatting about it since the start of their little journey, telling him the ins and outs since his mother and he are the ones tasked with keeping the entrances secure. There were traps and beasts that would be a challenge to take on by oneself let alone without powers, and a particularly tricky enchantment that they would not be able to bypass that would randomly send them back to the forest. It made it all the more apparent that Shouto had no chance on Earth, the Unseen, and the Celestial of ever finding the entrance on his own before the deadline.

Shouto would not lie. There were very few instances where he did not get his way (typically only when dealing with his siblings), let alone where he had no other choice (when dealing with his bastard of a father). He would not say he was pouting but he was letting his grievance be known.

Suffice to say, he did not dignify him with a response.

“Shouto?” Izuku slowed, his mouth not smiling, but his eyes definitely were – twinkling at him mockingly-but-not-mockingly. He had the distinct feeling that if Izuku bothered in hiding his amusement it would not be at him. It wouldn’t be some sort of hidden joke that went over his head, a silent mockery over some strange thing Shouto did. But he was.

Amused that is.

“It really is for the best for me to come with you.”

“Hm.”

“It’s true! Your chances of survival have gone up at least fifty percent!”

“And why would you say that?” Damn it.

Izuku grinned. “Because I am here!”

Shouto gave him the blandest look he could muster.

“It’s not the best, I know but,” he tilted his head unabashedly at him, “it got you to stop pouting.”

“I was not pouting.”

This time Izuku did nothing to hide his amusement. Laughter rang out and startling birds into flight. A hand came up to cover his mouth, scars silver in the light. “You’re pretty funny, Shouto.”

He was quite sure that “funny” was never a word anyone would have described him as.

Grunting in response, he trudged forward. He wasn’t sure how to deal with the Earth-bound god. Most of his interactions with other gods were curt, polite, distant, and occasionally filled with an undercurrent of frustration. Someone poking fun at him, who laughed and smiled freely without a second agenda, who called him funny —

It was strange.

It was strange and he didn’t know how to feel about it. Like everything had been moved two inches to the left or Touya being in a good mood. It wasn’t bad but he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

He held a branch out of his way before letting go. And when he heard a thwap and a startled yelp he decided he’d settle on not that bad.

He could honestly say that whoever had the ability to stumble across the entrance to the Unseen had to be either very lucky or very stupid. Most of the gods that he knew would have not bothered when they learned they couldn’t use their powers to get to the entrance.

He and Izuku had to walk through the forest three times, wade through a wide river while dodging the arms of a deep creature borrowed from Seruki that Izuku ended up chatting with for at least 10 minutes. Apparently, the god of the Sea and the Earth were close friends and they regularly met up – Izuku went as far as calling him Uncle Seruki. Shouto couldn’t imagine it. His father and the Sea god never saw eye to eye and always instructed him to keep a wide berth, though Shouto always suspected it had something to do with how the Sea gods were more creature-like in appearance. But the no-nonsense god with his grey whiskers and round seal face always winked at him with a brief smile when he attended meetings and always advocated for the nymphs and other minor gods under his rule.

Their last task, after essentially having lunch with what he thought the humans called a “kraken”, was climbing up the side of a mountain with no magic to stand at the gaping maw of what seemed to be an endless tunnel.

Exhausted to the bone, Shouto stepped closer. He could feel an invisible wind coming in from deep inside the tunnel, but no magic. He looked around, not seeing any horrific monsters waiting to pounce and really hoping not to. In polite society, it was spoken of in hushed, reverent whispers about how the One Being banished the monstrous Nomus and those loyal to the Devourer, and how they lurk under the surface waiting to be released again. His father on the other hand always bragged about how many monsters he destroyed in the war. “So, this is the entrance to the Unseen?”

Izuku hummed, stepping up next to him. “Almost.”

Shouto’s shoulders slumped. “There’s more?”

After spending at least the past couple of days with him—whatever counted as days with his father never leaving the damn sky— and having grown used to Izuku’s steady and cheerful presence, it was somehow still gratifying when he threw his head back and laughed so loud it echoed down the tunnel.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s just the way you said—you were just— so disappointed,” Izuku choked out through his giggles. He wiped a tear from his eye, sighing. “We have to wait here until it opens up. It shows up randomly, otherwise it’s just another cavern.”

Izuku led him away from the opening over to a copse of dead trees not too far away. “It’ll be good to use this time to rest up,” he continued, casually walking over and picking up a log to use as a seat. He patted the log next to him with a smile before collecting rocks to start a fire pit. “We might be here for a while.”

“How long is a while,” Shouto drawled, squinting a bit at the god before cautiously sitting down. He lit a small fire in the circle of stones Izuku was preparing, earning him a beaming smile.

“It’s hard to tell with the sun but it usually comes at nightfall. Scares off more people that way I think,” he said, sitting, smiling at his own joke.

Shouto tensed, his gut clenching like there was a fist twisting his intestines. “Will it ever come then? Night hasn’t fallen in weeks, Izuku. How can we know that the entrance will even come? I don’t have the time to wait.” He stood as if he could somehow march back and demand to be taken to the Unseen.

Eyes wide, Izuku held up his hands in a soothing gesture, almost fanning to guide him back down to his seat. “D-don’t worry, Shouto. That’s not how the spell works, it’s based on time, not light, a-and even then, I’d still find a way to open it.” He looked down at his lap where his hands were strangling each other. “I-I’m sorry. I know this is extremely important to you and I think I’ve been too lighthearted about this. I’ll treat it more seriously from now on.”

He was still trying to drop his shoulders from where they crawled up to his ears. He sighed, loosening some tension from them. “It’s fine, Izuku. You’re fine. I apologize for snapping. I’m just… tense.”

Shouto frowned when the silence stretched, the chirping of cicadas and buzz of insects filling in where it would have been Izuku’s chatter. He turned to look at his friend to see him still staring at his hands, brow creased and worrying his bottom lip. Shouto waited until he looked up, squeaking when he saw that Shouto was already looking at him.

Green eyes darted away and came back, conflict creasing at the edges. “Shouto, would you—ah—that is, if you’d like, if you would like to… talk about what’s troubling you. I’m here to listen.”

He looked away from piercing green eyes that seemed to be begging to help. The gaze prickled at his skin and he half expected Izuku to retract that offer but it hung in the air between them.

Practically everyone already knew anyway. What’s wrong with telling one god that’s going to find out or even already knows? At the same time, this was Izuku, the one god he knew who went out of his way to help strangers—gods and mortals alike. He offered help with nothing in return, chatted with beasts as if they were old friends, and opened up so easily that Shouto feared for the heart he gave out so freely. The vicarious vulnerability ate away at his own walls. He was afraid that if he opened up to Izuku the dam would break and all the things he tried to keep behind it would spill out into a never-ending ocean.

A gentle hand touched his forearm, a comfortable warm despite the heat. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to but… I think you want to, Shouto.”

He sighed. “I’m afraid if I tell you I’ll tell you… everything ,” he pressed a hand against his chest as if to keep his heart from spilling out, “and that’s…”

“Scary?” At his nod Izuku sat back a bit, tilting his head to think. “How about… I’ll tell you about me? A secret for a secret.”

He couldn’t believe that Izuku, god of heart-on-his-sleeve, had any secrets. If he did, they had to be how he secretly rescued a cat or his legion of friends he made from aloof gods. His brow furrowed in confusion. “You have secrets?”

Izuku chuckled, face flushing a soft pink. “I can have secrets! Everyone does!”

Shouto felt his own face heat up, embarrassed for some ungodly reason, and looked away. He felt a nudge against his knee.

“So? Do you think that would make you more comfortable?”

He turned and got a full-frontal assault of freckles and big doe eyes blinking hopefully at him. His face felt like it was in front of a raging bonfire but he didn’t move. His instincts yelling danger! Danger! Danger! But since he couldn’t exactly punch Izuku, he froze.

“Has anyone told you you’re very insistent?”

Izuku grinned, unrepentant. “All the time!”

He turned away, his skin buzzing and hiding his smile in his hands. Fully in control of his facial features and determined not to let anything affect him, he looked back. Izuku was still watching him, his eyes warm and his smiling inviting. He could feel his heart clench in his chest but otherwise he was completely unaffected.

“What kind of secrets do you even have?”

“Well,” he drawled, “I could tell you how I was born.” He looked at his hands before offering them up for Shouto’s inspection, flexing his fingers. “I could tell you about my scars. Or, ” he leaned in close, eyes twinkling as he whispered, “I could tell you my mom’s secret katsudon recipe.”

He couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped. “The Earth’s secret katsudon recipe? That might be too powerful.”

Izuku nodded very seriously, even though Shouto could see him fighting a smile. “That’s top-secret information, Shouto. I’d choose wisely if I were you.” His eyes drifted past him, the humor seeping away and leaving them darkened with gravity. “But we might have to leave this for later. The portal opened.”

Shouto whipped around, nearly cracking something in his haste. And sure enough, the cave from before was replaced by something darker and much, much more powerful.

Before, he had been able to see a way down the tunnel because of the light; now, it was a yawning darkness. Whatever light from before disappeared past the entry. It almost looked like a piece of the mountain was just missing, like a bored god had come and cut out a circle from the mountain. Which actually sounded like something Touya would do. The only evidence of it being a part of the Unseen was a hazy purple-black around the mouth of the cave, clinging to the rock like poisonous moss.

Izuku was already looking at him when he turned back, eyes serious and determined. “This is your last chance to back out.”

He shook his head. “I’m not.”

“You might die.”

“So might you.”

“We might not even find her.”

“If we don’t, I shall deal with the consequences.”

“Time doesn’t work the same there, it might not be the same time when we come back out.”

“Then we better be quick.”

After a pause, Izuku nodded. He stood up and offered Shouto a hand with a smile. “Then let’s get going!”

There were no monsters hovering right inside of the gate like he had thought. No nomus pressing their deformed and decaying bodies against the invisible wall, destroying each other for a chance to escape. In fact, he would call the experience anticlimactic.

The most bothersome thing was the fact there was no light. After having non-stop sun for several weeks straight it was jarring to not see anything . Izuku led the way, his steps confident and sure, while Shouto stumbled after him, a hand on his shoulder and knocking pebbles and rocks every which way.

It was obvious he had been down here before but it was almost as if he could see.

“Exactly how many times have you been down here?”

Izuku laughed but there was a strange note to it. “Once! But for a very long time. Don’t worry, I’ll be able to lead us back out.”

That he had no doubt. Even though Izuku was attentive in letting Shouto know about the dangers and risks about the Unseen, he seemed to have a very intimate knowledge of it. And despite all the warnings he had still come down for an unknown reason and returned with his life and immortality intact.

Shouto wondered if that story was something he would be willing to share.

“If she is here as a guest, she will be at the palace. As soon as we make it through the Shadows it’ll lighten up and we’ll be able to see better,” he rambled on.

“Izuku.”

“It’s hard to tell but these shadows belong to Kurogiri,” he continued. “Which is different from the shadows made by Dark Shadow for the Death Gods. Which – they need a new name. It sounds so ominous and they’re so nice! Kurogiri is nice but very distant; he does not make a good conversationalist.”

“Izuku.”

“Hm?”

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, that strange note reappearing in his voice.

“You’re… nervous. Something’s wrong.”

He could hear the air whoosh from Izuku’s flailing hands. “Nothing—nothing’s wrong! Just, uh, a few things? I may have not mentioned? Maybe?”

He slowed to a stop. Did Izuku have more sinister secrets than he had initially thought? Did he trick him or was he a god from the Unseen that had escaped? He took his hand off of his shoulder, ignoring the wounded noise. He avoided the hands that tried to grasp him.

“What are they?” he demanded.

