Chapter Twenty-Three
The Second Heresy:
Hourglass Accelerating Impatience
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Lightning shot through Izuku's mind and body. His heart felt like the molten core of an industrial furnace. Thrashing, his body flailed almost helplessly in the dark fluid of the Chrysalis. It felt weak… yet it felt. That alone was progress. Izuku knew that he was still in his palace, that Nozomi was resting next to him while he meditated… yet that was not the root of where he truly was, was it?
No. There was so much more. There were so many layers to Izuku's existence now.
His eyes were open, yet they were blind. He could feel his eyelids open and close around useless spheres of flesh. The chain connecting his other self was visible only through his third eye, the spiritual organ of his awakened chakra. It was a trail of light against a stark darkened world.
Izuku focused hard on that trail, following the light to wherever the path would lead. Silver sands coalesced around him as his vision expanded. Harsh green light flooded his eyes, which made no sense to him. The heat of the Endless Desert wrapped around him, tempering him like a blade in a forge. His knees burned where he knelt in those sands. Blood trickled down his face…
Breathing in the harsh dry air, Izuku relished any sensation at all. Desolate and unrelenting, the locked memory of the Endless Desert returned to him. Takeru, the Prince that Was, returned to him. He knew it wasn't the Prince's true name, just a label that was useful to avoid coy games with titles and pronouns.
Izuku fell back into that memory, allowing himself to feel those helpless and frantic emotions, the sharp edge of his knife as it sliced through bone and skin. Despite the satisfaction of filling in a gaping hole within himself, a memory that he implicitly knew he could trust, he allowed the fear and uncertainty of it all to flood his heart. His hands trembled with pain and confusion.
"You are doing well, Izuku." Takeru's voice rang out like a deep drum lodged in Izuku's skull. Takeru did not refer to Izuku with platitudes or Princely titles, not even mild flattery. Those were not preferred tools for the Prince that Was.
"It still fucking hurts," Izuku spat out blood-soaked spittle with his words, feeling the tiny river flow down the front of his face and soak his lips. His Heart Cutting Blade was lodged deep into his forehead. The world wobbled and shifted as though the blade was warping reality… but it was his brain it was cutting through, not the fabric of existence.
"Your brain lacks pain receptors, and the alignment of your essence ensures that your self-imposed damage remains superficial. Calibration, if you give the Yozis time for it… that will be much worse." The grim warning urged Izuku to continue.
"What… what is Calibration?" Izuku asked even as he gripped the handle firmly, pushing it down through his brow and between his eyes. Bone cracked, split, and mended under his skin, like an iceberg splitting before a plow-vessel and then reforming after it passed. Icebergs didn't bleed, though.
Images flooded Izuku's mind. Planets cracked before his vision as demons swarmed across their surface. Massive chunks of earthen-stone and metal were dragged across giant forge-fields. The material was melted and rebuilt… and added to the ever-growing walls of Malfeas. People were hunted and enslaved as he watched their cities burn. The lucky ones that hid weren't so fortunate when their worlds split and died around them, expelling them into the void or crushing them in lava and rock. How many billions had the demons already enslaved, devoured, or murdered for sport?
"Calibration… draws your world closer to Malfeas." Takeru began, his voice was soft yet cold. "It syncs your reality to be lock stepped in time to Malfeas, the last world that trails behind all others. Once complete, your world will be a five-day journey from Malfeas, and only five days ahead in time. You will no longer be floating on the flows of time that underpin the scattered worlds… but anchored to the past, to a past that will keep drawing you backward until it consumes you."
Izuku could barely comprehend what Takeru was saying. Malfeas was in the past? How far in the past? The young Prince knew better than to ask if this meant time travel was possible… they didn't have the luxury of philosophical meanderings.
Izuku focused on what was most important. "How do I stop it? How do I stop Calibration?"
Izuku could not see Takeru's face. He could, however, hear the smile in the deceased Prince's words. "The key to everything is your Chrysalis. Just as you need five days to complete your transformation, the sorcery that binds your world to Malfeas takes five days to complete. The Chrysalis allows both to occur… but these two systems are independent of each other. We can… or rather… You can knock them out of sync."
Izuku stopped cutting, taking a break just before reaching his upper lip. The top of his nose knit itself into shape while his nostrils filled with too much blood. He could barely breathe, choking on the iron-rich fluid. "How?" he rasped.
Visions of crystals dancing in the air entered Izuku's mind. Fires lit them from within as they whispered to him with a siren call of death. "The key to your Earth's salvation lies in accelerating your transformation. You must complete yourself as a Green Sun Prince before the sorcery that is Calibrating your world finishes its work. For that, you will need to confront the Whispering Flame. You cannot lie to her. We'll need to cut out your memories before you meet her."
Takeru continued even as he mentally prodded Izuku to keep cutting. "You already understand the multiverse thanks to Cecelyne. You have the impatience of Adorjan etched into your soul. You must reach deep within the Whispering Flame to gain her understanding of time. There are five keys you must obtain. They must be grasped in a specific order, or your mind will break into crystal facets." As he explained the nature of the five keys, five specific crystals lit up like tiny suns to Izuku's senses. Once he noted them, the vision abruptly ended.
Izuku had had enough of this bullshit. "Couldn't you have told me this before I jammed a dagger deep inside my brain? How the fuck am I supposed to remember all this?!"
Takeru's tone was serious. The spirit of the former Prince didn't take any pleasure in Izuku's discomfort. Instead, he ignored it as irrelevant. "You are Exalted. Nothing is Impossible. You need to remember this, but you also need to forget this. You must embrace that paradox deep within your soul and cast doubt from your heart. You need to encode these instructions into your instincts and discard them from your surface thoughts. Now, continue cutting while I explain. Imagine that you are cutting through sand or water if you must and try to focus on that image… but don't stop listening either. There's a reason I waited until you started cutting to explain all of this."
Gripping the knife, Izuku cut further, reaching down toward his chin. Heeding his predecessor's advice, he thought about water as he slid the knife through his lips. Miraculously, the wound healed in the knife's wake. Just like Takeru suggested, it was as though he was slicing through water, merely rippling it. The cut was much smoother, easier.
It still fucking hurt.
Takeru continued. "The Primordials will instruct you with pain, pleasure, and any tool they can think of to torment you and control you. They can offer you shortcuts to power, but they will never reveal the truth behind their lie. You already have the infinite potential of an Exalt burning in your chest. If you had more time on your hands you wouldn't need their methods to learn what true power is. Time, however, is in short supply. Humor them for now. We have objectives to fulfill."
