Chapter One

A Green Sunrise

{0}

It had been the worst day of Midoriya Izuku's life.

He had met his idol, All Might, so you might think it was a great day.

He acted bravely and saved the life of his only friend, so you might think it had been a great day.

Unfortunately, if you thought these milestones weighed against Izuku's setbacks of the day, you would be wrong.

All Might had been quite clear. Izuku would never become a hero. He recklessly endangered himself and his own friend and was lucky that this time it had turned out well. The truth was that Izuku lacked the power to back up his ambitions, however noble his intent was. "I am sorry young man, but you will never be a Hero."

The finality of those words killed something in Izuku's heart. Tears burned his eyes. Nodding solemnly, he could not find the strength to argue. So, he simply turned away from his idol and walked home.

In a thoughtless daze, Izuku wandered into his room. He didn't even glance at his worried mother, Inko, when he passed her. She tried to get his attention, calling out for him. She was naturally concerned about his safety after hearing about the Sludge Villain, but Izuku paid her no mind. Her anxiety grew to new heights when she heard the scream of anguish erupt from his room.

Inko burst through the door only to find her son wailing loudly as he tore poster after poster of All Might from his walls. Her shock grew as he grabbed at action figures and other merchandise, throwing them, smashing them, screaming all the while. It was a complete reversal of his normally sweet and hopeful demeanor.

Inko rushed toward him. "Izuku! Stop! Stop this right now!"

Inko gripped him tightly as his temper of rage turned instead to an embrace of despair. She didn't know what was wrong and had no words for him but held him tightly with every ounce of maternal strength and love that she could muster.

Izuku's tears and saliva drenched her blouse as he erupted with the most heart-breaking cries she had ever heard, because she could feel the depths of her son's despair and was helpless as she stared into the deep chasm of his heart.

In time Izuku calmed down. And in that calm, there were tissues, there was comfort, but most of all there were questions. "Please, Izuku. Tell me what happened. Please, I want to understand."

It took a long time for him to find enough willpower to answer her. "I met All Might." Even whispering it out felt like too much for him, like just the name would break him.

Something deep in Inko's stomach knotted up when she heard the icy despair in her son's words. Her eyes cast around to the chaos and destruction that was once both a bedroom and a shrine to All Might. Suddenly she knew what was going to come next.

Inko's foreknowledge still did not prepare her. Nothing could.

"He's just like everyone else… all he sees when he looks at me is a worthless Quirkless…" Izuku couldn't finish the sentence. "He told me I would never become a hero." He broke again just repeating the memory in his mind. This time the tears did not come. Instead, something far worse surfaced from deep inside of him, like poison sucked up from a wound.

Kacchan had given him a way out of this despair. His best friend had told him to kill himself. "If you want a Quirk so badly, why don't you take a swan dive off the school roof and pray for one in your next life?" As hurtful as those words were, it was starting to sound like a good idea.

"He's right. They all are. Kacchan and everyone else at school. I'm just worthless." Izuku sobbed, struggling against his twin desires to accept his hopeless situation and end it all versus the conflicting will to survive.

Protective maternal fury consumed his mother as she gripped Izuku's shoulders, forcing eye contact with him. "You are worth everything in the world. You are my son. And I love you." There was a stern edge to her comfort, a warning sign against the precipice she feared he would explore. She often feared that the bullying he faced would break him, but to find out that the words of an adult were the last straw caused a fit of righteous anger to stir in her. For now, though, she placed that aside to focus on her son. His need for her outweighed her need for justice.

Slithering, creeping, whispering, a dark part of Izuku's mind told him that this was just something mothers had to say to protect their children. Strangers could afford brutal honesty. His eyes wandered around the destruction he had caused. All the rage and energy had drained from him and now there was only a hollow numb sensation in his heart.

All he wanted was to lay down. Rest. Sleep.

Die.

Izuku could not say that to her, could not utter these hidden thoughts out loud. Even now he worried what his own depression would do to his mother, or that she might stop him.

