Let's backtrack a little.
Let's backtrack it all into the one silent, deafeningly still moment in a sunlit meadow. The kind of silence that happens after someone uttered a sentence so ridiculous, so overwhelmingly absurd that you couldn't help but say,
"Pardon?" Aizawa Shouta says. "Lost her magic?"
Simply impossible. Everyone knows this, a fairy losing their magic, there is no such thing.
"Yes, sir—it's an illness, that's what they said—"
But Aizawa knows, as he is one of the Seven Guardians, what this all could possibly mean. For the first time in who knows how long, Aizawa's face pales with alarm. "Illness?" he repeats. Aizawa never managed the art of sounding stupid, but at this moment, he finds himself doing rather well.
"The other messengers, their wings stopped working, and I had to—to leave them, sir," the Messenger understudy sobs. "And oh, the Evergreen Mountains—it's up in flames!"
Chaos. Mayhem, unrest, disarray. Royal guards are being summoned, letters are being sent, words are being spread, migraines are being had.
Let's fast-forward just a little bit.
Dozens of fairy children are now flying back in dispirited, grumbling masses of buzzing bees, lamenting that the long-awaited event of One of Us Gets To Be Monarchy selection has been ruined by some, like, illness-curse that has been put upon the entire land or whatever.
"That was sooo not cool—"
"We are dismissed, he said, go back home to your parents, he said—"
"My wings are dead from fluttering all day—"
"That Hero dude is such a prick, I swear—"
"Didn't even got to know who's the next King—"
"The candidate to be the next King, you mean—"
"Or the next Queen, mind you—"
"Or the next Monarch, mind you—"
"Pigeon dung, this all is—"
Mysterious illnesses and a looming sense of impending doom and what not—they could not care less about such things. Much more importantly, who is going to be the next ruler of the land? Regardless of whether or not said land is in some malicious and imminent danger that could possibly end their magically perfect utopia as they know it?
Another funny thing about children and teenagers: despite being the ones with the shortest experience of having lived one's life, they are also the ones who adapt the quickest to the prospect of aforementioned life being cut short.
"This," Bakugou Katsuki of Magic Meadow says, "is a load of Garuda shit!"
Bakugou Katsuki has got it right. Not only in this matter, but also at large. Katsuki is the kind of boy who has lived life how it ought to be lived: with the conviction that life should and shall go according to your will. To Katsuki, come rain or shine, things will eventually fall into place. Things tend to do this if you blow them up often enough and cram them violently into the places that you so desire.
He's got it right, you've got to hand it to him. And Katsuki has had things handed to him all his life.
Katsuki has expected today to go just like any other day: everything falling into place. Katsuki is the best, after all, and it is only natural that he'd get picked to be the King's Successor.
However, in a ground-breaking, world-shattering, universe-ending event—he was not.
Not only was he not chosen as the King's Successor, the past few days have been pretty fucking shitty as well. The possibility of finding the Holy-Accursed Azure Phoenixian Rose-Lily of the Great Mighty Queen of Everlasting Spring in the Spooky Woods is even lower than the possibility of finding a mushroom in the Spooky Woods that does not give you visions of acquiring the Holy-Accursed Azure Phoenixian Rose-Lily of the Great Mighty Queen of Everlasting Spring. And now there is this illness, just ruining fucking everything!
This is supposed to be the year where Bakugou Katsuki finally, finally gets out of stupid Magic Meadow with its stupid kids and its stupid adults. This is supposed to be the year where Katsuki gets to go to Fairy Town, a place where he deserves to be, a place where his talents and magnificence get to be acknowledged. And by that he means acknowledged fucking properly. He doesn't need another medal made out of cheap gold-painted stalk. He wants ones out of gold. Proper gold. And crystal, as he deserves. This is supposed to be the year where he's harked and heralded as the Successor, because obviously no other child in Fairytopia could even hope to be half as powerful as he is, and what luck it is for Fairytopia and its citizens of this century to find such a prodigious child like Katsuki as the next to-be King for the next thousand of years..
..that is what this year is supposed to be. And now they're telling him he's supposed to stay at home? Stay at home indefinitely, until the Kingdom finds a cure? What a lot of Garuda shit!
But you know how the saying goes: if you blow things up often enough, they will eventually fall into place (A/N: an ancient idiom in Fairytopia). Even if they don't, you will still feel better than you did before things were blown.
And if Midoriya "Wingless Deku" Izuku can't really be considered a fairy, he can at the very least be considered a thing.
Bakugou Katsuki isn't quite larger than life, but he has been a large part of Izuku's life, and life has never been very kind to Midoriya Izuku. It certainly is not kind to him at the very moment.