Izuku gargled blood as he sliced the chakra within his neck, but the moment passed. He could understand the words better now, almost as if he had a second set of ears to listen. It felt like two minds were recording all of this as Takeru spoke.
"Your chakras are regenerating, doubling as they are supposed to. Good. Have you chosen one of your chains yet? You must imbue your anima with emotion and memory if it will serve. Creating an extension of your mind and will requires sacrifice." The former Prince somehow pulled off sounding both proud and dismissive.
Izuku paused, trembling with worry. "I… I can get it back, right? This isn't like Adorjan earlier… I can reattach the feelings and memories?"
The voice droned on past Izuku's anxieties. "Yes. You can even gain the memories your duplicate earned while you were apart… so while there is a risk, the rewards are great. Now, have you chosen?"
It sounded too good to be true, like a sales pitch with a hand covering the fine print. Izuku had succumbed to such a pitch before, now that he thought about it. Regardless, Izuku held up a chain that extended from his heart.
His idol, All Might, was inside. "It is all right. Why? Because… I am here!" the chain declared.
Izuku would miss that confident mantra. It was alright, though. He would get this back, or at least that's what he told himself. "I've chosen. This one."
It felt like a teacher was leaning over his shoulder during a lab assignment. Given Izuku's state, that assignment was probably a dissection. "Hmmm… not your most powerful set of emotions, but I can see why you chose this. Your duplicate would be more powerful if you imbued it with your familial love, but this is almost as good."
Izuku's heart raced with sudden worry. "Wait… if my copy meets my mother out there…"
A sensation not unlike sighing reverberated through the back of Izuku's mind. "He will hold an echo of every facet you have… he will still see her as his mother, and he will love her too."
Before Izuku could ask another question, Takeru pushed past his concerns. "Now, when you get closer to your heart chakra you will hold the chain out from your heart and slice it from your body, but this time it must be done by slicing your heart chakra in two. Angle the blade so that you only sliver off only that one chain. You don't want to remove too many, trust me on that."
If the echo of the deceased Prince could shudder, then that must be what Izuku was feeling deep in his gut.
"Before you cut though, listen carefully… and assign these words to the duplicate. Imagine that it is the man you're forgetting, this All Might, telling you these things. Then, when you cut the memory of his significance from you, these words will belong to your copy." the Prince that Was explained.
Izuku's voice was almost as silent as Adorjan's winds. "And then... I'll forget you?"
Warmth enveloped Izuku's shoulder, like a hand resting there to offer comfort. "Yes, but I will still be with you, though hidden beyond your perception. This is how things must be, Izuku."
Izuku wanted to nod, but it was painful to move his head and neck. A single tear welled up from this exchange. He knew that in the past all the pain and the trauma would have him bawling his eyes out. He didn't know whether to be proud that he wasn't like that anymore or not.
Takeru didn't let Izuku linger on those thoughts. "Now… the first key is, ironically, the key of truth. It is called Factual Determination Analysis. This is the lens by which the Whispering Flame understands everything… oh, and it means she can't be lied to. Once you have the key, the Charm that forms the basis of her spiritual code, no one will ever be able to lie to your face ever again. A nice side benefit, right?"
Izuku nodded, appreciating the power he'd obtain. It did sound useful…
A sensation not unlike a smirk entered Izuku's mind, as though he could feel it instead of seeing it. "Did I tell you to stop cutting? You're a long way from your heart chakra."
With a grimace, Izuku pushed the knife further, trailing through bone and blood as he angled toward the chakra in his chest. Blood trickled from Izuku's lips as he spoke. "You're just as sadistic a bastard as they are…"
The prior Prince exuded an aura of smug satisfaction. "I may hate the Yozis… but I still learned from them. Now, let's continue."
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Lighting roared through Izuku's chest as memories flooded his mind. Power surged up and down his spine, crackling as it leaped from his eyes. The palace of the All Thing fell away from his perception, stripped like paint from a wall. Hell no longer caged his vision.
The lies of the Yozis melted away as he stared them down.
Though he was encased in the Chrysalis, it no longer imprisoned his spirit. He finally saw it for what it truly was: a tool to transcend the limits of space and time. Takeru had shown him how to manipulate the Chrysalis before, but that was just a sample of what Izuku could do with such power. Projecting himself across multiple worlds was just the beginning, a tutorial of principles Izuku had not been prepared to comprehend.
Prince Izuku finally understood the massive possibilities arrayed at his fingertips. How had the Yozis been so arrogant and foolish? Surely, they understood how powerful the Chrysalis was. Did they truly believe that no Prince would ever use this power, that it would never be turned against them?
Izuku forced his third eye open, peering beyond the limits of Malfeas and Earth. Mount Takao stripped away to nothing, discarded to join his palace in Malfeas. Finally, he could see himself, the projection that he had sent out to defend his home. The twin souls, each bound by an umbilical chain to the other, finally met face to face.
Yet there was so much distance between them. Reality warped and bent around them as their minds fought to reinterpret their surroundings, tempering it into a shared vision they could cope with into existence. Each stood on an opposing cliff, clearly able to see the other yet unable to reach across. Flesh stared at the ephemeral, which returned the gaze of flesh, as though each Izuku was visually dissecting the other, determining which parts were original and which were wrought by the Yozis.
As their eyes met, Izuku saw something in his projected duplicate he did not expect. Pity.
His other self pitied him, his familiar face cast a gentle smile beneath sad warm eyes. Remorse. Empathy. Izuku understood on an intellectual level that he had cut away parts of himself to make this construct, parts that his other self had access to. Were those emotions so valuable, so vital, that his projection should feel sorry for him, the source of his copy and its life-force? Or was it that his copy felt sorry for the pain Izuku had endured since they separated? Perhaps a combination of both?
There wasn't enough time for Izuku to ask these questions. He'd get his answers later when the two re-joined. It was a bitter thought. Just like Adorjan had before him, Izuku had made a copy that was doomed to die… best to set that thought aside for now. Izuku could hate himself later.
Murderer…
Izuku shook that thought away.
Below them, stretched between the two great cliffs, sprawled the machinery of Calibration. A great twisting network of gears and threads, pulling and snarling like an overwound piano. At the heart of that machine, suspended precariously between the two landmasses, was the Chrysalis.
Izuku had finally accepted the truth that he was also a projection, simply more sophisticated than the one he had cobbled together. He had been so proud of that accomplishment, before cutting the memory away of course. He had assumed that he was projecting himself out to another world, stretching his mind across two planes of existence. That, however, was a lie built upon another.
