It had been a month now: a month of trying to live life without remembering family and life back home: a month of avoiding Stain at every opportunity: a month of trying to feed fifty needy people with minimal supplies. Many supposed that the only upside to the whole situation was that at least Stain was providing them with the necessities for life: food, water, beds for sleep, ability and place to clean and relieve oneself. That didn't make the situation wonderful.

Izuku had come to treasure his friendships with Shoto, Iida, Shinso, and Dabi. He was learning so much from them, such as their ways of thinking and individual strengths and powers from either their race or imposing training.

Ironic, that even so far from home, Izuku still thought about learning.

Dabi was becoming an unspoken big brother figure to many in the camp, Izuku included. He was always offering to walk with people when they dared to venture the halls Stain prowled. Shoto almost never left Izuku's side: after seeing the mechanical boy be preyed upon and physically harmed by Stain, he promised to keep Izuku safe from then on. Shoto would watch as Izuku made tiny adjustments in the inner workings of his body.

Shinso also watched Izuku. Still riddled with guilt, he spent his time either hiding behind Izuku or Shoto, or trying to help the other kids in small ways. Izuku began showing Shinso basic skills in mechanics to keep him from burrowing away somewhere.

Iida was rather stand-off-ish, but he meant well. He didn't leave the room often, not trusting himself to not do something stupid if he crossed paths with Stain.

One evening, two-and-a-half weeks in, Izuku and Shoto were out on the lawn, a large stretch of grass and weeds. They hadn't been talking much. Izuku was having trouble focusing on the present: he couldn't stop thinking about his real home; he wanted to see his mother happy; he wanted to see his father proud of him; maybe get a smile and thumbs up from Irinaka; watch Rappa tussle with Tengai and the other members of the Eight; he wanted Hari to sit down with him and accompany him as they played Mozart or Beethoven, or any of the other greats.

It hurt so much for him to think about it, he just wanted to forget.

"Hey Shoto?" The other boy hummed. He was sitting with his left side facing Izuku so his gears didn't get cold and stick. "What do you miss back home? Your parents? Any other family? Friends?"

Shoto sniffed and rubbed his cold nose. "Not my parents, not really. My father is... problematic, to say the absalute least; I hate him and his cruel fist over us. He ruined my mother, and she was cast out of the Capitol when I was very young. I don't remember much of her." He rubbed the bright red burn scar on his left eye without thinking. "I suppose I miss my brother and sister plenty; but I know they can live without me, so it doesn't hurt as much as it should."

Izuku was incredibly saddened at this. He couldn't imagine life without his mother, nor could he ever see Kai being cruel to him. Shoto continued on before Izuku could speak. "As for friends, I never really had that many. Iida's a good friend, and his friends are quite dear as well. And then there's... Momo."

Izuku swore he saw a light blush on Shoto's cheeks. "Ooohhhhhhh???" The other boy made the mistake of snatching a glance at Izuku to gauge his reaction, and exposed his embarrassment in doing so. "Tell me!" Izuku grabbed Shoto by the forearm, shaking his friend lightly. "Oh c'mon Sho, you have to tell me!"

Shoto shook him off, not roughly at all but forcefully enough to dislodge Izuku's strong metallic grip. "I'm not telling you anything with you clinging to me like a hormonal schoolgirl!" Shoto tried to glare at Izuku and be mad, he really did, but he could feel the invisible pout and begging face from Izuku inside his mechanical body and melted in a sigh. Izuku giggled and adjusted his position to give Shoto his full attention.

"Her name is Momo, daughter of the High Lord Yaoyorozu: he would be the second Lord of the kingdom, right under my father, just over your father. She and I have known each other since we were in diapers." Shoto was definately blushing, refusing to make eye contact with Izuku. "She stands as tall as I, raven-black hair, dark eyes, is..." he shook himself and continued on. "We became close as her father endorsed any of her passions and interests; so not only was she learning to become the Lady of Lord Yaoyorozu's dominion, but she also studied the blade. She and I would clash our blades to train frequently. She's helped me become as secure as I can be with who I am, even with my father looming over my every move."

"You're really close to her then," Izuku noted, listening intently.

For the first time since Izuku had been taken to this forsaken place, he saw genuine emotion on Shoto's face: it was a smile: not the kind of smile that shows the teeth, but a simple kind of smile that conveys a deep satisfaction and love. "Yes," Shoto said simply. "It isn't per-say an arranged marriage, but it is expected."