“Nothing bad!” Fingers brushed his hand. “You were determined to come down here and I don’t think it really will affect you—”

“Just tell me what it is, Izuku.” He may have been powerless in the place but he would not go down without a fight.

There was a little choked noise. “There may be… a little girl that needs to be rescued?”

It was like the floor was taken out from under him. “…What?”

Fingers brushed his again, tentatively, but didn’t try to hold on. “A little girl named Eri. She’s from the Unseen but she’s one of the kindest, sweetest gods there are. She helped me the last time I was here and I promised I’d come back for her.”

Shouto’s breath left him with a whoosh , the tension leaving his shoulders, his body dropping from the defensive stance it was gearing up for. Guilt and embarrassment settled in his cheeks and ribcage, making them hot. He couldn’t believe he had been getting ready to fight Izuku .

“I will try to help you the best I can! Just—this is also important. I can’t let her think I’ve forgotten about her.”

He raised his hand before realizing Izuku probably couldn’t tell. Instead, he reached out and grabbed his hand, silencing him. “I understand.” Idly, he stroked his fingers over the calluses on his palm. Izuku’s powers did seem more hands on than his did. “I will look for my mother and you will look for Eri.”

There was a sniffle and Shouto could feel his heart stop. He almost dropped Izuku’s hand but he just held it tighter. He could hear the rustle of clothes and wet sniffles. “Izuku?”

Another sniffle. “Sorry,” his voice was thick with tears, muffled against something, “I’m being a baby. Thank you for understanding.”

“It’s okay to cry. There’s no need to thank me.”

There was a wet laugh. “I will anyway. Thank you, Shouto. For being so kind.”

Embarrassment flared in his cheeks again, so hot he was almost afraid of catching on fire. He cleared his throat. “Is there anything else?”

“Um, if you plan to talk to the gods in the Unseen, I’m going to have to hide because there are a few grudges there and they will try to kill me. But if they don’t know you’re with me I think that they’d be more willing to hear you out. Tomura really likes games. But if we’re ever separated or I’m captured you have to jump into the river.”

Shouto blinked, not that Izuku could see his confusion, but he’s sure that Izuku knew he just threw Shouto one too many balls to juggle. “Jump into… the river…”

“Yes, it’s the Umi river and it’ll lead you back to the surface.”

“Right. But what will stop them from following us?”

He could hear the scuff of skin on stone as Izuku shifted from foot to foot. “Well, the last time anyone tried they drowned and got their immortality sucked up by Tomura. I’m not sure why it allowed me through but I suspect it’s because of my mom. When I woke up, I was in the Sea Kingdom and mom was waiting next to me.”

Shouto nodded, allowing the new information to digest, thinking. “Can we not go through another gate? They might let you through but I’m not precious to Earth in any way.”

“There’s only three gates and we can definitely try that first. But! In an emergency you should jump in the river, it’s the fastest. The river goes through the entire place. And you’re still important! I’m sure that they’ll recognize you and let you through!”

“That’s a lot of faith you have.”

“Well Seruki is actually really nice so I have no doubt he’ll let you through!”

He remembered grey whiskers and sly winks when Father wasn’t looking.

Well, if it worked for Izuku it should work for him. “And… the grudges?”

“Ah. Ahaha. Ha. That’s, um, a bit of a story. I would have to start with how I was born.”

He could feel the questions swirl in his head like the Autumn leaves, unable to focus on just one. It made his head spin. “I would appreciate it if you could start from the beginning.”

“Oh, sure, um.” Shouto felt a tug on his hand. He had completely forgotten that they were still holding hands. “We might as well keep walking. Um, so I’m actually a demigod and the only reason I’m a god is because I accidentally stole immortality from the Devourer last time I was down here.”

Oh, by the One Being, the secrets were somehow exactly what he expected and worse at the same time.

When Shouto had imagined the Unseen when he was younger, he imagined darkness. He imagined grey barren fields watered by bodies and blood. The Devourer had been elevated to monstrous levels fed by a young mind. A shadowy figure made of pure hunger, larger than even his father with thousands of teeth and glowing red eyes ready to rip his precious immortality from him.

He had imagined his father, blinding and horrific, scorching everything in his path and reducing the place to a blackened pile of ash. Desolate. Forsaken.

Granted, most of his imaginings were fed by his father’s tales of the war between the gods and the Devourer. They used to be tales that would fill Shouto with awe for his father, displays of strength and safety, until they became more like possibilities of punishments instead of stories.

Somehow the reality both matched up with his young mind—dark, grey, an eerie emptiness—and somehow not at all. There were not the fields that he thought would be reflected from Earth but a hard and black plane, smooth and shiny and reflecting the light from captured lights that he had never seen before. He had been aware of the oil lamps used by humans but this was completely different. Some were even different colors .

Stone buildings and more humble huts were scattered around. Those he recognized. Some were wooden structures that he remembered from a few years ago. There were buildings that did not reflect the architecture that he knew, completely foreign, with colors and lights that seemed impossible. Izuku explained that the Unseen had a complicated relationship with time and strange things would appear that he could only assume came from the future.

He spent some time gawking at the different things around him, from the grey-white rectangular building with a headache-inducing blue light blinking “laundromat”, to a small altar of sorts with a flat roof on two pillars and a rope connected to some sort of hook. In fact, much of the time he had to ask Izuku to repeat what he had been saying for the past who-knows-how-long.

It reassured him that Izuku not only repeated that he was born from the love of Earth and a human – how Earth tried and failed many times on making him immortal, interspersed with many anecdotes with other gods, of course – but also what he theorized each building was for and when the humans had made it. He briefly paused to point out the Umi river that would send them home. The light was minimal, the equivalent of twilight back on the surface, but it was supplemented by the flashing lights from the buildings.

“The nomus aren’t roaming around. They actually keep them in a separate area. They don’t understand the concept of ‘allies’ so they would just fight anything and anyone here.” Izuku said, face lit up with pink and blue.

Shouto nodded. At least they didn’t have to worry about mindless, nearly-indestructible slaves trying to fight them, just petty, irrational gods. “What made you decide to come down here for immortality?”

“The funny thing is that I didn’t decide to come here. Uh, this might be a little confidential so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to the other gods. The Death and Sea Gods and mom have it covered. Unless The Devourer gets any more power from other gods – then we have a problem but I don’t think that’ll be a problem? Hopefully?” He gave him an awkward smile. “Just don’t die and get your immortality stripped away while we’re here, ‘kay?”

He blinked. “I’ll try not to. I expect you to do the same?”

“Of course!” After a nod to continue, Izuku said, “The Devourer has been luring mortals and demigods down into the Unseen for eons—which is why mom made it so difficult to access—to turn them into gods from his stored up power so they could go out and help him regain power and return to the surface to overtake the One Being. So, none of the gods here officially have their own domains but due to the process of them gaining their powers are also a little unbalanced and aren’t that good at serving the Devourer’s purpose.”

So, they’re basically incompetent from what Shouto could translate. He supposed that he’d rather have a bunch of incompetent, unhinged gods than ones that actually follow the Devourer’s instructions. Their missions would have been considerably more difficult. Even then, the concept of this being who he had only heard horror stories about coming back, even with a ragtag group of gods, sounded unsettling.

Though, as Izuku laid out the plans of one of the most dangerous beings in the universe that threatened their lives, Shouto could not bring himself to be concerned. It seemed like such a faraway concept that bordered on impossible. Though perhaps he should have been more concerned since if they failed, they would give him even more fuel to further his plans. He resolved to help Izuku protect the entrances when they returned.

“And how do you factor into this?”

“Well, one night I had a strange dream. I was following someone into a dark cave and it felt incredibly important and urgent that I follow them. The next time I woke up I was outside an entrance and… followed that feeling. It all went downhill from there. I was immediately captured by Tomura and his gang. They tried to sow seeds of doubt about my existence and rising up against the One Being.”

Shouto smiled. “I’m guessing it didn’t work.”

“Like a fish trying to climb,” Izuku said, grinning.

His smile turned wistful. Sad. “That’s where I met Eri. We had plans of escaping but we didn’t know the river would lead to the surface so we tried to escape through one of the Entrances. We were found during our escape and I fell into the river and was swept away.”

He reached out and placed what he hoped was a comforting hand on Izuku’s shoulder. His smile lost the sad edge and became softer, patting his hand in return as thanks. He heaved out a sigh. “I just hope that they left her alone after I left. During that entire ordeal I ended up taking her handler’s immortality, and the rest seemed too chaotic to focus on a single child.”

Shouto squeezed his shoulder before carefully removing his hand, brushing his fingers against his arm, idly wondering if the silvery scar tissue could feel it. He wondered if it had happened here or before he was taken. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. You gave her hope and it sounds like she was smart enough to lay low.”

Izuku sighed. “I suppose but it doesn’t stop me from worrying, you know?”

He nodded. No matter how many times he told himself to ignore his thoughts or to stop feeling something they never truly went away. “Where do you think she is?”

“There was a special place where she was held for experiments. She developed an unusual ability and was separated from everyone else. I was there because they thought Kai could break me.”

Even though he had not known him at the time, Shouto felt so inexorably proud to hear how Izuku had prevailed. It was ridiculous, as if he had had any bearing on Izuku’s success. “Do you think we should split up and meet back at the river?”

Izuku hummed, hand coming up to cradle his chin as he thought. “Honestly, your best bet might be just to talk to Tomura. If she’s anywhere, she’d probably be with him but you have to be careful because he will definitely try to trick you. If you find your mom and I don’t meet with you, jump into the river, with or without me because I’m not leaving without Eri.”

“So, meet up at the river.”

“Yes, but jump in if I’m not there.”

“Didn’t you say it was important for the Devourer to not receive any more gods?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Aren’t you a god?”

“I mean, technically but—”

“So, I’ll take my mother to safety and come back and get you.” He shrugged. “Simple.”

Izuku glared at him, nose scrunching as he squinted. He was not very intimidating. “You are… incredibly stubborn, I hope you know that.”

“It’s the younger sibling in me.”

He barked out a laugh. “Oh, I bet you were the baby. Baby Shouto getting everything he wanted.”

Said baby smiled. He wasn’t wrong. Out of his siblings he certainly received the most during their childhood – attention, time, toys if they were phrased carefully enough. However, that wasn’t the best thing most of the time. The mantle of perfection was a heavy one. Any perceived fault was broken down to nothing and reshaped into something that fit his Father’s image.

There was a lot of resentment and anger that he refused to give attention to, reasons why he had refused to see that man in the past centuries. But he had found he quite liked leaning into the younger sibling role, liked the fond exasperation from his siblings. The particular love that he got from the playful back and forth before they eventually gave in. It had felt like it was the closest they could get to a “normal” sibling relationship. It hadn’t been to the point where that dynamic was comfortable or even natural—after centuries they still felt like strangers most of the time—but he hoped that it would slowly edge out the stony, awkward silences that dominated their interactions.

Yes, now, after the centuries, the reparations, he quite liked being the youngest sibling.

“My father was quite harsh and my mother tried to make up for it.”

At his silence Shouto looked over to find Izuku looking at him with full attention, his eyes never wavering from his own as he waited. Shouto had to look away, the weight of Izuku’s gaze too heavy for him to hold.

It seemed like a good time to tell him. Izuku wasn’t pressuring him, wasn’t asking, and he had the feeling that if he changed the topic, he wouldn’t question it. In the short time that he had known him, he had come to the conclusion that Izuku was one of the safest people he knew. He could tell him.

So why was there a burning fist around his heart that kept him from saying anything?

He swallowed around the clog in his throat. “My mother is everything they say in the stories about her,” he compromised with himself, “kind, loving, and gentle. She bent where he pushed, pushed when she could, and took the brunt of it when it was too far. She tried her best for us. Even when her best wasn’t the best, I knew she tried and when she couldn’t try anymore… I just want her safe.”