The truth was that Izuku was projecting his holographic self into the world while the Yozis were stretching his soul into theirs. It wasn't Izuku that had the power to affect two planes. That power belonged to the tool that the Yozis had built. The Chrysalis. It was also this tool that would let Izuku alter the flow of events.
The lava-flow of time glowed with noxious green energy below them, backlighting the brass machinery of Calibration and the beating heart of the Chrysalis itself. The sky above them, grey and cracked, thrummed with distant thunderous noise. Barren cliffsides each were the endpoints of seemingly endless plains. They were infinite save of course for where the two great continents refused to meet. Calibration would see to that, forcing the two landmasses together.
Unless Izuku mucked up the works, of course.
"Welcome to the continuum of time and space… or at least a fractal portion of it." The voice of the Prince that Was emanated from within the Chrysalis, making itself heard in the back of Izuku's mind… no, in the back of each Izuku's mind. "Here, in the inner workings of Chrysalis, we must forge a new Charm into being."
Izuku gazed about, flitting his vision from gear to gear, thread to thread. "Am I looking at... time?"
"In a sense. This is how your mind chose to interpret time, or rather the time being manipulated by the Chrysalis. When I last advised you, guided you in making a Charm that was truly yours, you had to cut a part of yourself away and leave it in the present while the Yozis dragged the rest of you into the past. That has allowed you to anchor yourself into two points of time… allowing you to see it far more clearly." His voice betrayed how proud he was of Izuku's accomplishment, though he avoided words to that effect.
"It's like perceiving reality with two pairs of eyes instead of one." Both Izukus spoke their shared though together. They even uttered a similar chuckle about the incident afterward.
"We can see all of this because, like when you view the world with two eyes, you get additional depth. Our minds are linked yet we're seeing time from two different points of perspective… allowing us to see it more tangibly than ever before." The holographic version finished the thought out loud.
"Exactly," Takeru exclaimed. He was cut off from speaking as several great gears turned noisily, grinding out a mechanical scream as threads binding the two cliffsides were pulled even tighter. "As I was saying, we're going to use your advantageous position, straddling the past and the present. You will need to use both positions as footing while you reach forward and grasp a single mote of the future."
"The past…" Izuku uttered, even as the Eternal City emerged behind him. Great walls of basalt and brass, towers of ivory and conch, rose to contain him. "So Malfeas… is in the past?"
"Yes, Izuku." The former Prince responded. "Malfeas rests five days before Creation, which in turn rests many days before all other worlds. The disparate worlds of the Great Dream float and wander on a terrible sea of time, creative and destructive. The tide flows ever in one direction, yet the worlds bob and float chaotically, untethered at they are… all save two. Malfeas and Creation are forever locked in a terrible battle farther in the past than any other world. When all things come to an end… and they will end… Malfeas will be the last world to die, screaming and writhing as it watches the fate that awaits it. When the last stars snuff out from existence, Ligier will be the last light remaining until it too goes out. That is the doom of Malfeas, to sit agentless and helpless at the End of All Things."
Izuku shuddered, not at the vision Takeru painted… but at the relishing malice in the former Prince's voice. Even though the ending he spoke of would destroy everyone and everything, Takeru clearly enjoyed the notion that Malfeas and everything in it would be tortured by their delayed execution. He wondered just how much Takeru's thoughts of revenge had consumed this poor ghost, how much else had been cut away by his endless longing to make all Malfeas suffer and bleed.
"I digress." The echo of Izuku's predecessor composed himself. Without the use of hands or fingers, Takeru mentally prodded Izuku to examine the tensile connections of Calibration, to study how the inner-workings of the sorcerous construct bridged the two worlds, tesseract-ing time and space. "Behold the mechanism, the bridge that allows you to cheat the first and foremost Law of Cecelyne: that the journey from and to Malfeas shall not be circumvented nor may any shortcut be taken. The Chrysalis, however, acts as the one loophole to that law. Here, we make time our slave, using it to connect you across time to yourself. So far you have done this unconsciously, but now we must make far more active use of this opportunity…"
Izuku thought back to all the messages he and his copy had traded back and forth. Nothing crossed Cecelyne unless it took a minimum of five days to do so… the only reason journeys to Calibrated worlds could take less and less time was that each step of Calibration was but one day in a journey for that world to reach Malfeas. Cecelyne was, after all, fond of making loopholes to abuse. Izuku had broken that law time and again, but once again it had been done with a loophole. The Chrysalis truly was just that powerful.
"Now it is time for you both to reach for each other, to use the tension of Calibration. Even as it draws your world towards Malfeas, it draws you toward yourself. Anchored yet reaching, you must make use of the tensile time that stretches across your existence… and make the chain that links you into just the first link of a much longer tether, one you must throw forward past yourself…" Takeru explained.
"Into the future?" Izuku asked.
"Exactly," the older Prince answered. "Time has its own laws, just as each universe has its own rules, but you are Exalted. You are imbued with Primordial power to create worlds, to alter and create the rules as you need them to be. Use that. Reach forward in time and grasp a moment from unrecorded history… that will be the raw material needed for the Charm."
The twin Izukus gazed at each other, pondering just how to accomplish this task. The Izuku of flesh and demonic influence, the Prince in the Past, gathered up more and more chain-links from within his heart, allowing the line between himself and his projected twin to go slack. How would they grab a moment from the future? What do you even use to extract a moment in time from the fabric of…
Izuku, while caught up in these thoughts, manifested the Heart Cutting Blade in his hand.
"Yes," Takeru whispered, watching as Izuku puzzled out what to do next.
Did the blade cut just memories and flesh? Is that all it did? Or was there secretly more to it? No… there wasn't more to it… at least not yet. Izuku had to upgrade the power of the blade in his hand. He had to imbue it with crystalized power from the Whispering Flame. Izuku had to temper the edge in whispering fire. He had to remake it into a blade that could cut through existence and time.
As Izuku contemplated this, he could see fires light inside the Chrysalis, just like the ones inside the spheres of She Who Lives in Her Name. Similar fires emerged within his projected copy… and suddenly Izuku felt a burning furnace inside his chest, one that threatened to consume him.
Izuku plunged the dagger into his own heart, satisfied at the long hissing noise as though he had taken a heated blade and set it in freezing water. Yet here, the blade was cool, and his heart was hot. Here, he was quenching a fire with memory cutting ice.