Didn't he want his mother to stop him? Izuku no longer knew.

{0}

For the better part of two hours, his mother coddled and comforted him. Together they cleaned up the mess of his room, taking tape and scraps of destroyed posters down from the walls. For all the wanton destruction, everything fit in two large trash bags. All that was left afterward was a plain undecorated room. A desk with a desktop computer, a closet with his futon and clothes, and not much else.

His room had formerly been an elaborate homage to All Might, but beneath the surface, it was a work of his own love and his dream of one day being like the man he admired so much. Now, with that dream gone, his empty room seemed to match the new plain reality of his heart.

Before leaving him for the night his mother crushed him in yet another deep embrace. There was comfort there, but also the sadly lowered expectations of a mother who would rather coddle her son than let him dream impossible things for himself.

It was only after she wished him a goodnight and had left that Izuku noticed he hadn't destroyed everything. His notebooks were still in his backpack. His notes on every Hero were meticulous. He cataloged their Quirks, their power moves, their strategies, and synergies. Izuku even drew out their costume changes over the years. An optimist would see these and want Izuku to sign up for business courses in Hero Branding and Marketing. Unfortunately, all Izuku could see was a dream forever out of his reach.

Izuku would never be a Hero.

As Izuku flipped through his old notes, he found a blank page right after multiple entries for All Might. The one Hero he had studied the most and admired the most. He always left pages empty when writing about him in case he found more material to write about later. He would always come up with more thoughts about his favorite Heroes, but All Might was a cut above the rest both in being the number one Hero and in captivating Izuku's imagination.

With his dreams no longer fueling his imagination, nothing new came to him. Izuku would never be as strong or as flawless as All Might. There was nothing more to write about him. Despite all of that, he picked up his pencil. The words just came to him before he was completely sure what he was doing.

"Dear Mom," he wrote. The rest of it flowed out like blood from an open wound.

{0}

Dear Mom,

I know that I will never be a Hero. Maybe I've always known. But my one wish right now isn't for a Quick to make me into a Hero. What I wish more than anything was that someone in my life had encouraged me to dream big and to try and become one, Quirk or no Quirk. If you would have been that someone, maybe I wouldn't have needed to focus so much on All Might. You would have been my Hero.

Dad isn't here, but you remind me that he is supporting us. You're here, but I wish I felt support from someone. So, when I met All Might, I had hoped that he would encourage me, even if we never met ever again. But when he crushed my spirit, I knew that not only would I never be a Hero, but that there was no Hero for me to rely on. I'm sorry mom, but I can't accept that.

That's why instead of going to school tomorrow I'm going back to the roof of the building where I met All Might. I've decided to jump off it. I am sorry, and I do love you, but I don't have the strength of a Hero to endure this anymore. I can't go back and be bullied for being Quirkless anymore by Kacchan and his friends. I can't sit through lectures where even teachers tell me I'm Quirkless and should focus on a mundane career. I can't do this anymore. Please forgive me. And please don't blame yourself. The sad truth is you didn't let me down. This isn't on you. Everyone in the world including All Might let me down.

I am sorry. I love you.

Your son Izuku.

{0}

He stared at his own words. Could he do this? Is this what he wanted? To die?

Yes, a dark part of him whispered to himself. It seemed to coil like a dark snake around his heart. Izuku allowed that snake to control him, letting it move his hands as though he were surrendering to autopilot. It forced him to grab for yet another notebook and flip to the right page.

It was a page he had written about Kacchan, Bakugou Katsuki. With his explosion Quirk, he'd be a powerful Hero one day, but with his temper, he was a bully and a source of abuse for Izuku all through middle school and high school. Bakugou would doubtless get into Yuei Daigaku (U.A. University) but would he help people? Really help them? Or would he just seek power and fame?