He heard a sniffle and had to hold back his own burning tears when he saw Izuku’s. Green eyes glimmered with determination and empathy as tears streamed down his face. Brow furrowed and mouth set, he reached over and clasped Shouto’s hand. “We will make sure your mother is safe, Shouto. I promise.”

Shouto blinked back the tears building behind his eyes, hand coming up to shield his face. A faux barrier to protect him from the contagiousness of Izuku’s tears. “Why are you crying?”

“Because it’s sad! You love her so much!”

He couldn’t help the strange conflicted mix of feelings in his stomach – the worry and anxiety over his mother and whether she was safe and the fear of what would happen if he didn’t find her – purely for selfish reasons. He was not nearly as altruistic as Izuku thought and it made him vaguely sick.

“I haven’t seen her in centuries.”

Those eyes could make his father repent. They pinned him like a rabbit in front of a snake, unable to hide from the waterlogged gaze. The guilt gnawed on his intestines. “Centuries?”

Izuku blinked, the last of his tears falling, and Shouto could finally look away. His cheeks were hot with shame and he gently extracted his hand from Izuku’s grip to fiddle with his bangs, brushing it over old scar tissue.

“We have a… complicated relationship.”

“Complicated or not you’re still risking your life and godhood to find her and—to me? That just proves how much you care about her.” He spoke with such a decisive nod of his head that Shouto couldn’t help but believe him a tiny bit. “You are a good person.”

“Coming from someone who’s down here to rescue a little girl because of the simple fact you want her to be safe, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Izuku turned red all the way to the tips of his ears, shrinking under the arms he wrapped protectively around his head. “Sh-Shouto! An-anyone would do the same! She doesn’t belong down here!”

“And you do?” he shot back. He shook his head. “You’re a better person than I am. You’re doing this unselfishly.”

“Says who,” Izuku muttered. Before Shouto could question him, he pointed at a large building, one he only recognized from traveling. A castle of some sort, with spires of grey brick climbing high to a point, narrow windows and a large mouth of an entrance. Large chunks of stone from the bottom were missing, crumbling and breaking off, the mouth gap-toothed and gaping. “That was Kai’s,” he said and swung his arm to the other side of the river to a small building in the distance. As they walked closer, he could see that portions of the walls were collapsed or outright missing, and he wasn’t sure if it was fully standing, but he could make out the green and red of the roof, and a giant, dull “7” next to it. “And that’s where Tomura lives.”

Shouto raised a brow, both at the poor attempt to change subjects and the run-down hovel Izuku was pointing at. “That’s his ‘palace’?”

Izuku’s shoulder’s shook as he muffled his laugh. “I don’t think Tomura cares when the others fight through his house, not enough to clean up after them. He really hates having his stuff go missing though.”

He couldn’t help the little judgmental hmm . “Is this where we split up?”

Izuku tilted his head, green curls bouncing. “I’m afraid so. If I get any closer it’s only a matter of time before they find me and you’d have a better chance without me.”

Shouto was nervous. His bones buzzed and his muscles twitched under his skin. He’d been with Izuku for the entire trip; it felt wrong to split up when neither had accomplished their tasks. How would he know if he was safe? If he found Eri?

He ignored the odd twisting in his stomach and nodded at the bend in the river closest to Izuku’s destination. “I’ll meet you there?”

“I’ll meet you there.” Izuku grinned, eyes glittering. “I’ll see you soon, Shouto. Good luck.”

He smiled back, heart pounding, stomach in knots. “Good luck.”

The place was worse when he got closer.

It looked like the ruins of an old market stall, if that had been pockmarked with crumbling walls and a caved-in roof. It was a strange contraption. An entire wall was made of once-pristine glass smeared with dirt; the other side was boarded up with wood. There weren’t any candles or lamps, but a flickering light as trapped in more glass attached to the ceiling. Towers of colorful, small packages in dozens of shapes stood scattered around. There were signs and machinery at the back walls that he didn’t recognize.

It didn’t smell like it had been cleaned regularly either. The wet, musty smell of stale water and the iron tang of blood hung in the air like a fog.

Inside he could see figures moving. One was sitting on the long table at the back, more were moving between the colorful towers, knocking them over and scattering the mysterious contents over the floor.

He couldn’t help but wonder why in the Celestial plane did his brother have business with the gods in the Unseen. And if he truly did have friends here, what price did he pay?

There was no door, or if there had been one once, it was long gone. He stepped through the threshold, careful of the strange glassy ground.

There were several gods who looked the same, blond hair and manic eyes going as far as having the same scar on their foreheads, hopping and bouncing around one creature looking god in the center. “Missed me again, Iguchi! You’re really not good at this. You’re the best! That’s a lie, you’re really bad.” A cheerful voice echoed.

“I’m going to fucking slice you to bits!” the other god hissed, baring surprisingly blunt teeth. Shouto half expected fangs.

Another voice laughed, from the circle. “You gotta find the real one first!”

A harsh voice cut through their laughter. “Will you idiots shut the fuck up?”

“Aw, come on, Tomura! You love us! You wouldn’t know what to do without us! He would kill us and replace us easily. AH!”

Shouto merely watched as the wall next to the man sitting at the table dissolved into ash. Wherever the man’s hand touched ate away at whatever the building was made of until he could look back out to the caves carved into the walls of the Unseen. The voice in his head that would normally tell him to run was conveniently missing, too stunned to do anything except take a stuttering step back and make a loud bang! Something crunched under his foot and he looked down to see one of the colorful packets on the floor, the strange triangular contents exploded out. He looked up to see an angry, disheveled god—clearly the cause for the disintegration—looking at him with bloodshot eyes and yet his body remained still.

Five pairs of eyes stared at him. The pair of bloodshot, red eyes glared through scraggly light blue hair. Three of the five were from the same man, though there had been more before, with blond hair and blue eyes all with various expressions, but the one at the forefront was accompanied with a wide grin which quickly crumpled in despair. The last were still blazing with anger— hopefully towards the one who called him a bad fighter—and upon closer study was distinctly lizard-like in appearance with wicked sharp swords in each hand.

“An Acknowledged? Here in the Unseen?” The one with blue hair smiled, his lips cracking and bleeding. “What a lucky day for us. Kill him.”

Shouto leaped back, calling upon his powers but finding nothing. He narrowly dodged a punch by one of the blonds and blocked another. A swift kick to one of the duplicate’s heads disintegrated it to a clump of grey clay. But without his powers and outnumbered four to one he was quickly subdued.

One of the blonds, either the duplicate or the original, kicked the back of his knees to force him to kneel, his arms held in two strong grips.

“Wait!” he shouted, his heart thundering in his chest. By the One Being, confronting him head-on was supposed to be easier?! “I’ve come here to make a deal!”

Tomura—because it had to be Tomura—crouched in front of him, smelling like decay and dust. “What makes you think we make deals with the likes of you, little god?”

“My brother is Touya, the god of Summer. He told me that our mother was taking refuge here. Because he has friends here.”

Tomura threw his head back and cackled. “Is that what he said? And that we’re friends?”

“Aww, but I thought we were friends,” the man holding his right arm whined.

“I fucking hated him!” said the one on his left, “couldn’t get rid of him sooner!”

“But you can’t plan a revolution without becoming friends!”

A cracked hand grabbed the left one’s face, covering his mouth, fingers digging into his cheeks. The skin under his hand chipped away in flakes before fully dissolving into more mud. “Shut the fuck up you two,” he said, shaking his hand, the mud flying off and landing on Shouto’s face.

Shouto stared at Tomura’s hand, heart beating so loud it drowned out the complaint from the last blond man and whatever response there was. He could barely breathe. His chest barely moved, his lungs constricting to nothing in his chest, along with the instinctive fear that if he breathed too loudly it might draw their ire.

This was a very different fear than time with his father and his temper. At least he knew what would set him off and when to avoid him and what the aftermath would look like. Ruined rooms, broken cries, and blood and bruises painting his skin in purple and red. No one was safe from his anger but at least they knew who was targeted and what for.

But here, surrounded by unfamiliar gods and someone who could and would kill an ally with no forethought, it hit him like a meteor to the chest that he could die.

He knew that Izuku warned him, several times in fact, but literally faced with it and with no powers to speak of, he was in over his head.

How, how, how , did Izuku come to this place and leave in one piece? He spoke of Tomura as if he knew him. How close was he to dissolving into ash? As close as Shouto is right now? What did his brother do to get out of here alive?

“What is it that you want?” Shouto’s mouth moved, spitting out words before he could even process what he was saying. “You let Touya go, he must have done something. What do you want?”

Tomura’s eyes grew dark, mouth twisting into a snarl. He grabbed his face and Shouto’s heart leapt into his throat. ”Don’t interrupt me.” He tapped his pinky finger twice against Shouto’s jaw and he had to swallow a scream at how he could feel the first layer of skin die where it made contact. “You don’t wanna end up like Jin two.”

He dropped his face and Shouto almost threw up his heart right there on the dusty floor.

The lizard man sidled up to Tomura, lips twisted and yanked the god back by his shoulder. “Don’t you remember our deal with Touya? We can’t hurt him.”

Tomura jerked out of his hold, elbowing him in the process. “Do I look like I care about that?!”

“Do you want to die and have your very essence stripped out,” the lizard man said through gritted teeth, arm around his stomach.

“UGH!” Tomura threw up his hands, flinging a hand out to grab a chunk of wall and disintegrate it in his hands. “Fine. ”

He leveled a glare at him, red eyes nearly glowing in the dim light. “Be grateful your stupid brother made me promise on the stupid rock or you’d be dust right now. And it wasn’t that we couldn’t hurt him,” he said glaring at his companion, “it was that we couldn’t kill him.”

His blood-hungry gaze slid back to him and Shouto had to suppress a shudder. Touya might have prevented Tomura from killing him but who knew what the crazed god was thinking. It was incredibly risky. But if the Vow extended to their mom then she was at least alive and maybe that’s what Touya meant when he said he had friends in the Unseen.

Though it looked like his brother needed better friends.

“We can’t kill you and take your immortality, so what use are you?” Tomura mused, “What should we do with you?”

“Hold him for ransom to get another god here!” Jin exclaimed, jumping up and down and jerking Shouto’s arm with him. “Release him back to the Surface!”

The Jin abruptly stopped. He jerked Shouto’s arm up, wrenching it high up his back to pin him. Jin’s arm snaked up around his throat and put pressure on Shouto’s windpipe. It was still just the one Jin, no duplicate despite the contrary statement of releasing him. Which was looking like a faraway dream when Jin said in a low, menacing voice, “We can always force him to kill himself.”

And just as quickly as he was choked, he was dropped. He coughed and gasped, hands instinctively coming up to cradle his sore throat. “Or we can make him join the revolution!”

“He’s not going to join the revolution!” the lizard argued. “He’s not made of the same stuff as his brother.”

“It’s a good idea! No, it’s a terrible idea. But we can convince him. Or we could just drop him in a hole and keep him there forever.”

“Both of you shut up!”

“I want a deal,” Shouto rasped through the fire that was his throat.

The three quieted, looking at him like he was a new creature that they never noticed before.

“Oh! Just like his brother!”

“Shut up, Jin,” Tomura said, almost distractedly. He narrowed his eyes, Shouto felt like an insect, Tomura, the cruel child waiting to tear him apart to see how he worked. “What kind of deal?”

“A challenge,” he said, standing as straight as he could. He leveled a hard gaze at Tomura, the rasp in his voice still, unfortunately, present. “If I win you let me and my mother go. If I lose you can take my immortality.”

Tomura laughed, wild and manic, his bloody eyes crescents with glee. “Will you promise on the fucking rock?”