Blood trickled from the back of his throat, across his tongue, and down his lips. Izuku did not want to think about the fact that his blood tasted so good, yet it did. Grinning, he pulled the tempered blade from his heart and looked at the crystalized dagger in his hand, ignoring the self-sealing hole in his chest. Longer than before, the blade became a short sword rather than a simple knife.
This would do nicely. Now all Izuku needed to do was to get this blade into the future… yet he was in the past. Izuku, however, was nothing if not determinedly ingenuitive. Grabbing up the slack in his heart-linking chain, Izuku forced the links taught, catching them under one foot before wrapping the remainder of the slack around his wrist, holding the length of chain vertically… as taught as any bowstring had a right to be.
"Yes!" the Prince that Was called out. "Now… anchor the blade… and launch it… go forward…"
Izuku did exactly as was required, not because of the older Prince's instruction, but out of a deeper knowledge, a necessity that drove him to act. Channeling as much essence as he could, channeling the shocking and creative skills of Cecelyne as possible, Izuku defied all common sense as he linked the hilt of his elongated dagger to his soul, hooked it into the taught chain, pulled that chain beyond the breaking point…
Izuku then launched his dagger forward with arrow-like precision. It flew rapidly across the chasm of time that separated him from his other self, trailing its chain behind it. Despite the weight and inaccuracy such a projectile must endure, it remained on course and shot forward straight towards the other Izuku…
Not to be outdone, Izuku's holographic twin slapped his palms together at precisely the correct moment, capturing the blade before it could penetrate his face. "That was close, asshole." He whispered but couldn't hide his eager grin.
Now it was up to him, the projection, the Izuku in the present. He was more than a mere copy. He could accomplish all of this and more, he told himself. Mirroring his source, his past self, Izuku turned took up the slack of the heart chain, rendering it taught between foot and wrist as his demonic twin had shown him.
Then, turning, he watched with fascination and horror as the land rent and tore itself apart, falling before his eyes into the magma flows of time. He stood flanked by two cliffs, alone on a rocky outcropping. The present, he reminded himself, was always under siege by both the past and the future.
Grimacing, Izuku hooked the dagger, knocking it like an arrow and poured valuable essence into this one shot. He aimed for the future, not knowing what he would hit. "Here goes nothing…" he breathed.
"No!" the Princely predecessor roared. Takeru was furious. "You must align your essence, you more so than your source. Though he tempered the blade, his task of getting the arrow to you was simple compared to what you must do next. Your heart and mind must be tempered not only with the skill and alacrity of Cecelyne, but the iron will of the Whispering Flame and the impatient tempest of Adorjan."
If Izuku could sweat, he would be soaked by now. What Takeru was asking seemed impossible. How was Izuku supposed to balance his internal alignment with so many facets? How was he supposed to reach forward into the future? He felt lost suddenly… so…
"Calm yourself. You are Exalted. You are endowed with the essence of the Primordials. They may lie to you, cheat you, and force your hand… but you still bear their power in ways they cannot. You can do this." Takeru said, encouraging Izuku even as he stood on the precipice between past and future.
"Now… close your eyes before you take aim. You're not aiming for a what but a when. Your eyes will not help you with that." the former Prince intoned.
Izuku followed his instructions, breathing rhythmically to calm himself.
It almost felt like unseen hands were guiding his frame, aligning his shoulders and his stance. "It is not possible, even for an Exalt, to reach back through time and change what has been set in the Shinma-structure of consequence. However, that doesn't mean you can't cheat in other ways. Reach forward and reel that moment back towards yourself. Pass it to your other-self… and as it passes between you… hold that moment in your mind. Warp it. Mold it. Expand it."
Izuku opened his eyes, not because he needed them to see, but because his lids could not contain the fire within. They burned him. He did not need to turn back. He knew without even looking that the other Izuku's eyes were on fire as well.
"I am Exalted." They recited the mantra together. "Nothing is Impossible."
Izuku released one long breath until his lungs, made of light and willpower, were empty. Inhaling once more, he breathed in silently, willing the air within him to be a silent wind. Focusing his eyes, he forced them to crystalize around truth and fire. Pulling the chain taught like a bowstring, he forced his essence to aim with skill at a target that was impossible to see.
Then, breathing outward, Izuku let go, shooting the crystalized dagger forward into the future.
As the blade thrust forward in time, anchored to the past by a chain threaded through the present, both versions of Izuku were assaulted by echoing noise. The dagger cut through layers of time, leaving ripples in its wake as it sped off further and further from Izuku.
The noises cascaded backward, sounds like screams of chaos and static… yet out of it all, there were discernable voices that could be picked apart from with the mass of sound.
"Little Prince, did you think that by saving your world from the Yozis that it would remain saved, even from yourself?" a voice neither Izuku had heard before uttered, smooth like silk, yet poisonous. It was dangerous in a way that only a woman's voice could be.
There was no time to ponder the meaning of those words. More assaulted Izuku's senses.
Like an explosion against a backdrop of lesser noise, the voice of Bakugou Katsuki rang true. "Deku, snap out of it, Deku! We need you! This isn't you, Deku! You need to regain control!"
Yet again, there was no time to pick apart or ponder those words. More kept coming.
The projection of Izuku choked when the next voice rang out, but the other did not know who the voice belonged to. "I have watched you grow into a fine man, Young Midoriya, and I could not be prouder."
"You are the Shining Prince! You are worthy to be my master! Command me and let us reign terror upon our enemies!" a bestial utterance roared louder than anything Izuku had ever heard.
"This is your workshop?!" an eager voice of bubbling excitement yelled out. "There are tools here I've never seen before! Your forge! Oh my god, you have an actual manually operated forge! Did you build this yourself?! Oh! Please reconsider! I want to work here! I want to help you! Let's make babies together!"
"Anything and everything, do whatever you want to me. I accept you, Izuku, all of you." Once again, a voice caused emotions to stir in the heart of Izuku's projection, leaving the other Izuku baffled. Who was this?
"Papa! Papa, you're home! I missed you so much! Oh! Oh! Look what I made for you!" Even though he was anchored to the past of Malfeas, the voice from the future overwhelmed him. Izuku felt his heart grow so large that it threatened to burst inside of his chest. The voice was wonderfully familiar, yet it was wonderfully different. Nozomi's voice was filled with happiness… and she was speaking Japanese.
A woman's voice that neither Izuku recognized interrupted their thoughts. "Why did I have to fall in love with such a selfish asshole? Such a fucking… attractive… powerful… seductive asshole." Izuku admitted that he very much wanted to know who that voice belonged to.