Izuku hummed, far too delighted. "And how does she feel about that? Or how do you feel?"

Shoto's smile remained. "I feel she's amazing." He quickly stopped smiling as Izuku couldn't contain himself any longer and gave a loud "AWWWWWW." Mildly irritated, he cuffed Izuku on the shoulder lightly. "Well what about you then? Have you got a girl?"

Izuku's giddy excitement faded as quickly as it came. "Me? No. I'd never even seen the far side of my home village until all this. I'm not sure there were even any females other than Mrs. Mitsuki who knew of my existence. Besides," he gestured to his body. "I'm a Ghost living in a mechanical Vessel which might cause a few obvious problems. Plus, Ghosts can only... uhm... 'properly' marry another Ghost, and I certainly don't feel any romantic needs or interests." If his true face could have been seen then, he would have been blushing even harder than his friend had been.

Shoto shrugged in under standing. "That's fair. Though, I'll admit, the concept of a Ghost inhabiting a body similar to yours is familiar to me." He caught Izuku's look in the corner of his eye. "What? This isn't me just trying to set you up with someone: I've been genuinely thinking about this since I first met you. I can't remember any details, but I'd swear that I've heard of a story like yours before."

Izuku looked up to the sky, watching the stars. "That would be nice. I think it would be cool to have a friend just like myself."

The two fell silent again. Izuku stared at those stars, trying to piece constellations together with the fragments he could see. One cluster in particular stood out, brighter than all the others in its multicolored chain.

The Eight Stars. Izuku didn't actually know what the Eight Stars signified: Kai said it wasn't important to his studies and that he would explain later: Izuku had forgotten about it then. Now he sat, staining his already stained pants on cold grass, propping his torso up with his hands behind his back. He lazily followed the chain with his gaze. Starting with the First of the Eight Stars, he followed along, counting each one until...

Izuku shook his head. He recounted.

He must be doing something wrong because everyone knew there were eight stars in the chain known as the EIGHT Stars.

So why was he counting nine?

Izuku grabbed Shoto by the forearm again, pointing out the constellation. "Look! There are nine stars in the chain!"

Shoto squinted up into the sky, finally paying attention. His eyebrows rose. "There are. I can't belive I missed the ceremony..."

"The what?" Izuku had no idea what a ceremony had to do with the constellation having an extra star.

"All Might found his successor," Shoto said, as if that explained everything. He sent Izuku a funny look at his complexed silence. "You know... All Might? Leader of the Knights? The Succession? Why those stars are in our sky?"

Izuku didn't know. He shook his head.

Shoto's mouth flopped open. "You don't know?!" He sounded incredulous. "I thought you said Lord Chisaki taught you History!"

Izuku huffed. "Well I couldn't learn everything in a year! He mostly taught me the line of kings and my future place in the kingdom."

"It's a fundamental!"

"Well how is it my problem that I don't know?! You could take two minutes to explain!"

Both boys were huffing. Shoto took a deep breath in through his nose to calm his nerves: there was no point in getting needlessly upset over a circumstance neither could control.

"Alright, you are aware of the first king, and how the kingdom came to be, yes?" Izuku hummed and nodded in agreement. "Then you are aware of the first great royal Knight of Yuuei, whose name has been lost to time and who is known only as 'Brother'. Brother and the King were inseparably close. The king, on his death bed, used the last sliver of his magic to preserve Brother's soul and strength to be passed down through the ages and generations. As the kingdom of Yuuei has grown, so Brother's power has been shared and built upon."

Shoto pointed up into the night sky, trailing the chain of Nine Stars. "All Might, Sir Toshinori Yagi, was the eighth possessor of Brother's power, and the Eighth Star in the constellation. Whenever a new successor is found and chosen, a celebration spanning the whole Capitol and into the major cities is thrown." Shoto's voice went oddly quiet. "I had been hoping to see it."

Izuku laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. He didn't know what to say in comfort. He opted to change the subject. "Who do you think the successor is?"

"Probably a knight in training named Mirio Togata. He's a pure blooded Human, with no magical abilities or changes; yet he can go toe to toe with some of the greatest adult Knights in the kingdom, and often win. He's a powerful and brilliant fighter. With All Might's power, he'll become the strongest in the kingdom."

"Oh." They fell silent again. Quietly, his voice almost lost to the night, Izuku whispered "I hope I'll get to meet him some day."