Shouto raised a brow. “You don’t trust me?”

He cackled again. “As much as you trust me.” He held out a hand. “Three challenges.”

“If I pass your three challenges then me and my mother have safe passage out of here. Unharmed .”

Tomura rolled his eyes. “If you pass my challenges, then I’ll allow you and another companion safe passage unharmed. If you don’t, you’ll slit your own throat for us to take your immortality.”

Shouto hesitated, something in what he had said not sitting right. He clenched his hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “I’ll slit my throat but you’re responsible for actually taking my immortality.”

Tomura shook his hand at him, eyes narrowing. “Yes, yes, that’s what I said. Do we have a deal or what?”

His hand reached out, eyes narrowed. “You can’t complain if you happen to miss the chance of getting my immortality if you’re distracted.”

Tomura glared, red eyes glinting in the dim flickering lighting. “Touya told you about the siphon, didn’t he?” Shouto didn’t have any time to react before Tomura snatched his hand, crushing his fingers and burning the skin off where the pads of his fingers met his skin. Tomura ignored his gasp of pain, as he continued the deal. “No matter, yeah, whatever. Unbreakable Vow, safe passage, no harm, one pass, you kill yourself. So swear I, on the Unbreakable promise rock.”

His hand burned and he could see the skin flake off, slowly drifting from his skin. He could feel tears drop from his eyes and roll down his face as he gasped out, “So I swear on the Unbreakable Stone.”

A vacuum of power swept over them, locking their hands in invisible stone before breaking and Shouto could finally drop Tomura’s hand.

He cradled his hand into his chest. What was left of the skin was raw, cracked, and throbbing. Blood pooled and dripped off his hand. If he looked too closely, he could almost see fingerprints in the muscle.

“Now that’s over with,” Tomura said, brushing off his hands as if his skin was just dust, “I need you to get my father’s hand from Himiko.”

He blinked back the leftover tears from his eyes, anger raging inside his chest. “You expect me to go right now? Without even healing my hand?”

The god just scoffed, his smile smug and disgusting. “We’re not bringing you to our only healer. How stupid do you think we are?” He turned and gestured for his lackeys to follow, dismissing him. “Himiko is probably in one of the caves. Bring it back by tomorrow.”

He clenched his injured hand, the pain grounding him as fury rose, lapping at the back of his throat and threatening to flood him. “You’re so intimidated by me winning you have to resort to cheating?!”

Tomura paused, turning around lazily, arms loose at his sides. “Let’s get this straight, little god. You’re not the one I’m after. I could care less about what you do or how I win. To me, you’re just another character.”

Then he left. Disappearing further into the house and leaving Shouto alone with his hand and rage stained red.

He was able to bandage his hand with fabric torn from his clothes. It didn’t do much, but it protected the exposed parts of his hand and he sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t need it in future challenges.

Who was he even kidding? Of course, Tomura was going to force him to use his injured hand.

He could practically feel his teeth grind away to nubs when he thought about it – how he hadn’t thought ahead, how he was caught off-guard. He should have paid closer attention to what Izuku was saying; maybe he would’ve had a greater advantage if he hadn’t been so arrogant.

He was so angry at Tomura, at his father (since it’s his fault that he was down here in the first place), and at himself . If he’d still had his powers, they would have been going haywire, producing cold winds and early snow mixed in with the seasonal bonfires. Something that would pair amazingly with this endless grassy field.

Though, it wouldn’t be the worst thing for this place to be set ablaze.

Shouto shook his head and walked even faster to get to the caves. It wouldn’t serve him to act like his father. It was only more evidence as to why he shouldn’t become the Sun. If he got angry, who knew what he’d do with that much power. He just had to focus on what he needed and get out.

He just needed to pass the challenges, find his mother, find Izuku, and get out.

He spared a glance over his shoulder to where Izuku had pointed out Kai’s base. It honestly wasn’t too far. He was half tempted to drop in and check if Izuku had Eri yet but it would only take time away from his own mission and he was sure Izuku had it covered anyway.

It didn’t stop him from wondering.

Shouto really hoped that Izuku was having a smoother time than him. Izuku had reassured him that it would be abandoned, but who knew who had decided to take refuge in that place.

It did make him wonder why this Himiko had decided to sequester herself in the caves instead of just taking over Kai’s headquarters.

Although, Shouto thought with a grimace, he could see how she had made the place into a home. Much more aligned with what he imagined the Unseen was like as a child. Rust red loops and shapes that vaguely resembled human faces were splattered around the entrance. Peering past the entrance, he could see various items strewn about, placed somewhat randomly but deliberately. Various malformed skulls hung on the walls, some filled with oil or fat and a woven stem of grass that lit the way further inside. The walls also seemed to have various drawings in dark paint. There was a distinct lack of anything broken, but he could see the occasional imprint of a hand or five round divots, no doubt courtesy of Tomura.

Shouto wished he had his powers back; he wasn’t looking forward to holding one of these strange skulls for light.

Nonetheless, he grabbed the one that was the most intact. Its shape was awkward but the cranium was wide enough to rest in his palm despite its bumpiness. The eyes glowed a yellow-orange and the mouth was a gaping hole with a crack along the upper jaw.

“Hello?” he called, “Himiko? You have something of Tomura’s and I’m here to retrieve it.”

He crept farther into the cave, passing more skulls and strange drawings. He stumbled when the next step seemed to disappear from under him, the drop causing him to slosh hot oil past the rim of the skull. He winced, but the bandages seemed to protect him from any heat. He looked up and saw that the drop opened up into an even wider cavern, more skull lamps lining the circumference of the room, showing off the spaciousness of the area.

There, in the middle of the room, stood his mother.

He nearly dropped the skull, his body going slack in shock. “Mother?”

She stood stock still in the center of the room, eyes wide and mouth agape as she looked at him. The candlelight flickered over her, the shadows dancing across her high cheekbones and slim figure. The darkness contrasted with the pale white of her skin and hair making her look sickly and wane, but perhaps that was due to hiding out in the Unseen. He couldn’t see her grey eyes in the shadows but it was no doubt his mother.

She didn’t move as he walked closer, his heart thundering in his chest, his hands shaky.

He wanted to shrink away. To hide. He had thought he was ready to see his mother again but he wasn’t. He should have let Fuyumi search for her. It’d been too long; there were too many unsaid things between them for their first meeting in centuries to be under these circumstances.

He should have covered his left side. Did it remind her of that day? Did she regret it?

Was she afraid of him?

She was trembling. He could see her shoulders shaking as she watched his approach through wide, unblinking eyes. He was taller than her now. “Mother?”

Tears filled her terrified eyes, spilling over her cheeks, hunching over as she sobbed when he stood in front of her.

Heart stopping, he reached out but didn’t touch, his hand hovering over her crumpled form. “M-mother? Are- are you hurt?” He summoned enough courage to lower his hand, the touch a butterfly’s wing over her shoulder, but she flinched back like he had hit her.

He couldn’t stop the quickening of his breath nor the tears in his eyes that burned like the sun that day. His hands were digging into his chest before he was even aware of moving. Everything just a little bit darker from dropping the skull, the oil pooling on the ground, the light fizzling out in the cooling liquid.

Her eyes darkened at the oil oozing between them like blood. “You’re just like him,” she muttered at the ground.

His heart dropped from his chest, leaving him hollow. Hot tears spilled over and burned their way down his face. “I-I’m not.”

She glared at him, her eyes wild and terrified and burning. “You’re just like him!”

It was like she had gutted him, took her frigid hands and scooped everything out and left him with nothing but ash and threadbare memories. When he spoke, his voice was nothing, barely a puff of air. “Mama, no.”

“You’re going to take me back to him!”

He couldn’t even swallow. His throat closed up at that last statement because wasn’t it true? Was he not taking her back to his father for his own gain? To pretend a little bit longer that he was not his father’s son?

Touya was right.

He’d been trying to force her to come back because he was selfish. Selfish and cruel to make her go through this all over again just so he didn’t have to turn into his biggest fear.

She was stumbling back, the light reflecting in her eyes and making them look like fire. Her face twisted into a disgusted grimace. “Get away from me.”

He felt awfully like a child at that moment, small and lost, hurt and confused. Tears fell and he tried to sweep them away, but they wouldn’t stop. And unlike the memories he had of her, she did not come to comfort him. She stood as far away as she could get, like he was a dangerous beast.

He felt like that young child who got a face-full of unfiltered power from the sun, arms out and looking for his mother, crying and screaming. And, oh, did he want to cry and scream at this moment. Something feral and desperate clawed behind his breastbone with nails made of steel. He wanted to sob, to scream, to rage at how it wasn’t not fair .

But it would only prove them right.

So, he pulled back all those messy feelings. He grabbed them and stuffed them in a box to be shut away. He did not scream. He did not rage like he wanted to. He did not shout or yell asking why she didn’t love him anymore, if she ever did or if it was his fault she had left.

His legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground, hands falling to his lap. “I’m sorry,” he rasped, copper in the back of his throat. “I was trying to make things right. I wasn’t thinking of you at all. I’m sorry, Mother.”

Tentatively, he looked up when she didn’t respond. She was smiling at him. It was not the soft, gentle smile from his timeworn memories. It was sharp and cruel, her teeth pointed and fanged. Her eyes, usually a gentle grey were now a piercing yellow, lit up with glee.

She giggled, high pitched and hysterical. “D’aww, aren’t you such a good son.”

He could feel his heart beat in every part of his body, a slow dull throb that rattled his bones and reverberated in his ears. His mother continued laughing with her yellow eyes that didn’t fit her face and a manic smile that stretched her mouth too far. She got up and skipped off to some hidden alcove with more energy than he has ever witnessed from her.

“That was so much fun! I haven’t been able to get that much despair in forever!” She skipped back, her long white hair falling out in clumps to reveal dirty blonde hair underneath. Her body shrunk as she tossed him a small wrapped package. “It’s no fun with those guys anymore!”

Himiko grinned at him, all teeth, her eyes flicking up and down and surveying him. She got up on her tiptoes and leaned into his space. “You’re pretty. If you survive these trials, feel free to stop by, I’d love to have more of your blood.”

She dropped back down, grinning, face flushed. “I’ll see you at your next trial, Shouto. You better get that to Tomura before the next day comes around.” She reached out—to pat his cheek, steal his eyeballs, something — laughing when he jerked back before she could even touch him.

“I’ll see you soon, Shouto!” she called, skipping out of the room.

He tracked her with his eyes, body numb and immobile, unsure if she had really left or if she was just waiting until he was sobbing and pounding the floor to kill him off. He was certainly an easy target.

When she didn’t come back, he huddled on the cold ground. His nails dug into his thigh, the dirt sticking to his bangs, and tried not to cry as he hardened the inferno of anger and grief into cold, hard coal.

For the most part he wasn’t listening when Tomura went on a rant about the gods and his success, waving around his literal father’s hand that Shouto fetched from Himiko, who was already there and waiting for him at Tomura’s base, smiling an eerie smile at him. He concluded that the only reason for him to go on that fetch quest was to make him want to hit them more than he already did.

“Hey!” A hand grabbed the front of his robes, shaking him. “Are you even listening?!”

“Of course,” he replied, voice lacking any inflection.

“Tch,” the hand dropped him. He absently smoothed out his clothes and tried not to grit his teeth at feeling the new holes where Tomura’s fingers were. Tomura was watching him closely and Shouto’s stomach soured as he watched Tomura’s scowl transform into a smug smirk.

“Congratulations little god, your next task starts now.” His smile stretched wider, far too wide to fit comfortably on his face. “It’s perfect for the spawn of the Sun god. It’ll be right up your alley.”

Shouto glared, fighting the urge to lean back from how close his face was to his own, disgust rising. He was determined to stand his ground; he was not going to let them get under his skin. Or at least, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing.