More unknown voices flood backward in time, too many to make out clearly. A shining note of desperation and pain rang out louder than the rest. "Did you forget me, Izuku? Did you really forget everything that happened between us, just like that?" The amount of pain in just those words was enough to break any heart.
The noise died down. The chaos rippled down from a roar to a murmur. Whispering from a dark future, one last voice could be heard. "Come, Prince Izuku, it is time to return home to the All Thing."
That last was said in Izuku's own voice. What did that mean? Were these voices from events that would happen… or that merely could?
At last, the dagger stopped its forward motion, lodged into something far from their field of view. Somewhere, far in the future, the crystal dagger had anchored itself into an unseen world neither Izuku could yet predict…
On that future horizon, the Izuku that stood on the outcrop of the present saw something that made his core turn cold. Six gigantic wings of emerald fire unfurled from a molten body at their center. The hulking figure rose, staring backward in time, locking Izuku in its vision. The demonic presence was unmistakable, crowned with horns and a burning emerald halo. Distance made it difficult to determine the figure's identity, yet it seemed strangely familiar.
"Unmake this! Undo this! Destroy this future!" the demon roared out, calling back to Izuku from across the chasm. It cried out with an edge of desperation. Its voice was thunder and gongs ringing in the wind.
The demon from the future grabbed up the dagger and threw it back. The chain rattled, screaming as it ripped backward through time towards its point of origin. The moment it had cut was still lodged onto the knife, shining like a shooting start hurtling through the magma fields of time. Once the creature finished launching the projectile it vanished from their view, obscured by the misty uncertainty of all possible futures
Izuku gaped. What future was it that called out to him? How could a throw do that? How could this thing hurl the knife with more force than a chain-strung bow could muster to launch it with? More importantly, how were they going to stop it?
"Stop thinking like a human being!" Takeru shouted, his voice reverberating in Izuku's skull. "Use the powers of the Whispering Flame! Both of you! Go!"
Izuku reached forward with his mind, grasping for the dagger even as it sped toward him. His mind struggled to catch it several times until finally, the two versions of Izuku clasped onto it together. Once caught, the two kept it tethered between them, floating in the field between past and present, hovering near the Chrysalis.
Holding the captured moment within the infernal grasp of his soul, Izuku strained to keep it in place. Takeru's voice intruded on his thoughts. "Now… you need to use that as a lens, to dilate and warp time as needed… use the fact that you stand on the bridge between two realities. Use the fact that you stand on two different moments of time. Time is relative. You are Exalted and enduring. Stretch that moment between both of you… And of course," the voice paused.
"Of course," Izuku nodded before yanking the chain that held his knife firmly, dislodging it from the time-fragment he and his counterpart had caught between them. With his newly honed dagger at the ready, Izuku could cut away this memory the moment this process was done.
Following their predecessor's instruction, the twin souls of Izuku used the fires of the Whispering Flame as they tempered the time-fragment into shape, destroying it as a thing that could be for the sake of a present need.
{}
Ochako had no idea what emotion to feel or what to even think. Izuku had roared triumphantly as lighting arced through the chain in his heart. She could see it through his holographic skin, a bright white star of fire against a backdrop of green, highlighting muscle and bone around itself as it pumped motes of light throughout Izuku's ephemeral body. Power arced back and forth along the chain leading into the Chrysalis…
This had been going on for agonizing minutes on end. Had it been ten minutes? Thirty? She wasn't certain. Throughout this time Izuku appeared to be in a state of meditation, or at least that was her best guess. Ochako had never seen anyone meditate while lighting roared through their body, yet Izuku appeared peaceful. His arms were splayed wide as if to embrace the entire world. His eyes, while open, were looking at a vista she couldn't see.
More fascinating though was that she was seeing, and thus listening in on, one part of a larger conversation. "It's like perceiving reality with two pairs of eyes instead of one. Stop." The words flickered into existence, repeated in monotone by her earpiece.
"We can see all of this because, like when you view the world with two eyes, you get additional depth. Stop. Our minds are linked yet we're seeing time from two different points of perspective… allowing us to see it more tangibly than ever before. Stop." The lights within Izuku danced around his heart. Ochako did not see the Izuku within the Chrysalis reply.
Her mind boggled at this new information. Izuku could see time? What did that even mean?
Then he said nothing for what felt like forever until she heard the translator say something she didn't expect. "That was close, asshole. Stop."
Ochako couldn't help but smile, resolving to ask about that later.
Shortly after Izuku gave himself a little self-encouragement. "Here goes nothing. Stop." Ochako wanted to ask what was going on. She couldn't be expected to understand all of this! How was she supposed to understand what he was doing with so little context?
It didn't matter what he was attempting in that world. It didn't matter that she couldn't see any of it. Ochako walked closer to him, squinting her eyes from his brilliant light. "I believe in you, Izuku," she said, wondering if he could hear her.
She was startled when the fingers on the hand closest to her splayed open. Daring herself to be brave, she reached out to touch him, not knowing if the power coursing through his body would hurt her. To her relief, all she felt was warmth as his fingers closed around hers. Izuku's expression softened, calmed. Anxiety and uncertainty melted away before her eyes.
"I am Exalted. Stop. Nothing is Impossible. Stop." He smiled ever so slightly as the words resonated in her ear. Ochako had never felt such confused hope in her life, yet now the emotion welled up from her chest to her eyes. She blinked the tears away, wishing they'd stop obscuring how beautiful his face was. Not just attractive. Beautiful, the kind of beauty you'd use to describe a sunrise or a vista of nature. His eyes smoldered with calm composure and hope, and she wanted to capture some of that for herself.
Tiny fires lit within Izuku. Ochako could hear whispers from them, murmuring from under his light-forged skin. More lit within the Chrysalis. She couldn't make sense of what the fires were uttering, yet the tiny voices were beautiful. They burned with the myriad colors of ten thousand opals.
His fingers squeezed hers tightly, reassuringly. Ochako jerked her head up and almost cried when he turned his eyes and smiled at her, his face cracking into a confident grin.
"Did you miss me?" he asked her.
Ochako squeezed his hand back. "You know I did."
Her eyes were caught as the opal fires within the Chrysalis danced and expanded, each moving frenetically as they orbited the center… the white-hot star that was Izuku's heart. The opal hued energy continued to dance outward, enveloping and surround the Chrysalis, forming a bubble of iridescent colors around the alien shell.
"What… what are you doing, Izuku? What is all this?" she asked, curiosity and fascination taking hold of her.
"Izuku is speeding up time inside the barrier," Izuku answered, a proud smile on his face.