The shadow whispered to him, asking if any of the so-called Heroes were Heroes at all. Brushing the thought aside Izuku wrote another note. This one did not flow from his heart as easily as the one to his mother did, but on some level, he felt it was necessary. If Izuku was more honest with himself, maybe he would've known that what he really wanted was for someone to feel some of his pain. Unfortunately, he wasn't and couldn't be that honest. Instead, he buried the truth under layers of false altruism, as though he was thinking about the good of others when he was planning his own death.

{0}

Kacchan,

By the time you find this note, I'll have taken your advice. Don't worry. I won't jump off the school. I have a better plan than that. I hope you get into U.A. and I hope you become a better Hero than you were a friend. I always looked up to you. Please never treat anyone the way you treated me. I now know what it is like to have a Hero look down on you. Don't do that when you become a Hero.

Don't blame yourself. You're not the reason I'm doing this.

Your friend,

Izuku.

{0}

Izuku tore the two notes out and folded them up. He wrote a label on each, naming their recipients.

Was he really going through with this? Yes, Izuku assured himself. There was peace inside his soul once he accepted this decision. He found a kind of freedom in letting go. He could not and would not examine the opiate of that peace or the pain it hid behind the numb façade. He swallowed the pain.

After finding his resolve and burying his pain, Izuku he went to bed. He didn't have any desire to sleep but wanted to be certain that his mom wouldn't suspect anything. He knew that if he tried to leave the apartment so late at night that she would immediately figure out what he was up to and would follow him.

That would be fine if this were a cry for help. Yet this was no plea, no bargain for attention, the whisper of his own depression reassured him. Once more darkness coiled through his innards and uttered terrible words into his thoughts. What Izuku truly wanted right this moment was to die. He refused to examine exactly why. The disappointment and the bullying and the knowledge of his below-average mundanity were enough.

Tomorrow would be his last day alive. He hoped at least that the weather would be nice.

{0}

Sunrise that morning was accompanied by an obvious flash of green across the horizon that many people thought was beautiful. It made not just the local news but was featured internationally on various news and weather services.

{0}

There was a deep but pleasant melancholy to his morning when he woke up. Izuku's thoughts were dark and terrible, but he was at peace with the horrors inside of him. Today those horrors would end, and he would never feel this kind of pain ever again.

His mom made him his favorite breakfast and was extra attentive to him. It was almost enough to break his heart, to make him cry, and hold onto her and beg her to stop him from hurting himself. Izuku held firm to his plan, though, and refused to betray his hidden thoughts. He resolved not to cry again, and to make his mother's last memory of him one where he was smiling.

As usual, he left before she did. The mail had not run of course, but he stopped by their apartment's mail kiosk and slid his note for her inside their mailbox. Now he was committed. His mother wouldn't check until she got home later that afternoon. By then he'd have accomplished his goal.

First, he diverted from his course to school. His destination was the roof of a downtown building far enough out of his normal route that no one would look for him there. At least not until it was too late.

Before that, though, he had one more stop to make.

There was a grim determination guiding his steps despite his peaceful and almost happy façade. Izuku appeared to any casual onlooker to be a pleasant high schooler lost in thought. His focus and determination were born from swallowing down his hesitation and survival instincts. There was a war within himself and he was losing. With fatalism in his heart and eyes focused on his objective, he eventually found the Bakugou family mailbox and placed the note to Katsuki inside. He then strode onward to his final destination.

{0}

He never noticed that he was being watched by then. It wasn't difficult for Bakugou Mitsuki to spot Midoriya Izuku from her townhouse window. It was curious that he would come by their house long after her son Katsuki had left for school. The blonde woman's idle curiosity rose when, instead of coming to the door or looking for her son, Izuku went straight to their mailbox and placed something inside.

The boy was gone before she could think much more about it. She was still enjoying her coffee and was getting ready to head out to work. About half an hour later she was out the door and, on a whim, checked the mailbox to see what had been dropped off. She hesitated to open a note with her son's name on it, but the fact that this was in her mailbox and not a note passed in school lead her to overcome any respect she would have for her son's privacy.