"You will." Shoto spoke without thinking. He didn't know why, but the dejected tone in his dear friend's voice pushed him to insist that, "We'll make it out of this hell hole- all of us! Chisaki I swear it on my life! You will survive this! I will see you back to Lord Chisaki and your mother! You will meet Togata, and if I have a single word to say about it, you'll meet Lord Toshinori as well!" Izuku was trembling from head to toe as Shoto suddenly stood, wreathed in his true princely power. Sometimes, Izuku found it hard to remember that his friend was the nephew of the Queen underneath his soft spoken and awkward behaviour; but at moments like this, you couldn't miss the regal manner in which he spoke or the certainty in his voice born of one who had every wish fulfilled for him since he could speak. "Stain will not win this fight. We will escape! This Hunter will pay for what he has done- not just to us but to his other victims as well. Lady Victoria and young Lady Eri will be avenged when Chizmome Akaguro's head is rolling into a bucket!"

Izuku was struck to the core. He had never heard Shoto speak so viciously before, so full of hate. But he did remember the whole day he spent listing about in mourning (for once out of his beloved Vessel,) bemoaning the truth of Lady Victoria's and precious Eri's deaths.

He hated Akaguro. He hated this Hunter.

Izuku leapt to his feet as well. Shoto had looked just about ready to apologize for his brash and violent speaking when Izuku gave a shout of agreement; albeit, a quiet one, so as to not lure the same Hunter out and onto them. Shoto grinned.

"We need a plan!" The idea suddenly hit Izuku, and he blurted it out without thinking. "I don't know what to do!"

Shoto's grin faded into a much more level neutral expression as he thought. "We DO need to plan; but as it stands right now, we don't have many options and resources. Our first step would be to expand to know our fellow captives better. There are fifty of us total: there has to be someone here with some skills we could use."

"Would or could we fight Akaguro?" Izuku was jittery just thinking of it.

"NO!" Shoto nearly barked the word, making Izuku stumble a few steps back. "His magic is rooted in all of out brains now, even if it is in the smallest of forms: he can easily bend us to become lenient and stop fighting him. He is a very skilled fighter. I can tell just by looking at him. The only other fighters I know of currently are Iida, maybe Dabi, and myself: we cannot take The Hunter ourselves, and to involve anyone else would be beyond foolish." Shoto took a moment to breathe from his rambled and disjointed reasoning. "No, for now, we sit back and examine. We'll gather up our resources, and we'll make a plan when we are better prepared."

There was a bemoaning howl from some twisted animal in the forest, making Izuku and Shoto shiver on instinct. "For now though, I believe it is time for us to head inside."

As the two trotted inside, making their way to the back door of their sleeping quarters, Izuku hopefully tried "maybe you could tell me more about the Knights?"

A/N

Sooo, things are moving right along! This was a nice and low chapter in terms of stress or anything of the sort, but nice and high in world building and fluffy friendship stuff. We needed the break, and I needed a short chapter to bring something up (though this ended up being longer than I anticipated.) Remember two chapters ago, in chapter 7's A/N when I said I wouldn't be throwing any surprise OCs at you?

Yeah I'm retconning that. Y'see, I was thinking ahead through the plot and I thought 'darn, I need another character to help in this one area, because how I have it for this one area is a little bit shaky. I can't remember any characters from the show that are around fifteen and fit the bill-- OH WAIT! I just came up with an Oc not long ago that I can easily bend to fit this!' And yep.

So y'all'll be getting a new soft boy to love. I'm making him Tokoyami's half brother, (so obviously Toko will be here too, which is another addition,) so that will probably give you a big ole fat hint as to what this OC is like. Now, this OC is not going to be changing the story in any major way: he's honestly going to get very little screen time and is here solely to help support the plot. Once his relevance to the plot is gone, he most likely will fade from the story.

And I have to apologize slightly. This chapter was supposed to be out a lot sooner, but I discovered Bendy and the Ink Machine, and whoooo boi. If I wasn't watching BATIM vids and playthroughs, I was bingeing on fanfics I found and liked. While I have absalutely nothing in terms of plot, ideas, or even a general vibe as of right now, dont be too surprised if I suddenly spring a new fanfic. Or bring BATIM characters (or characters from anything really) in as background flavor.

Comments!

Just BP, who is ridiculously good at guessing things. Seriously, what are you, psychic? And yes, Stain does deserve death. I was going to drop a hint when you mentioned Kai fighting Stain, but then I figured you'll just end up guessing my whole plot if I keep doing that, and better not. You need some surprises after all.

Anywho! So long Lovies!