Her neck could make her pay later for how quickly she turned her head, forcing herself to look away from the Chrysalis and back to Izuku. "You can do that?! That's… that's amazing!"
Izuku just chuckled, amused at how impressed she was. Jerk, she thought.
Returning her gaze to the Chrysalis and the dancing opal fires, Ochako was caught by how radiantly exquisite they were. Like a moth to a flame, she wanted to reach out… she desperately wanted to…
"No!" Izuku caught her other hand and directed her away from the barrier. "You can't touch that!" Fear resonated in his voice. It was the same fear she had seen him display before rescuing her from that blood ape.
Her pulse quickened, wondering just what mistake she had made. "I'm sorry!"
Izuku clicked his tongue at her chidingly. "You almost lost a finger, Ochako. Time is accelerating faster in there than it is out here! Think about what that could do if you accidentally had part of yourself on one side of the barrier."
Ochako tried to ponder that, but physics was a subject that she had to work hard just to get decent grades. It didn't come naturally to her. "Um… my finger could age really fast?"
Izuku shook his head. "Much worse. You'd have a traffic jam of blood and it could make your finger blister up before it fell off, dead. If the time difference was too extreme, it would practically saw your limbs off."
Hundreds of questions roared in the back of Ochako's mind. Out of all of them, she settled on just one. "So… how does this help us?"
His fangs didn't seem so feral or so threatening as his smile grew larger. With his face so eager, they looked cute. "It takes five days for the sorcery that draws our world closer to Malfeas to work. It's not coincidental that it takes five days for a Prince to emerge from their Chrysalis. That's the way this has always played out, world after world, locking whole planets to an inevitable fate. That's the way things will play out here… unless of course, the Prince emerges early, interrupting Calibration and scrapping the whole process."
Ochako's heart fluttered in her chest, hitching onto his words. Hope. Anxiety. Fear. How much time would she have with him before… before the other Izuku absorbed him? "How early, Izuku?" she tried to keep her voice calm.
His eager smile never wavered. "Soon, Ochako. Not yet, but soon. Izuku still has some damage to do in there before he gets out."
Ochako wanted to ask what he meant by damage. Movement to her periphery caught her attention. Her eyes darted back to focus on the Chrysalis. Light from within highlighted a skeletal frame, however briefly. Ochako gasped. Was Izuku building himself from scratch? Gang Orca had said that he had completely dissolved… but now…
A flash of light issued outward as a shimmering star floated to the surface of the Chrysalis. The light coalesced into the familiar shape of a memory weight before it passed through the time-bubble. Izuku reached for it, his hand passing harmlessly through the bubble. After he pulled it through it rested, completely inert into Izuku's outstretched hand.
She watched as Izuku picked up the chain that still linked him back to the Chrysalis, grasping for the memory that he had hooked onto it earlier. He braced himself and then, manifesting a much longer dagger than she had seen him use before, cut it away from the chain. The two jade weights were small, yet solid. Izuku held them together after his dagger vanished into sand and air. Ochako watched as light traveled between the two stones before they eventually merged into a single weight.
He passed it to her with the same casual motion she'd use to offer the uneaten half of a sandwich. "Hey. Would you mind holding onto this for me?" he asked.
Ochako couldn't help but play this moment up. "You're just hoping I flash you again while I stash this away." She smirked up at him as she took the jade-carved stone from his hand, letting her fingers trace along his wrist.
Izuku returned her confidence. His mouth seemed hungry to her eyes as he smirked. The fangs weren't cute anymore. Now they were… something else. "Guilty as charged," he admitted.
Ochako maintained eye contact as she opened her blouse again. She might have arched her back to attract his eyes further. Maybe. She might have also placed the jade carving in the pocket she'd sewn to the inside of her blouse far slower than was practical, but no one could prove that. Her efforts were rewarded by a brief downward glance. He made no efforts to hide his appraisal of her body, however short the moment was. One of Izuku's eyebrows raised in appreciation. For Ochako, that meant a lot.
Emerald fire arced upward from somewhere deep inside the Chrysalis, screaming in a torrential explosion as it roared up into the sky above them. There was no warning for this sudden calamity, this advent of light and fire. Ochako instinctively lunged forward into Izuku's arms, leaning into him for protection. She squeezed her eyes shut as her body shook with fear.
Warm arms wrapped tightly around her, enveloping her in walls of protective muscle and light. His strength made her feel safer immediately, but not as safe as his words made her feel.
"I have you," was all he needed to say. At just those simple words, Ochako knew that she was safe. "I have you," he said again before placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
Ochako looked up into Izuku's eyes and was grateful. He was like a hearth fire against a winter storm. Here in his arms, she was warm and safe. Protected. One by one, she allowed her taut muscles to relax as she melted against him, uncaring that her blouse was open. She just needed to feel him, to feel a pillar of sanity against this insane world.
The fires dancing around the Chrysalis sped up their dance, orbiting faster and faster. The interior of the barrier became a storm of light. A harmless-looking bubble before, the barrier crackled with strange energy now. It appeared to be far more solid, a crystallized lattice of energy and fire. "He's accelerating time to the maximum that he can." Ochako heard Izuku whisper.
"How fast are you making it in there? Stop." She heard the monotone translation of Izuku's words. His light danced against her face as she pressed one of her cheeks against his chest. There still wasn't a heartbeat in there, but the sound of a roaring fire. It was comforting that at least now there was noise where there had been none before.
"Izuku? Stop. Are you getting my signal? Stop. Please respond. Stop." His lights strobed across her face as he desperately reached out for contact.
Ochako didn't fully understand everything that was happening, but she knew enough to surmise the problem. Time was too far out of sync for Izuku to communicate with himself. She gripped hard onto his shirt, hoping that her presence against him would offer some comfort. There was no way for her to truly empathize with what he might be going through, but she imagined it was like being unable to reach a family member.
"It looks like it's just you and me now," Izuku said to her as he placed a hand on the back of her head.
Ochako shook her head a little as she faced upward to look in his eyes. "Izuku," she started before reaching up, pulling his face down to meet hers. She touched her lips gently to his. "It was always just you and me, ever since you picked me up and we started running here…"
"Thank you, Ochako," Izuku said before kissing her again. His lips expressed a deep need that hadn't been there before, and Ochako wanted to answer that need.
Izuku leaned in close and whispered to her, opposite of the ear with her earpiece in. "I have a secret… and confession. I can't have the comm piece pick this up. Please just nod if you understand. Don't say anything."