Upon reading the note's contents all thoughts about going to work vanished. She got out her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts. The phone picked up in only two rings. "Inko. There's no time for pleasant greetings. Your son just dropped off a suicide note addressed to my boy. Where are you right now?"

{0}

The wind whipped silently through Izuku's hair. The view up here wasn't the best in Japan, but it was still great. Izuku wanted to take it all in before he climbed over the roof's safety fence. By now second period would be starting. The school might call him or his mother, but his phone was turned off.

Izuku had procrastinated here for almost half an hour. He figured he'd better start this before he lost his nerve.

Just after Izuku gripped the chain-link fence and started to climb, he felt a soft breeze from behind him and this time it was not silent but had a definite series of musical chimes to it. From his peripheral vision, there was a faint green glow for just the briefest moment. Instinctively he turned but stopped dead in his tracks.

Standing no more than four meters away from him was a tall woman of exotic and breathtaking beauty. Hairless from her head to her toes, her lavender skin gleamed in the morning sunlight. Her eyes were large and black, lacking any color or white to them. Her lips were full and wet with a dark red dye. Her cheekbones were highlighted with makeup made of ground gold and lapis. Gold had been painted to create both eyebrows and eyelashes, and the tips of each were sharp blue lapis. The same gold and blue adorned her skin in a series of exotic symbols. Her ears were pierced with three dangling earrings each which ended with small crystal bells.

Her breasts were full and were hidden by the barest of silk wrappings, held aloft by a gold chain around her neck. Sapphires and rubies adorned a gorgeous golden sash that linked the front of the chains, drawing further attention to her chest. Hooped bracelets and anklets clinked as she moved, setting off cacophonies of chaotic music. The thin strip of silk that hid her lower privates from view was held up by a single chain that clung precipitously onto her hips.

The barest breeze gave Izuku a glimpse that would scandalize any other woman, but this vision of beauty either did not notice or did not care. She truly was hairless everywhere. Izuku swallowed, his own spit suddenly thick and uncomfortable in the back of his mouth.

Even from this distance, Izuku was captured by her perfume. Honey, cinnamon, and a flower he could not identify wafted on the air and across his nose. He swore that her aroma hooked into his nostrils, demanding his attention. In short, every sense of his was filled with her. In a single moment, her beauty and allure had captivated him.

"Izuku of House Midoriya. I am Ahalmahlhat, and I am here to serve you." She bowed and rose in a long smooth motion, her arms winding slowly and gracefully like a dancer practicing for a recital, sending her bracelets and ankle rings into a discordant symphony. Her Japanese was eloquent but forced and formal. It was clearly not her first language. Her accent was barely perceptible, but it gave her quite a bit of charm.

"Alha…" Izuku stuttered.

"Ahalmahlhat, young master. It means 'She Will Serve' in a minor Fire dialect. The name was given to me by my mother, Berengiere, the Weaver of Voices. It was she who guided my training and set me aside from all of my sisters that I may serve you, young master." Her honeyed words were casual yet respectful, as though this was the most reasonable and normal and right thing in the world.

Yet nothing was right for Izuku. Now his plan to die was being prevented by a witness and one that knew who he was. "How do you know me… why are you here?" He choked.

"I know you because we have been watching you, young master. You and you alone in all this world are worthy. You and you alone have the potential to become the Shining Prince, the Hero this world needs, to set it right with its Creators." She raised a hand towards him and gestured him away from the fence that encircled the roof. She urged him to come towards her. "I am here to serve you, master, but first you must throw away this silly idea of yours." She said it with affection. There wasn't a single ounce of judgment or condemnation in her voice.