He waited for Tomura to actually tell him what the task was but he just stood there in front of him, grinning. The rest of his lackeys behind him giggled like Shouto was the punchline of some joke he doesn’t know. “Well what is it?” he snapped.

Himiko howled, tipping backwards from her perch on a broken beam and falling off. Jin supported her, gasping out, “you sound just like your old man!”

With Himiko steady Jin stood up tall with his hands on his hips, lowering his voice to mock him. “Well, what is it?” He burst out laughing. “Ah, that’s too funny. Actually, it isn’t funny at all. Way too serious and you rely on the lowest forms of comedy.”

Tomura smiled, all teeth. “If you were listening, you’d know, little god.”

He slunk back, perching himself on the strange table, one foot dangling and rhythmically beating against the block under the lip of the table his other foot was braced on. The rest of the gods gradually followed, slinking off to the sides of the room until it was just him and the blond man standing. The man grinned at him, waving like a child at their playmate.

Shouto narrowed his eyes, body tensing as he got in a fighting stance. “I thought you said you weren’t allowed to kill me.”

Tomura barked out a laugh, he propped his head up with the heel of his hand supported by the elbow digging into his knee. “Yeah, kill , nothing said about some entertainment.”

“Don’t worry! It’ll be a ton of fun!” Jin said, putting on a split grey and black mask, one that completely covered his hair and face. “Well, maybe for me. Not for you. You don’t even have your powers under here!”

Jin clapped and hopped from foot to foot, more Jins manifesting from him until four were hopping around the place. “Now don’t hold back, okay? If you do, I’ll be really, really mad.” A different Jin sped forward and kicked him into one of the rows, knocking it over. “Or maybe do, I don’t wanna get hurt!”

Shouto bit back a groan, crushing the strange items under him as he got up.

The packages crunched under his foot. The four circled him with varying degrees of excitement. He backed up, picking his way around until the ground was clear under his feet and nothing was at his back. A Jin on the left lunged forward with a cry.

He tried to call forth a cold wind to blow him back but was left empty, diving to the side at the last second.

“You can’t keep dodging! That’s no fun!” The Jin who dove for him complained.

“Yeah! It’s no fun if you keep moving!” said another.

“Ahh! I don’t want him to attack! He’s scary! Just look at his eyes!”

Shouto grabbed the closest thing to him, whatever it was squishing under his fingers with a crinkle, and threw it at the one closest to him, hitting him in the face. The Jin stood stunned for a moment, catching it in his hands. “Did you just hit me with a—”

He didn’t allow him to finish before he threw a punch, less force than with his dominant hand, but still enough to have the man dissolving into mud at his feet.

“That’s cheating!!”

“That’s playing dirty! You should join our rebellion!”

After that, the Jins came at him with a vengeance. Left and right with no reprieve. Anywhere he stepped there would be someone else swinging at him and with every Jin he defeated another would replace him. His injured hand cried in agony every time he was forced to use it. He tumbled through the room, destroying the towers, dodging hits and blows, all the while they just. Kept. Talking.

Not just the man—men—attacking him but the others on the sides of the room. Jeering at him. Shouting. They all coalesced into one raucous noise that made his head spin.

“Get up! Get up!”

“How can you join us if you’re going to lose to Jin. ”

“Go for the throat! Break his hands!”

“Stay down you worthless piece of shit!”

Broken pieces of metal and wood dug into his back as hands on either side held him down. He coughed and sputtered, the metallic taste of blood rolling down his tongue and down his throat. His face and body throbbed in pain.

Jin’s mask engulfed his vision, the outline of his face blurry and wobbling. “You’re not even trying!” he snarled and for a second he saw a different face scowling down at him. “How do you expect to get your mom back if you can’t handle this?”

The god punched him in the stomach hard enough to make him wheeze, shouting, the childlike cheerfulness back in his voice, “Trying’s for losers!”

Shouto was only vaguely aware of how close Jin’s face was when he reared his head back as far as he could and slammed it forward, mud splattering on top of him. Using the indignant surprise from the two Jins holding him down, he twisted his body and kicked one in the temple, dissolving that one too.

The last Jin was staring at him with wide eyes. “Wow! You’re pretty ruthless! You should definitely join our cause now!”

“Yes!” Himiko cheered from the sidelines, kicking her feet. “Join our war, I wanna see you bleed .”

A second Jin popped duplicated, his face an exaggerated frown, arms crossed and stomping his foot. “No! You can’t join now! You’re not good enough! Too soft!”

His heart was beating against his bruised ribcage, his shoulders heaving with his breath as he barely dodged a punch from the second Jin. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold out. How could he end this? By lying down and admitting defeat? Or did he have to defeat Jin and his army for Tomura to be satisfied?

Something in him rebelled against the idea of lying down and taking it. He doubted that it would satisfy Tomura’s bloodlust, and who knew what the next task would be. They could very well beat him within an inch of his life before sending him off on another task hoping he’d die. He also couldn’t give them the satisfaction. The thought of them seeing him yield, of smug faces and taunting comments, turned his stomach and grit his teeth.

His head was knocked back, pain blooming across his face. He gasped, choked, and spat out blood from the punch to the face, vision disorienting enough to see double. A too firm hand held onto his shoulder and it felt bigger than it should’ve been. If Jin wasn’t wearing the mask he would probably have felt his breath stir his hair. He could almost feel phantom waves of heat. Jin spoke in a low voice, “You’re really weak, you know that?”

The Jin easily danced back from his wild punch, not that it was that powerful with half of his body still restrained by the original. “Okay, but, your mom. Does she actually want to leave? ‘Cuz then you could just stay here!”

“Shut up!” he snapped.

“You can also beat up your dad!” Tomura called, a sharp smile in place. “We know you want to!”

The Jin holding onto him picked him up from behind in a restricting bear hug. “You’re already all trained up for war! Join us!”

Blood gathered in his mouth and he spat it at their feet, not that it mattered, the trickle of blood from his nose felt endless. “Never.”

He hissed when hands came up to press into the bruises on his face, squishing it and making his face throb all the more intensely. “I didn’t want him to join anyway,” the other Jin said, hissing at the one behind him when he disagreed. ”No. I didn’t want him to join. He wouldn’t understand it here, we’re a family . We’re loyal , we don’t sell out family members.”

The arms around him coiled tighter, pulling a pained breath out of him. “We can convert him!”

“Hmmm, you’re right,” agreed the other Jin, tapping his mask where his mouth would be. He ducked down to look Shouto in the eye, eyes crinkled into half-moons. “You’d be an okay little brother, what do you say? It’d be pretty hard since you’re the Sun’s son—ha—but after a bit you’d know what a real family is like!”

“You don’t know me or my family,” he snarled, venom spewing from his voice. These gods had some gall to think that they could make such careless comments about his family. His old man could go and disappear but Fuyumi, Touya, Natsuo, and his mother were his family. He knew what a real family was like. They didn’t know anything .

They continued to talk over him, their voices clashing and grating against his ears.

“Hey, hey! We’re trying to kill him, not make him join us!”

“Let’s keep him, he’s cute~” Himiko purred before grimacing as Tomura yanked her back by her pigtail.

“Yeah, but, Tomura! He seems okay!”

“Is he though?” the other Jin asked, hands on his hips and eyes raking over Shouto like he was particularly unimpressive livestock. Shouto glared back, wishing more than ever he still had his powers. They didn’t know anything. “He’s been nothing but mean the entire time! Himiko said she tasted fear in his mom’s blood! His mom’s . We can’t trust him!”

Himiko grinned at him, eyes shut dreamily and head tilted, catlike. “He’s so tortured. I want to taste it.”

“Let’s ask him about his loyalties,” said Iguchi, a hand thoughtfully stroking his lizard-like chin, peering at him from the side critically. “If he joins up like his brother…”

“Oooh, that’s a good idea! —It’s terrible— hey, kid, do you want to enact revenge on your old man? Or are you following daddy’s footsteps?”

It was the last straw. He didn’t even remember how he got free, he just knew one minute a Jin was behind him and a smug-faced Jin was in front and the next he had a Jin pinned down in the mud of his clone. He could barely feel it as he punched the last Jin, he was aware of his arm moving, his fist splattering red everywhere like paint, but it was distant and fuzzy like he was possessed.

By the time he slowed, his chest was heaving and his heart pounded against his ribcage. His hand throbbed and hurt even as it still felt strangely numb and disconnected. Everything was fuzzy on the edges highlighting Jin’s mangled, bleeding face in the center. His mask was torn and bunched up around his throat and forehead, his nose was definitely broken, possibly in more than one area, blood flowing from it like a river, and bruises were already forming and swelling in lumps.

Jin groaned, eye already swelling shut, and squinted at him. After a moment the god flashed a crooked smile and gave him a thumbs up. Shouto scrambled off of the other god, arms shaking. His stomach heaved and he felt bile burn at the back of his throat.

He could see the muddled forms of the gods amble forward, the different shapes and colors spinning across his vision, but Jin’s bleeding face was still at the forefront of his mind. A slouching black form with a light blue head stopped in front of him as more colorful blobs crowded around his victim.

He could only see Jin’s limp and broken form and the underwater quality of panic flooding him up to his ears made Tomura’s voice sound strangely distant and wobbly. He could still easily hear the smug smirk in Tomura’s voice. “You really did it this time, little god.” He barked out a laugh. “I can see that it was not just Touya who inherited your father’s bad temper.”

“I didn’t—where are they taking him?”

Tomura tilted his head back to see Jin hoisted over a very large woman’s shoulder, blood dripping from his lax face and staining the back of her short dress. “To our healer,” he said in an offhand way. He turned back to Shouto and grinned, all teeth. “I can’t wait to see how you’ll do in the next task.”

He immediately shook his head, eyes tracking to where the gods were taking Jin’s body. “No.”

Tomura barked out a laugh, a slash of white stretched out. “You don’t have a choice, kid.” He jumped from his seat and swaggered over, red eyes malicious and far too amused. “If you want to get out of here in one piece that is. Unless you actually wanna join the gang.”

Revulsion forced him to flinch back despite the aches and pains that coursed through his body.

Tomura sniggered, waving a dismissive hand at Shouto like he was expecting it. “That’s what I thought. Now get going while we set up, kid. As a prize for how entertaining you are, the next task should be easy for you.”

That was not reassuring in the slightest but Shouto didn’t bother to argue. He could still see all the blood pooled on the floor and the destruction strewn about the room. The iron tang invaded his senses until he could practically taste it from the air. He could feel his hands pulse with blood, hot and throbbing, from when he hurt Jin.

He didn’t bother to answer as he took off running. He ran until his lungs burned and his feet practically skimmed the grass as he headed to the meeting place.

Shouto could feel the pounding of his heart in his throat, his stomach twisting with nausea, turning further when Izuku wasn’t at the river. He fisted his hands, digging his nails into his palms to keep it together, inhaling shaky breaths as he tried to slow down his thoughts.

Images of Jin flashed through his mind, of his broken and bleeding face, grinning at him as blood stained his teeth. Red dripping from Shouto’s fists—

He retched. Bile burned his throat as he coughed and hacked into the river. He could feel his body trembling as he spat out what was left in his mouth, gasping. He plunged his arms into the icy water. A fleeting thought of diving crossed his mind as he watched the blood wash off his hands.

Soon he was trembling from the cold, his arms numb and stiff, but at least he could finally breathe and think.

But thinking was the last thing he wanted to do. Because all he could think about was that moment of dragging himself back to the surface and finding Jin’s broken and bleeding face under him. How stupid . He let his emotions take control of him for some worthless taunting .

He had hurt someone. He hadn’t even cared . He hadn’t even thought about it. From one moment to the next he had been on top of Jin feeling the way his nose gave way under his fist.