Confused, Ochako nodded. What could he possibly confess… confess?! Her heart hammered in her chest, anxious and hopeful.
"Back when I was speaking to the demon, back when we first met… the only way to get her to leave you all alone was to claim you as my property. The demons are on their way here. I'll have to do the same thing here soon to protect you… I'll have to make them believe that you're my slave." His words dripped with pain. It hurt him to have to say this to her. Was he afraid?
Still… Slave. The word rang down deep into Ochako's soul. The idea of being owned like an animal or worse. The word also caused parts of her to stir that she didn't expect. As much as she recoiled at the idea in general, when she applied the concept of ownership into his hands specifically, she found the idea far more exciting than she would have guessed.
Another doubt crept into her mind. Why deceive everyone and hide that he had deceived the demons? Ochako knew the answer the moment she formed the question in her heart. Humanity already mistrusted Izuku. How much worse would they see him if they knew that he had to play both sides?
Looking up into Izuku's eyes she asked herself if she could trust him that much, with such complete devotion that he would have absolute power over her. Could she trust him to use her as a prop, to play both sides again? Was he toying with her feelings, gaining her confidence, all to help the demons take down humanity? No. He wouldn't do that. She had not known him for long, but she was willing to bet her life that Izuku would never do that.
Ochako nodded, knowing that he wouldn't betray her trust. If there was one person she could surrender to and still feel safe with, it was Izuku. She knew it was crazy to believe in someone so completely after such a short time, but he had proven to her beyond any doubt that he was looking out for everyone the way that a hero was meant to. She also knew it was insane to be aroused by this idea… but right now, everything felt insane.
Ochako shivered when Izuku's lips brushed against her ear. "There are different ways to prove that you're mine."
His. She would have to act like she belonged to him. Not as his girlfriend. Not his in passing. His absolutely, completely.
"Nod when I say one that you're comfortable with. Be very sure about your answer… because there won't be any safeword." There was an edge to his voice, and suddenly Ochako was aware of just how much of her exposed skin was pressed against his.
Safeword. Ochako couldn't help but release a helpless whimper at that thought. She listened intently as Izuku presented various options to her. The idea of doing some of these things had an appeal, but they were absolutely frightening to consider in front of such a hostile audience. Eventually, she heard one that she reluctantly gave a hard nod to.
"You're sure?" Izuku asked.
She nodded again. If someone had told her before all this, warned her about her future, she wouldn't have believed them. She'd never have accepted that she was going to head to work, get attacked by monsters, meet the man of her dreams, and then within one day of knowing him to agree to do… this, this of all things. She would have told them they were insane. Instead, Ochako prepared herself for…
"Rest now," Izuku said, interrupting her thoughts. He moved, breaking the intimacy of their contact, yet held her hand the whole way. He sat on the bench nearby, drawing her towards him. "This is going to be hard. I'll alert you before they get here. You'll need your strength."
Uncertainty filled Ochako. After everything that had just happened, she had not expected the fire he had stirred within her to be left untended like this. This was the part where he was supposed to do something like seductively whispering in her ear and suggest they do a "practice run," and… and then…
"Ochako…" he called out to her, gently ushering her to sit next to him and turning her away from the crystal fires orbiting the Chrysalis. His hands guided her down until she found herself prone on the bench next to him.
She pouted but still allowed Izuku to act as her pillow. "I don't want to sleep… not when my time with you might be cut short… Besides, how am I supposed to get any sleep with the brightest, loudest night light ever over there?"
Izuku ran his fingers through her hair, the warmth of his fingers soothing the skin of her scalp. "Hush. You'll need to be at your best for what comes next. Besides… you told me that you need to be awesome, right?"
Ochako's lips pursed together tightly. "Sleep isn't what I was imagining when I said that."
"Hush now…" he whispered breathily as he turned her head in his lap. The soft air he exhaled wafted across her ear and the noise from the Chrysalis died down, though it wasn't muted entirely.
"Izuku… how?" she was scared.
"You've not lost your hearing. I simply quieted some of the noise… it took a small workaround, but I managed it." He said, smiling down at her.
"I still don't want to sleep," Ochako admitted, defying him. "You can't make me."
Izuku furrowed his brow as she sat upright on the bench, but he didn't stop her. "Then what do you want to do?"
Ochako paused for only a moment. Then, finding her resolve, she sat down again, straddling Izuku's lap. "This," she said as she grabbed at his shirt before pulling it up, revealing his tight muscular frame as she lifted it higher and higher, showing off more and more of those delicious abs.
Izuku smirked as he wrapped his arms around her, effectively stopping her from being able to lift his shirt any higher. "Hey!" she objected at first. Her complaint was cut short when his shirt vanished into smoke and air.
"That so unfair…" she whispered before meeting his lips with her own, relishing the feel of his warmth against her skin. She wouldn't get to watch his muscled torso get unveiled as she lifted his shirt over his head, but this was still nice.
Ochako knew better than to ask Izuku to go much further. His attempt to have her sleep was clear communication to her. He didn't want their first time to be a rushed affair at the end of the world. Part of her was relieved. Part of her was disappointed, but she told that part to shut up so she could keep making out with Izuku.
She was just glad to know that they both wanted more. For now, with the demons on the way, Izuku and Ochako had enough time for just this. Just this, though, was perfect. Her fingers trailed deep into his thick hair as their kisses moved from short explorations to deeper ventures.
Izuku's hands moved down to the small of her back, where her maid uniform left exposed skin for his fingers to explore. Ochako luxuriated in his arms. Staring into his eyes, she was happy. They were happy together. However fleeting this moment might be, Ochako chose to enjoy it.
{}
a pillar of green fire erupted upward, ascending like a tower into the sky from the summit of Mt. Takao. It was visible across Musutafu and several districts beyond. The low thunderous rumbling could be heard clear into the heart of the city.
Bakugou Katsuki had never seen anything like it. He wasn't sure if anyone ever had. It was as if the mountain had become a volcano from another more hellish world.
"Deku…" he whispered, unable to continue his trek across the rooftops. Amazement had captured his mind. Disbelief rocked into his soul.
Deku had done it. He'd gotten to the top of that mountain and lit a signal fire so bright and so massive you'd have to be dead not to notice. If there was any luck or hope left, then the demons would flock to that fire like insects.
The hope that the fire kindled was infectious. The blonde felt it burn inside his chest as though a torch had been thrust inside.
"Deku!" he shouted. "You're not the only one fighting to save everyone, Deku! We're here! We're fighting for our lives down here!"