Despite the exotic woman's lack of reproof, Izuku felt an overwhelming amount of shame. Here was a beautiful woman trying to stop him from committing suicide. From her appearance it was obvious she was a Hero with a Quirk. No ordinary person could look like her. From her costume, she seemed less ashamed of her own body than Midnight, the R-Rated Heroine. Like a true Hero, here she was trying to rescue him, telling him what he wanted to hear.

Izuku, however, knew the truth. He would never be a Hero. "I'm Quirkless, miss. I'll never be a Hero. I know that. But… I can't live an ordinary or meaningless life. I just can't. I'll never be like All Might, or like you… or anyone that matters." Tears dripped wet from his eyes down his cheeks. His lungs felt empty as he sputtered his words.

Before his eyes, the woman transformed. Dark purple hair grew from her scalp at an alarming rate, and white invaded into the borders of her eyes only to be joined by sky blue pigment. Her skin slowly shed its lavender hue and looked closer to a light tan. Her breasts and hips shrank slightly. Izuku eventually realized that she looked like Midnight, the Hero he had just thought about. The gold and blue makeup remained in place, but now her eyebrows were real. Lines of makeup that were formerly painted directly onto skin now adorned the tips of her eyebrows.

Izuku realized that Alhalmahlhat did not look like a true replica of Midnight but rather an erotic imitation, a fantasy made real. He was caught between being impressed by her Quirk and being aroused.

"I am not a Hero young master. I am one of the Neomah. I weave flesh the way you would mold clay. I can only mold myself or any children I create according to what fantasies or substance my masters provide. Yet I am not like my sisters. I have never served any before you and will serve none after. I was prepared and trained specifically for you alone. You are Chosen." She bowed to him again, and he could barely believe the way she was treating him. "Please do not throw your life away, young master. I would debase myself further if only to extend your life."

She raised her head before standing straight again. "Does this form please you? I can weave your fantasy into my flesh to please you better. Is there any other way you'd have me appear?" It was clear she was distracting him from his own misery rather than forcing him to make promises or declarations about his original plan for coming here.

Despite Izuku knowing what she was up to, her plan was working.

Izuku threw his hands up awkwardly in front of him. Waving them back and forth, he stuttered as he replied. "No! No, you don't have to do that for me! Please, look however you want to! I… if the way you looked before is true… then you're already gorgeous!"

"Thank you, Izuku of House Midoriya. That was very sweet of you to say." She seemed to relax as her features reverted to the way she was before. Bald, lavender skin and large dark eyes once again met his gaze. "Does my true self put you more at ease? I had thought to appear to you as someone more familiar, but I cannot deceive you, master. It would not be right."

Izuku's cheeks flushed with heat as blood rushed here and there across his body. His breathing deepened as he took her figure in. His clothing felt itchy and tight. Some articles felt more restrictive than others.

The lavender-skinned woman's hips and breasts had enlarged to their original shape and size, and Izuku could swear that she was holding her hips out to the side with her stance just to appear even more enticing. "I appreciate you… I mean your honesty. You are going to a lot of trouble just for me. It's hard for me to think I could be that important to anyone, but seeing you here like this, looking like yourself and not someone else, makes me think you believe what you're saying."

When Alhalmahlhat smiled, Izuku felt butterflies in his stomach. There was a bounce to her step as she took one long stride toward him. There was still a great deal of distance to cross between them. "Every word I have said to you and every word I will utter to you from hereafter is completely true. You have been Chosen by Ligier, the Green Sun. You are to be promoted to one of the Exalted."

She threw her hands wide as she cast her gaze to the many sprawling buildings around them. "This world is lost and without the Shining Prince, it shall be lost to the lesser light of a stunted sun. Mortal shall squabble with mortal and meaningless lives will rise, fall, and endlessly repeat in a cycle of conflict no mortal can stop. But you, Shining Prince, can be the Hero that stops it all and sets the Cycle back to what is right."

Most of what she said had no meaning to Izuku, but one thing stuck out. "You said I can," he hesitated "become a Hero?" His voice cracked. His lips cracked and his mouth felt parched, yet it was not thirsting for water. Izuku, though captivated by the woman in front of him, wanted something far more important than any desire of the flesh.