He didn’t want to be like that. He tried so hard to distance himself from that part of himself. He tried to shove those thoughts back into the crevasses of his mind. But his mind was doing him no favors, reminding him just how hot-headed, impulsive, and angry he was. His father was laying down bricks in a pre-set path laid out before him.

He gasped, his arm feeling like it was on fire. Shouto flinched away, looking down to see a strong hand on his wrist, stubby fingers leaving white imprints like a brand.

Looking up he could see the frantic green gaze of Izuku, eyes wide and searching, flicking over him like he couldn’t take in everything fast enough. “Shouto! Shouto!”

He hissed as those hands drew him out of the river, the touch painful but grounding. What was left of his wet sleeves were stripped away, hands briskly rubbing over his arms and making him cry out.

“Shouto? Shouto? Are you alright? Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?”

He could only shake his head no. The shivering intensified as Izuku rubbed his arms up and down, practically scrubbing his skin raw. Thankfully, Izuku fell silent, focusing instead on the shivers that wracked his body as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts.

Izuku started darting little glances at him, questions painted across his face. While he stayed silent for now, Shouto could see them edging closer and closer to his mouth.

“How was it on your end?” he asked when Izuku opened his mouth.

He gave him a funny little look like he knew what he was doing but played along. Izuku looked down and continued rubbing feeling back into his hands, which made them tingle. He could see Izuku’s brow furrow and jaw firm and it occurred to Shouto that this must be what Izuku looked like when he was angry.

“I couldn’t find her.”

“She isn’t—”

Izuku shook his head. “I don’t know. There were nomu all around Kai’s workroom and it was difficult to get in and out. I didn’t see a trace of her.”

Shouto flexed his hands in Izuku’s grip, not really massaging to get feeling back but just…holding. He turned his hands up to hold onto Izuku’s. “You said that she developed unusual and unknown powers. If they’re smart, they wouldn’t hurt her. There seemed to be a brain cell or two for them to share back there.”

A smile twitched at the corner of Izuku’s lips, huffing out an amused snort, but it disappeared just as quickly. “They wouldn’t kill her, she’s too—useful,” he said, choking on the last word, eyes squeezed shut. Sighing, he scrubbed at his face, looking so, so tired. “They would definitely have her. I think I’m going to have to confront them.”

“I thought you said you had to stay hidden from them,” Shouto asked, knowing the answer.

“Because he wants revenge against me. I can try to find her without them knowing but I still need to know where they’re keeping her. Either way, I’m walking right into the thick of it.”

He reached out, arm moving on its own accord, threading his fingers through dust-coated hair to rest their foreheads against each other. “I’m sorry,” he said, eyes falling shut. “You’re doing the best you can.”

Minutely, he could feel Izuku nod against him. Shouto wouldn’t consider himself good with words but it seemed to be enough for Izuku. He cried so freely that these silent drops of water wetting his hand seemed disturbing.

Shouto waited a moment. “It’s alright if you cry. I’m used to it.”

Izuku gave a wet laugh, sounding half like a sob. He leaned back, letting go of Shouto’s hand—which suddenly felt too light without the weight of Izuku’s—and wiped away his tears. Something inside Shouto wanted him to draw him back in, to give comfort. He curled his hands into his robes instead.

“Thank you but I think I cried myself out today.”

“If you say so.”

Lips quirking, Izuku gave a firm nod, eyes red-rimmed and puffy. “I say so. I don’t want to cry anymore; I want to do something.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll follow your lead.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

Shouto shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

Izuku gave him a funny look. It contained a strange mix of emotions Shouto couldn’t decipher. He waited for Izuku to say something but he only shook his head and pinned him with a wide-eyed look, forehead creased with unsaid concern. “How did it go with Tomura?”

Shouto wondered if Izuku had some sort of extra power that compelled others to talk. Maybe he had taken all of his extra words and given them to Shouto. He fought the urge to spill everything at that guileless look. “It went as well as it could have.”

“That bad?”

Shouto choked on a bitter laugh. “I suppose. Quite honestly it probably wasn’t as bad as it could have been.” He flexed his fingers; the blood was gone but his hands still felt soaked in it. He shuddered. “I’m still alive and have all working appendages.”

“That’s the least damage Tomura and the rest of them can do. They wear you down and make you doubt yourself.” Shouto could hear Izuku’s swallow, feel the tentative hand that reached out for his own. “They can make you believe the worst things about yourself because they revel in theirs. Whatever it is they told you, it isn’t true.”

It really made Shouto wonder how long Izuku had to deal with them, all the while trying to protect someone else. How long did he have to tell himself the same thing he was telling Shouto until he started to believe it? It made the same dark anger from before rise up like bile in his throat, vying for retribution. He wanted nothing more than to crush Tomura and his cronies.

He swallowed it down, his heart beating too fast for his chest. That was the difference between him and Izuku. Whatever they told him were lies to keep him down. But they said nothing but the truth for Shouto.

“That’s where you’re wrong. Everything they said was true. I am… powerful. I am careless and I am angry . I can hurt others—”

“But you wouldn’t.”

“But I did ,” Shouto snapped, glaring at Izuku. He didn’t know. He only thought that because he didn’t know . And once he knew it would change everything and Shouto couldn’t stop himself. “I have .”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Shouto didn’t know why he felt so inexplicably mad at this god who thought nothing but the best of him. But he did. Maybe because of it. “I hurt Jin right before coming here. Beat him until he was a bloody mess and I ran away like a coward. Because I couldn’t control myself. I am thoughtless and careless; I barely speak to my siblings to the point that I don’t even know them. I came down here for my mother without even thinking about what she wanted. She ran here for a reason and I’m what? Going to force her back because I don’t want to do my duties as dictated to me? Does that tell you that I am a good person, Izuku?!”

When he finished, he was panting. He could feel a flush of heat in his cheeks, partially from anger, partially from the embarrassment of vulnerability. His stomach tied itself in knots waiting for Izuku to respond.

“I think,” Izuku started, picking his words carefully but no less sincere, “that you did the best you could given the circumstances.”

When he didn’t answer Izuku scooted forward, green eyes connecting with his and never breaking. “You have a right to be angry. From what you said, you should be angry! And you are still one of the kindest gods I know, and you do it without thought. Most wouldn’t bother to help physically dig a trench for some mortals, not without having them sacrifice something. Or accept my confession as well as you have. You have stood by me and helped me. So much, you don’t even know. You love your mother, you are kind and trusting, loyal, fierce, beau—” He started coughing, red sprouting on his cheeks and traveling to his entire face. Shouto could sympathize; he could feel an answering blush overtake his face as well. The fervency of Izuku’s lecture caught him off-guard.

After a moment, the red started to recede and Izuku spoke, voice tight with control. “I know what they are like. They were provoking you, egging you on to do what they wanted. And all those things you mentioned can be changed for the future. You can start to speak with your siblings more, you can apologize or whatever you want. And it was your mother who abandoned her duties first.”

Shouto reeled back like Izuku reached out and slapped him.

“That isn’t—she… she had her reasons,” he stammered out.

“She did. And so do you. I’m not—I’m not,” Izuku huffed out a sigh, cheeks glowing red, “I’m not trying to say she’s a bad person or-or talk like I know your life. I’m just saying that, like your mother, you have your reasons for wanting out of this situation. And it doesn’t make you a bad person.”

His cheeks still felt like he spent too much time in front of a fall bonfire. Izuku gave him a new perspective, but it was too fresh and confusing to wrap his head around. He had who knew how long to get back to the last task and he still had no clue what he was doing or what he should do. He didn’t even know how they had started talking about all of this!

He looked away, trying to calm down his face as he tried to remember what his point had been. There were nothing but grey, dull fields beyond Izuku’s shoulder, but it was better than looking at him directly. He cleared his tight throat, hoping he sounded perfectly controlled. “It doesn’t exactly change why we’re here.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, “but we can change the how a little bit.”

Shouto furrowed his brow, casting Izuku a fleeting glance. “What do you mean?”

In his periphery, he could see Izuku’s Adam’s apple bob. “Just—you can still find your mom and bring her back. But she doesn’t have to resume her duties if she doesn’t want to, right? She wouldn’t be forced. You can still become the sun if you want, even when we find her.”

He scoffed. “I’d never want to be the sun. I’d be horrible at it.”

“I don’t think you would. I think you’d be great.”

Shouto could feel that tight feeling come back, in his throat, in his chest. “I think the idea you have of me makes you too gracious towards me.”

Izuku stood up and started the walk back to where Tomura and his horrors were waiting. “I think that the idea you have of yourself isn’t gracious enough.”

Sedately, he followed. He didn’t feel lighter after these horrifically emotional conversations, but perhaps he was more comfortable in the heaviness. “You have too much faith in me.”

Izuku turned to blind him with a grin. “Only as much as you have in me.”

“I would’ve thought you’d turned coward and run away.” Tomura grinned. “At least that’s what I would’ve thought if you could’ve left.”

Shouto kept his face impassive. More was riding on his shoulders now. He not only had to beat this mysterious, and no doubt sadistic, last task but also serve as a distraction.

“Just hurry it up.”

“Oh ho, someone’s eager for their next victim.” Shouto held back a wince but Tomura still smiled like he knew. He leaned forward to call over his shoulder, “Hurry it up! Bring ‘er out already!”

Shouto could hear the sounds of shuffling feet, echoing into the empty room. While he was gone, all the strange and colorful packages and the shelves they were on disappeared. He didn’t have a clue where they put them but it left behind a white void in the room, the white walls and too-bright light bouncing off the abnormally shiny floors. He wondered how they were able to stand being in here; any longer, and it felt like Shouto’s head was going to implode. Maybe that was the point.

He focused on Tomura who was scratching at his neck, flakes dropping like snow around him though there was no blood, and casting impatient looks towards the back door. Frankly, it didn’t look like he fared any better from his surroundings. He squinted his eyes like they hurt and the walls washed him of any color, leaving him almost as grey as the earth outside. The others didn’t look nearly as sickly as he did; most didn’t have the grey pallor or the dark circles like caverns under their eyes.

Whether this was the effect of being one of the first created by the Devourer, or if it was due to his specific power, he didn’t know, and he didn’t want to ask.

Someone bounded through the door, kicking it open hard enough that it made a dent in the wall. “Sorry it took so long—not sorry at all—but the kid was hiding and we couldn’t find her!”

“Just bring the brat in,” Tomura snapped. “How hard is it to handle a five-year old?”

Jin scratched a—unbroken, un-swollen— scruffy chin, head tilted in confusion. “Is she five? How long has she been here?”

The rest of the conversation faded into the background as Shouto stared at Jin’s completely undamaged face. There was not even a bruise or a wince of pain as he hopped around while Shouto could still feel the sting of his knuckles. In fact, he looked better than when Shouto had first met him. There were fewer lines around his eyes and the circles under his eyes were nearly gone, and his hair was a few inches longer than when it was shorn against his head.

He flinched when Tomura jerked his arm, trying to scowl at him but could only grimace against the pain. “Aren’t you paying attention?” His eyes slid over to Jin, returning with a smug smile. He let go, his upper arm missing five circles of skin. “Don’t worry, you still wrecked him, we just have a good healer.” His smile grew.

Jin next to the door rapped his hands against the wall in a rhythmic roll before throwing his hands out with a “Ta-da!”

An extremely buff woman entered.

“Big sis! You ruined Eri’s big entrance!” Jin complained, stomping his foot.

He bit down on a gasp. Holding his breath to keep from showing his surprise.

A little girl with long white hair stepped out from behind the woman, red eyes downcast and tiny shoulders scrunched up to her ears as if to shrink into herself. She was barefoot and both her ratty dress and feet were coated in dirt. A small horn that protruded from her forehead hid between the locks of silver-white hair, bone white.