Katsuki's heart caught in his throat, choking him. His face was wet. He told himself it was just sweat, but he was lying. When Gang Orca turned to make eye contact with him, the younger man saw determination there… and regret.
The two of them had given Deku a lot of shit when he first woke up from whatever these fucking demons were doing to him. They had accused him of being the enemy. Katsuki even raised doubts about Deku's identity.
Radio contact with other heroes had already proven how wrong they both were, how the two of them were assholes to the star player of the home team. Deku had singlehandedly taken out dozens of demons and saved hero teams scattered across the city, heroes foolish enough to fall into traps meant to let these fuckers break their useless truce.
The truce that Deku's mom was still paying for, Katsuki thought as his teeth grated on each other.
Yeah, Katsuki had to admit it. If not for Deku… they'd all be fucked by now.
From the look in Whaleface's eyes, he knew it too. "Come on. We're almost back to ground zero…" the older hero offered.
Full circle, Katsuki realized. "Deku… I'm back to where we started… and you… moved on." The young man whispered to himself. "I'll catch up to you, Deku…" he said for his own sake.
Katsuki was smart enough to know that he was lying to himself, but he needed that lie just so he could stay sane. He needed to focus on the goal of reaching the impossible heights that Deku had ascended. If he didn't, he might look around himself and see how bad things were, or worry about his parents, or Kamui Woods and his team. There was no sense in worry though. They were either going to win or they were going to lose. That was all there was to it.
"I'll catch up to you, Deku… so wait for me at the top!" Katsuki roared as he exploded forward onto the next rooftop.
{}
Endeavor put down his binoculars, uncertain of just what it was he had witnessed. The light from that signal fire was far more obvious than he would have guessed the boy would use, hinting at the dreadful power these demons were endowing him with. He still couldn't understand the flickering lights orbiting around the shell, though.
He heard earlier from Eraserhead that the boy in the shell had bought them all some time and that the demons were slowly trickling out of the city. Now it was clear just what kind of time the boy had secured and how he had done it.
He was luring the demons out of the city. Even now, Endeavor could turn and spot bands of the creatures rushing forward toward their new objective. There was no sign of the commanding officers, though. That worried the newly crowned top hero.
Thinking about the top hero, Endeavor grimaced. Although he was captured, All Might was still proving useful to the world by providing information on the enemy.
Despite the hope the signal fire should have stirred in his chest, the garbled audio that the Support Corp had gathered from All Might's earpiece was disturbing Endeavor's thoughts. Only a select handful of heroes had been told after the recordings were classified.
Endeavor could hardly believe any of this, but the proof was in front of his eyes.
If the entire planet was abducted and being dragged towards the enemy homeworld, then there would be nothing he or anyone else on Earth could do to fight off this threat. Ingenium would have died for nothing. Endeavor couldn't let the man's sacrifice be in vain. He also couldn't allow his family or the millions of other families across the world to be enslaved or worse.
For a moment he thought of his son and daughter, whose faces he had just seen yesterday. Ruefully he wondered if terms like yesterday or today had any meaning anymore, now that there was no sun in the sky.
He wondered where his other children were, wishing he had made more effort to keep the family together. He thought about his wife, trapped and helpless in her hospital room, the vision of demons entering the building while she was helplessly waiting for them.
Thankfully the "sorcery" that had captured their planet had a cornerstone, a weakness. Everything revolved around that shell. The boy, the shell, and the spell were all one for the purpose of mankind's future. The spell needed to be stopped. It needed to be done for the sake of the entire world. If either the boy could be killed or the shell destroyed, then the spell would end. The demons would try again, but it would at least buy them time to formulate a resistance.
He shook his head, wondering at how casually he had accepted terminologies such as spells or cornerstones. Still… failing to act due to his small-mindedness could doom all of mankind.
The boy had been brave and noble enough to take the shell outside of the city… making it possible to destroy it without too much collateral damage or loss of human life. After silently offering the young man a conciliatory prayer of gratitude, one that he hoped would guide his poor soul to a better afterlife, he deactivated his earpiece before taking out a satellite phone.
Despite the invitation from the Prime Minister, the Hero Association had objected loudly to international interference. The politicians, afraid of the backlash they'd face for allowing a Japanese city to be bombed, had deescalated the request. The Americans hadn't taken kindly to being redirected to the Tokyo Narita airport, nor had the civilian population reacted well to the airport being shut down for military use. Grumbling and complaining, though, everyone involved had followed the rules.
However, the Americans' proximity would allow them to deploy here far faster than if they had returned to Okinawa. Endeavor could make use of that fact now that they had a target outside of a populated area.
The line on the other end rang only once.
After receiving a curt greeting, Endeavor said his piece, the one he had run through in his head several times before pressing send on the call. "Yes. I have an eye on your target. I don't think you'll need any guidance. If your pilots can't spot this, then they're incompetent… Also, I'm officially using my position in the Hero Association and invoking the invitation you received from our Prime Minister. Endeavor out."
Endeavor had cast the die. He just hoped that it was the right decision.
A Note from the Author
Well, here, at last, is the second half of the chapter I promised you all. As you can see, chopping it into two parts was the right decision. Even with that it still outgrew my expectations. Writing this fic is teaching me things about my writing that I never knew before, such as how bad I am at estimating the length of my work before I get into it.
Thank you all for continuing to read and offer feedback on my writing style and the choices I have made as an author while writing this fiction. You all are helping me grow as an author, and that means a lot to me.
We just broke into the 700s on FF dot net! We also are (for now) the top Exalted fic by kudos and bookmarks on AO3. Both of those facts blow my mind. At 701 followers, 552 favorites, 255 reviews, and over 117,627 views on FF dot net, as well as 219 kudos, 61 bookmarks, and 6,681 hits on AO3, you all have blown me away. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I have yet to do my edit on chapters 5, so I'll do 5 and 6 in a single run, correcting for grammar and errors. Hopefully, my editor will be available again soon, but in the meantime, I am going to polish my work further and further.
For anyone that wants to talk on Discord, please message me on AO3 where it's possible to share links. It's not the server I wanted to build, but it's one that I frequent where the host, Epsi (author of Total Command, a fic worth reading) has let me know it's fine to invite people on.
As I said in my review-notes on FF, this has been a hard two weeks. We lost a friend of the family amid other hardships. We can't attend the service because there is a travel ban and there won't even be a service for us to attend due to how many back to back customers the funeral home has right now. So please, all of you, please stay healthy and be careful out there!
I look forward to sharing my next chapter with you, and hopefully, it will be soon. Next up: Ground Zero!