Izuku wanted hope. He needed it more than air.

"You will be the greatest Hero this world has ever known." She nodded deeply, almost a bow. "The Creators, the Primordials, will gift you with their power and elevate you to join the ranks of the Green Sun Princes, who guide their worlds towards the Great Reclamation. The fight will be long, and it will be hard, but we believe in you." She held her hand out to him.

Izuku hesitated. This seemed too good to be true. "Why would anyone give me power like that? Besides, you can't just give people Quirks. No one can do that."

Alhalmahlhat laughed. It was a mirthful and joyous sound. The bells on her earrings jingled as her body seemed to erupt with joy. "Oh, young master. You are so naïve of how things work. I'm not here to offer you a Quirk. We've seen the powers of your world and we find them all lacking. What we offer you is a power far beyond anything your world possesses. And as to why…"

She walked slowly up to him and gently placed a soft warm hand against his cheek. She was taller than him but bent at her knees to place her eyes at his level. "We watched as you risked your life. You rescued your friend against terrible odds. You received no thanks and no reward. Those who you looked to for love and guidance have failed you, yet you rose to fight for what was right all the same. And who did you rescue but a bully who tormented you for years? Your battle reminded our masters of their struggle to save worlds that have long since turned their backs on the Creators, who locked them away only to forget about them or worse dishonor them."

Her smell was intoxicating. This close to him Izuku was overcome by a powerful spicy musk that her perfume both masked and enhanced. The paradox muddled his thoughts. "No one has ever believed in me before."

She held him in a gentle embrace. "I know young master. But I do. Our masters do. We believe in you. They could have chosen any of the billions in this world, but you are the Chosen One. You and you alone are worthy. Accept me, and accept our masters as yours, and you and I will become one. We will be a team that will overcome everything set before us. Lead, and I will serve and follow you all the days of your life."

Tears welled in his eyes, stringing with salt. He looked up into her large black eyes. "And if I accept you, I can be a Hero?"

She nodded gently. "Not just a Hero, Izuku of House Midoriya, but a Prince of the Earth."

Izuku wanted to ask her what her Quirk was. He wanted to know what she meant by this world rather than the world. He wanted to know how she knew to find him here. More than anything, though, he wanted to hope again, to feel again, and to have someone believe in him. "I want to be a Hero." He whispered it to her.

"To me you already are." She whispered back. And then she kissed him. It was a soft tentative thing at first, then it became deeper, a need expressed between the two of them. In all the eighteen years of Izuku's life, he had rarely admitted how much women fascinated him, preferring to openly focus on Heroes and his dream of becoming one. Ahalmahlhat woke something in him. A tiger that did not even know that it was in a cage before suddenly tasted freedom.

Izuku was drunk on her after only one taste. "Ahalmahlhat…" He breathed as she slowly pushed him down to lie beneath her. Sharp fingernails acted like claws. She was playfully destroying his clothing, but he was in no mental state to care. He had swung from the lowest point in his life to being embraced by an older and extremely beautiful woman who wanted him as her Hero. "I accept you."

Alhalmahlhat smiled sweetly, yet there was a sadness to it along with her joy. "Then let's begin, Izuku of House Midoriya, my Green Sun Prince."

Before Izuku consciously thought about what was happening, he was laying down on the rooftop as she straddled him. Moving swiftly, she devoured his mouth with her own and he held her in a tight embrace. Taking him, claiming him, she moved above him in a dance older than civilization itself, one that Izuku did not know yet was eager to learn. He barely had time to process the pleasure he felt as her hips gyrated above his, coaxing him expertly.

As their embrace deepened and their kisses became more aggressive Izuku failed to notice that her flesh became more and more pliant until it was too late. By then she melted to surround him, and everything vanished from his sight in a piercing burst of lavender and green light.

And then the world went dark.