“Get over here, brat.”

Despite the relatively calm way Tomura commanded the little girl over, she flinched. Shouto could see a minute trembling in her shoulders as she shuffled over, leaving behind Jin bickering with ‘Big Sis’.

Tomura leaned forward, a sneer on his lips. Shouto could see her start to shake as she stared at the ground in front of her. “Why don’t you be polite and say hi to Mr. Fall here.”

Shouto had to strain his ears to hear the whispered “Hello”.

“Louder, brat, no one can hear you.”

“He-hello,” she said louder, her eyes never looking in his direction.

Tomura leaned back, smiling. “Eri here is our little healer. Took some time though, she killed a few before actually getting the hang of it. She still fucks up sometimes.” He nodded to Jin. “Jumped back a few years instead of a few hours.” He turned to him; eyes lit up maniacally. “She’s who you’re fighting.”

“No.”

Shouto watched as Tomura barked out a laugh, the sound gleeful and self-satisfied. His jaw ached from the restraint it took to not punch him. He balled his fists into his pants just in case as he continued to snicker.

“Oh, I’m afraid so. I’m the one who comes up with the tasks, remember? You just have to follow.” His foot swung out and kicked Eri in the back, making her stumble towards Shouto. “It’s easy, just beat her in a fight and you’re good to go.”

Eri was stick straight, paralyzed in Shouto’s hands when he steadied her. She still hadn’t looked at him. Soothingly, he patted her shoulder and her horn started glowing. He hissed a breath as his body seized, like every part of him was being squeezed by a giant fist and burned .

Eri finally looked at him, red eyes wide and startled. She scrambled out of his loose hold, tears gathering in her eyes but not falling. He gasped as the pain faded to a dull ache.

He noticed that while the ache still resonated throughout his body the other sharp and dull pains from before were no longer there. His face didn’t feel like it was throbbing with blood and the concussion he was sure he had was gone, the ache and sting from his arms and hands seemed to have disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” came a soft voice. Eri looked up at him, her horn flaring, her arms wrapped around her tiny body. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You should be, you little monster.” It would have sounded like a reprimand if Tomura didn’t sound so fucking happy. “You’re gonna kill our new friend here if you keep it up.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and her horn’s glow faded until it wasn’t.

He could feel his entire chest constrict looking at her. He glared at Tomura. “You can’t possibly expect me to fight a child.”

Tomura scratched his neck thoughtfully, leaving behind pink streaks. “I suppose I can be persuaded to change the last task.”

Shouto regarded him with suspicion. He was giving in too easily for there to not be another angle to it.

“I won’t make you fight the kid.” He looked at Shouto, eyes no longer musing with delighted glee at his expense but hard and flinty. Narrowed on him with a seriousness that sent a chill up Shouto’s spine. “If you hand over Izuku. That’ll be your new task.”

His stomach dropped out of him, cold infusing into his core.

Eri’s head snapped up, looking between them. “Izuku?”

“Who—”

“Cut the bullshit,” Tomura snapped. “Like there’s anyone dumb enough to come back down here. Who else would help your sorry ass or even get down here in the first place.”

He hopped off his makeshift throne, stalking toward him. “You have two choices, little godling. Either fight Eri or hand over Izuku.”

Small hands fisted into his clothes, the barest touch, far from his body but they stuck fast. Eri shook her head, her hair flying and getting caught in her horn. “Don’t hurt him. Please, ” she whispered.

Shouto bit his tongue to keep from saying anything, trying to keep a rein on his temper. His chest felt tight, only allowing short shallow breaths as he tried to think of a way out of this. Because no matter what he was absolutely sure that Izuku would trade his life for her in a heartbeat.

And the thought of that sent Shouto’s mind spiraling.

Because even if it made sense , that even Izuku would be affirmed in that decision, he didn’t want to .

He tried to reason that it would just spell out disaster – that it would lead to more trouble down the road, to a new war with the Devourer, but above all of that, he couldn’t .

“Where’s my mother?”

He ignored the whispered pleas from Eri. Begging him to not give away Izuku.

Tomura looked at him, a smirk creeping across his face. “You’ll see her after handing over Izuku.”

“You’ll tell me now,” he growled out.

He shrugged. “If you don’t get Izuku now you’re agreeing to fight Eri.” He reached down and petted her hair with four fingers, ignoring her flinch. “And I’m sure you’d love that.”

He had to do it.

He’d never forgive himself if he hurt this scared and timid little girl who flinched at the sign of movement. And he wouldn’t .

But could he leave Izuku behind? Could he leave him to be killed at best and slowly tortured at worst? Could he leave behind his mother whom he was so close to reaching?

Shouto knew what he had to do.

He spoke slowly. “If I tell you where Izuku is then the third task is considered complete? My mother and I can leave?”

Tomura grinned, eyes alight with victory. He even stood a little taller. “You and your precious mom can leave.”

“What if I take you? I heard you’d die outside of the Unseen.”

“Ha! I’d have to want to go with you, little godling. The deal was that you can take someone with you, not that you can force them.” He leaned closer, his breath sour against Shouto’s face. “And just give it time, little godling, with Izuku’s power I’m sure that all of me and my friends will be out of here in no time.”

He took a step back, a hand hovering over Eri to guide her with him, her eyes overflowing with tears. She was wound so tightly he thought she was going to shatter. He couldn’t look at either of them as he said, “Izuku should be somewhere outside, I’ll lead you to him. He was looking for Eri.”

“Of course, he did,” Tomura said, rolling his eyes though his smile was gloating. He snapped his fingers at the gods watching them with interest. Big Sis had her arm wrapped around Jin with her hand covering his mouth. She looked calm and composed, like it took her no effort in controlling a struggling, bouncing Jin.

“You two, prepare yourselves.” He turned to Eri. “You. Start screaming.”

She hiccupped through her tears, shaking her head. She had since let go of him, arms held stiffly at her sides, her horn fluctuating. Tomura leaned down, hand out.

“Start screaming before I make you. And where are the rest of you idiots?! Where’s the siphon and where the fuck is blondie?!” He snapped at the other two gods, stomping over to Jin to shake him.

With Tomura preoccupied with yelling at his lackeys, Shouto reached a hand out to Eri, but she shrank away from him. His heart broke looking at her silent sobs, something twisting in his chest.

“Please, Eri,” he asked, his voice hushed. “I won’t let anything happen to Izuku but you need to come here.” Still, she shook her head, her horn glowing, the ground at her feet slowly turning backwards into soft dirt.

“Didn’t I tell you to start screaming, brat?”

Shouto stepped between them before he could get closer to her, though he wasn’t sure if Tomura would have risked touching her. They must have kept her in such terror to keep her controlled.

“Don’t touch her. Just go outside and I’ll call for him. Call off your lackeys.”

He scoffed. “Like I’d trust that.” He inclined his head towards the clear doors. “March.”

Tomura and the rest of his underlings followed – Big Sis and Jin, the lizard man and a man in a mask that he didn’t meet before with an ominous box in his hands. Only a few seemed to have answered his call, but not nearly enough for any sort of war. Himiko was decidedly absent. He could hear Tomura muttering about how lazy they were, and he guided Eri in front of him. Her shoulders were steadier than before, her breath shallow but even. The light from her horn illuminated the grass around her as the long stalks shrunk into the ground.

Once they were a decent distance away, he called for Izuku. They hadn’t had a full plan when they went into this—or, Izuku didn’t. With as little information as they had had, they hadn’t gotten past the “distract” and “search” part of the plan with only the contingency of shouting for each other when it eventually went to shit.

He wished that he could scoop Eri up in his arms for more security, but her powers were probably her best defense at the moment.

It didn’t take long at all for Izuku to run around the back of Tomura’s hideout, cheeks flushed in the too-bright, colorful light. He slowed as he took in the scene. Four gods standing a cautious distance away from each other before finally spotting tiny Eri.

Shouto could see the exact moment he saw her, eyes going wide, his shoulders dropping in relief. “Eri!” He ran towards them, disregarding the danger.

“Izuku, don’t!” Eri cried, the loudest he had ever heard her. She took a step forward, her hands out as if she could push him back.

Of course, he didn’t listen. He didn’t care that Jin multiplied himself ten-fold to surround him. He didn’t care as he was bombarded by Jin and held still by Big Sis, that he was surrounded on all sides by the rest of Tomura’s friends. Because Eri was safe. And Shouto had the resigned realization that Izuku was going to do this anyway. Of course, Izuku was going to try his best to get them all out, but Shouto’s role was to ultimately get Eri out regardless of his own fate.

A ripple of power flowed over him, and from Tomura’s abrupt tensing he had felt it too. The completion of the third task.

Tomura rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, trying to shrug off the magic compelling him to follow through on their agreement.

“I suppose you want your mom,” he sneered.

He shook his head. “I’m taking Izuku.”

The crowd of Jins exploded into sound, several slapping their hands to their cheeks in shock. The other gods all tried to talk over each other, shouting at him. Above the noise he could hear a clear:

“What?! Shouto!”

He ignored Izuku, gaze never straying from a seething Tomura. He was sure that if he was within arm’s length, he’d be dust, no matter what the consequences of an Unbreakable Vow. A red aura slowly gathered around Tomura, his eyes and hands twitching under the compelling force of the Vow.

Red eyes narrowed onto Eri. Black blood was slowly seeping out of the pink tracks on his neck. “She wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Neither are they.” Shouto nodded to the gods beside him.

The black started to creep up the veins on his neck, pulsing with a red light. He growled out, “Don’t you want your mom?!”

He looked at Izuku’s gaping face when he said, “I changed my mind.”

Tomura fisted his hands in his hair and roared. Dust swept up around him, his followers dancing out of range, leaving behind a barren circle. Izuku broke free of the crowd, his own red aura surrounding him but not harming him like it did Tomura. He looked down to see his own red aura around his hand.

“Are you sure?” Izuku asked breathlessly, hand gripping his arm hard.

He nodded, feeling helpless at the awed disbelief in Izuku’s green eyes. He tore his gaze away to watch Tomura grab Jins one by one and dust them in a tantrum, internally wincing at the casual disposal.

The enraged god whirled on them, his eyes blazing with fury and power, the black receding now that Izuku was with him. He jabbed a gnarled finger at Eri. “You can’t take her. ”

Izuku leveled a look at Tomura, moving to stand in front of Eri. “Watch us.”

“You can’t even touch her,” Shouto said, stepping up next to Izuku.

“Neither can you! Wanna risk her drowning? Or let her loose Above and risk her destroying everything? ” Tomura sneered. “We’ll kill her first.”

“You—!” Izuku cut himself off, looking down to see where Eri was cautiously tugging on his clothes, the strands unwinding themselves. Watery red eyes looked up at them, tears spilling over on her cheeks.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she whispered. “I’ll stay here.”

“Eri.”

Shouto dropped down and grasped her shoulders, wincing as her power pulled at him. “You won’t . You won’t hurt anyone.”

She threw herself back, away from him, hunching over herself. “I can’t control my powers.”

“Yes, you can, you did before.” She squeezed her eyes shut and took a step back. “Don’t listen to anything Tomura said, he was lying to you. He’s always lying, isn’t he?”

Reluctantly she nodded.

“You trust Izuku, yes?” Another nod, stronger. “And Izuku trusts you.” Warm, red eyes peeked open to look at Izuku, who nodded through his tears.

“Do you think you can trust yourself?”

She darted looks between him and Izuku, glancing back at a murderous looking Tomura who was shouting nonsensical things about how she was dangerous and how he was going to kill all three of them. He wished he could cover her ears. Tomura continued to destroy copies of Jin, ranting and stalking closer. The other gods were a restless ocean of movement behind him.

Her brow knotted in concern but she nodded. She took a deep breath and her glow faded.

Izuku immediately scooped her up and they ran to the river. A terrible roar of noise followed as the Unseen gods hounded them. His heart pounded in his chest. He wasn’t sure how far Tomura would go in the pursuit, if harming them would be worth the pain. With Izuku shielding Eri with his body and Tomura’s further descent into revenge they might not come out unscathed.

A burst of grass and dirt disintegrated next to him, leaving behind a crumbling hole. The power followed too close for comfort. A similar eruption followed Izuku’s left and Shouto knew that they were going to try to pin them in.

They were nearing the shore, the disintegration becoming deeper the closer they got. The ground in front of them disappeared, water rushing to fill the gap. Izuku grabbed his hand and jumped, shouting, “Tsuyu!!”

Water rushed up and over them in a wave too large for a river, sweeping them up and crashing them down into water that felt like stone. He could only hear Tomura’s enraged yell and feel a strong, unyielding grip in his own hand before he drowned.

Shouto woke up in bits and pieces. Pressure pounded at his skull like a drumbeat becoming louder when he tried to open his eyes. The light was a gentle blue but it still sent a spike of pain to the back of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and brought his hands up to cradle his head to sit up.

The pounding in his head made it difficult to remember what he was doing last if it was preparing Earth for Fall or—

He turned around, swallowing around the nausea that rose up, flexing his empty hands. “Izuku? Eri?”

The room he was in was empty save for the built-in shelf built into the wall, bleach-white, coral textured, and round. It felt like being in a shell. Next to his bed was a wall of water looking out into a surprisingly clear sea. A strange fish he didn’t recognize peered at him with bulging eyes, swimming closer to him until the tip of its nose poked out of the water before darting away.

It was surprising to see light so far down into the Sea Palace. He heard that Seruki formed it in the deepest part of the sea but that could have been due to holding the power of all the oceans in the palm of his hand.

Or it could all be a trick by Tomura and one of his friends.

Shouto staggered to his feet. He needed to find Izuku. As long as he found Izuku, everything would be fine. He cast a quick glance at the shelf, though nothing stood out other than a roll of bandages and other little pots filled with mysterious creams and liquids, before flinging open the only door.

“Ribbit.”

He blinked.

The frog spirit blinked back. She tilted her head at him, her tongue sticking out from the side. She was carrying a large basket woven out of some sort of seaweed. Whatever was in it smelled like grilled fish and a mixture of spices that made his stomach growl.

Large eyes flicked down to his stomach and back up. “Thank you for opening the door for me, Shouto.” Gently, she pushed past him and set the basket on the bed. “I have some food and water for you, ribbit.”

He stayed near the door.

She looked back at him, her long green hair flowing behind her. “You will feel better if you eat, Shouto. I’m sure Izu would want you to eat. It has been several weeks since you two left after all.”

“Where’s Izuku?” he demanded, taking a threatening step toward her.

She only stared placidly at him. “He’s resting like you should be doing, ribbit. Izuku is my friend. I wouldn’t let him get hurt.” She dipped her head at him. “But I understand your concern, you three went through a lot of stress. If you can be a bit patient, I’ll send him down when he’s done with our healer.”

With that, she walked to the shelf, shoulders relaxed and expression neutral and friendly. She picked up a small vial and handed it to him on her way out the door. “For your head, ribbit.”

And he was alone again.

He palmed the small vial, unsure. She seemed nice enough and seemed to be on friendly terms with Izuku. Maybe it was the color green, but she felt undefinably familiar in a way that reminded him of Izuku. But…

He popped the cork and downed the silvery contents. Instantly the pressure in his head lessened and he sighed in relief. Uncovering the basket revealed grilled fish and rice and an assortment of little side dishes that made his stomach growl at him as if to ask why he wasn’t eating yet.

He didn’t know if it was the fact that he had no clue how long he hadn’t eaten since being in the Unseen, or if those who were Sea ordained were better at cooking than those of his own domain, but the meal tasted better than what he had had in ages.

After he finished, he wandered around his room. He examined the bumpy walls embedded with little seashells and nosed around the shelf that he guessed was mostly medical supplies. He only just debated leaving and trying to find Izuku and Eri when the door opened.

It was his mom.

She stood hesitantly at the door, half in half out, a pale hand laid delicately on the frame as if she was ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Her brow was furrowed and her grey eyes seemed to land on everywhere but his face.

Shouto stood there, heart trapped in his throat, physically unable to move even if Tomura and his army were to emerge at their feet at that moment. “Mother?”

Startled, she finally looked at him. Her eyes welled up with tears and she crumpled into a low bow.

He was at her side in an instant. His hands hovered around her, afraid that if he touched her, she’d break more. She didn’t sob but he could see the teardrops that fell like rain onto the floor.

“I am so, so sorry, my son.”

“Mother—”

She shook her head, her white hair flaring like a curtain as she resolutely stared at the floor. “I failed my duty as a goddess. I failed my duty as the moon. And I failed my duty as your mother.” She finally looked up at him, her eyes rimmed red and whispered, “I have put you through so much.”

He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t agree with what she said, not when she was the brightest point in his life, one of the few joys he could hold on to. But he couldn’t disagree with her either. That because of her choice, he had had to make terrible choices and felt that he had had none at all.

He didn’t know what to say except, “Mama.”

She reached out and gathered him in her arms. Despite being a head taller and much bigger and older than the last time they had held each other like this he felt something unravel in his chest. Pure emotion welled up, getting caught in his throat as he basked in the cool warmth of her arms.

He didn’t cry. He wasn’t sure if he was there yet. But she hummed in his ear and held him like she used to centuries ago.

He turned his face into her neck, inhaling the soft, airy smell of her hair. “Where were you?”

Her hand brushed through the length of his hair. “Here.”

Shouto drew back and they sat on the bed. She clasped her hands together on her lap and took a bracing breath. “I have made many mistakes over the years, but this one was the worst. After this last summer I just… fled. I went to Seruki and hid in the deepest parts of the seas where the sun could not reach. The reasoning is my burden to bear, I just—I regret—” She softly laid a hand on his face, sadness sweeping over her features. “I didn’t know what the consequences of my actions would be.”

He drew in a shuddering breath. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not.”

“I’m the one that decided to go into the Unseen. I made that choice. I learned a lot. I also…” He reached up and held her hand, turning his cheek into it. “I also left you there.”

Quietly, he explained what happened. The tasks, Touya, how Tomura pretended that Rei was there, and his decision. His stomach twisted the whole way, waiting for her reaction. Rei listened through all of it, eyes glimmering at what he had to do but making no comment except to hold his hand tighter. At the end she cupped his face with a firm grip that reminded him of safety.

“I am glad you chose for yourself.”

She kissed his forehead before resting hers against his own, eyes shut. After a beat, she spoke, “I will return to my duties as a moon.”

“But mother—”

“Shh, I want to give you choices. And I want you to have the options to make the best one for you. I know I wasn’t strong in the past but I will be stronger now.” She opened her eyes, the grey almost silver. She smiled. “I might just ask for a break once in a while. Maybe once a month.”

He watched as she walked to the door, her steps making no sound save for the rustle of her dress across the marble. “No matter what, I will support your decision.” She bit her lip and looked off to the side, apprehension settling in her shoulders. “I hope that I will see you soon, Shouto.”

Just then the door burst open, startling both him and his mother, making her glow with the white-blue power of the moon. Izuku ran through the door, Eri hot on his heels, before rearing back at the presence of his mother right in front of the entrance.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about apparently everyone knowing where he was and barging in when he, himself, had no clue where he was. But he supposed he would forgive the transgression one last time.

“Shouto!”

Izuku rushed towards him, scooping him up in a bone-crushing hug that lifted his feet from the floor. He felt his spine crack as Eri timidly shuffled in, her hair catching the light. Izuku set him down, presumably for her welcome. She didn’t rush to hug him, just looked up at him with wide, red eyes and fiddled with her fingers. His mom dithering at the doorway, her smile equal parts uncertain and amused.

“I’m so glad you’re okay! Tsuyu wouldn’t let me leave until I was healed and I had to find Eri first and then Seruki must have contacted my mom when we returned so I had to talk to her and then we were both crying and talking and—” Izuku had to cut off with a large gasp. “Sorry—sorry! I’m—sorry that it took me so long to get here. Is that your mom?! ”

Shouto blinked at the avalanche of words that fell from Izuku’s mouth. Briefly looking at Eri to find her staring at Izuku with a look of awe mixed with incredulity.

Izuku looked from him to his mom, eyes wide, jaw somewhere on the floor. He gasped before dropping into a low bow in a near copy of what he did when they first met. “I am so sorry, Your Ladyship, I am being so incredibly rude right now.” Eri hurried to copy his bow, her hair trailing over the floor.

His mother raised a dainty hand to cover a smile. “Stand, son of Earth, young lady. There is no need for apologies, I should be thanking you for protecting my son.”

“No need! He protected me—us—more than I did him!”

“Still,” she murmured, eyes looking over Izuku with intrigue. She looked over to Shouto, a cautious smile in place. “I shall be with Seruki to report back to the One Being to resume my duties. I hope to see you soon, my son.”

“Please, wait before you go,” Shouto asked, the words leaving his lips before he could think twice.

She blinked. A radiant smile replaced her surprise. “I shall.”

Izuku waited until they could no longer hear her dress trailing over the floor before turning to him with a million questions in his eyes. “How did you know that she wasn’t in the Unseen?”

His stomach churned. He wondered if this feeling, this worry, about Izuku’s opinion of him would ever go away. Izuku was his cornerstone and one word from him would make everything fall apart, even if Shouto was learning to trust himself. “I didn’t.”

Izuku’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, Shouto.”

“It was just a hunch at first. From how Tomura phrased things.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Getting you two out… you two were more important.”

A hand slid into his, rough calluses smoothing over his skin. “I’m still sorry you had to make that choice.”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. But I’m thankful you did it.” A blush crept over his skin, almost obscuring his freckles, spreading even to his ears. And for some reason, Shouto felt his own skin heat up, more so with his power over Fall restored. Izuku cleared his throat, squeezing his hand. “So, your mom’s here. Does that mean…?”

He nodded. “She said that she would take up her duties as the moon again.”

“And your dad?”

“It’s my choice.”

Izuku’s gaze never strayed from his face, searching for something. Maybe doubt or reservation. Whatever it was, he found it, and a slow, tiny smile pulled at his lips. “Then you’re gonna do it?”

An answering smile echoed across his own face. “I think it’s about time I stopped being so afraid.”

The grin he received was blinding, making something in his Shouto’s chest spasm. He had half a thought that Izuku should be the sun. “I’m happy for you.”

He blew out a breath. “I’m terrified I’m going to mess it all up. Make the same mistakes my old man is making.”

“You won’t,” Izuku said, stepping forward and engulfing him in a hug. And Shouto was reminded that while Izuku was his cornerstone, he had incomprehensible blind faith in Shouto. And Shouto took strength from that. Eri followed and wrapped tiny arms around both of their legs. “You’ll learn from him. I trust you.”

“Me too,” Eri’s soft voice piped up.

He chuckled. “Thank you, Eri. I appreciate that.”

Izuku let go with a laugh, holding an arm out. “Shall we escort you to your mother and Seruki?”

Shouto threaded his arm through his, feeling that warmth suffuse through his chest again, feeling the anxious-excitement of starting something new. “Please.”

#tododeku big bang 2022 #tododeku #hurt/comfort #God au #Childhood trauma #trauma #implied/referenced child abuse #strangers to friends #crushes #ambiguous ending #like #they're gonna get together #just not in this fic #i didn't have time i'm sorry T^T

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