"Say, Kacchan," Izuku says. "If you get to be King—"
"When," Katsuki corrects him. He pulls at the rope to tighten it, although it's already tight enough that Izuku can't feel his toes.
Izuku rolls his eyes. "Right. When you get to be King. What are you gonna do?"
"I'm going to beat the shit out of our enemies," Katsuki says.
"We haven't had war in thousands of years," Izuku points out. "Fairytopia can't have wars with other realms."
"I'm going to beat the shit out of them," Katsuki insists.
"What does the Monarch even do?" Izuku says, ponderingly. What does a Monarch do, in a land where everything is perfect? Where issues are non-existent, and peace everlasting? It's a head-scratcher, that.
"Rule the Kingdom, idiot," Katsuki says. "And beat the shit out of enemies and such. Hey, is this thing ready?"
There are a few shouts of affirmation from Katsuki's henchmen. "Say," Izuku says. "If this thing works and I break my neck and die, would they still let you be King?"
"Have faith in yourself, Deku," Katsuki says. "Have you ever considered that your wings might sprout in the heat of the moment? Maybe your magic just needs a little push."
"This isn't a little push," says Izuku rather calmly for someone who is tied to a magic cannon. "I can't fly and you are going to launch me into the sky."
"Then this will be your once-in-a-lifetime chance to fly," Katsuki says. Katsuki has never been particularly worried for Izuku's wellbeing. To Katsuki, Izuku is resilient in a pest-like way, which is to say that he is annoying and hard to get rid of. Like a cockroach. Except cockroaches have wings, unlike Izuku. "Ain't that all you ever wanted, Deku?"
Izuku might actually die this time, though. It's a tall hill, the one they are on. And it isn't really the hill Izuku would like to die on. Granted, if the cannon does work, he would die over it rather than on it. "Screw you, Kacchan," Izuku says.
Like cruelty, magic comes easily to Katsuki. Ember burns in the cup of his palm, sparks of golden fire. Once the spark catches the wick, it would trigger the magic of the cannon and Izuku would fly. If not Izuku flying, then bits of him would.
"Ready, Deku? On the count of three!"
If I die, Izuku thinks, I'm going to curse him. Izuku might not have magic as he is now, but perhaps when he is freed from the constraints of his mortal body, he could find a way. Maybe he could curse Kacchan wingless, or magicless, or brainless—preferably all three. That way at least Izuku wouldn't die for nothing.
"One," Kacchan counts, and then he lights the wick.
There is actually quite a large chance that it wouldn't work. The cannon used to be quite a safe attraction, like how roller-coasters and seven-metre tall waterslides are safe attractions. Fairies can fly, after all, so none of them are ever in real danger of falling from the sky. But ever since poor Taka-kun attempted to use the cannon on his pet puffball and successfully poofed the puffball out of existence, the cannon has not been used in a long time, and therefore has not been maintained properly. The magic it has might have faded with time, so yes, the possibility of it working is very low indeed.
The possibility of a fairy being born without wings is even lower, but Izuku managed that all the same, didn't he?
The sky is very blue.
Kacchan is right, of course. This is a once in a lifetime chance for Izuku and, quite possibly, his last. Izuku has never felt the sensation of having gravity robbed from him—a privilege that is the birthright of most fairies ever born—and he finds it … odd. It's a peculiar sensation, soaring in the sky; without weight, without gravity, and without a chance of survival.
It's funny; he has lived his whole life on the ground, and now he is going to die in the air. So this is how flying feels like, Izuku thinks as he soars and soars. And then with the petulance of someone who realizes everybody is having it better than them, he thinks, it's not all it's cracked up to be..
In the traditions of experiencing what could be the last moments of your life, Izuku's life flashes in front of his eyes; his wretched, horrible, hellish life. He watches it with the same amount of interest one would have watching a shitty Netflix live-action remake show.
Mostly, he just feels bad about his mother. She is a good mom. If not for his mom, he would have gone on a genocidal rampage a long time ago. But then again, his life is not so bad, Izuku thinks. It is as bad as it gets, but it is also as good as it gets. It was as good as it could ever possibly be, for someone like Izuku. And maybe this is for the best. His mom can find true happiness after he's gone. Maybe she would even have another child, one that comes with wings.
If Izuku is going to die right now, this will be his very last thought.
But then magic happens.
Bakugou Katsuki knows how magic works, having had it all his life, and therefore he is right: sometimes, magic does need a little push. And as we know, magic and science are basically the two sides of a coin twirling on the surface of destiny.
And destiny works, traditionally, in a cinematically climatic way. Light shines brightest in the dark, that sort of thing. And wouldn't it be great if at this moment, Midoriya Izuku's latent talent finally chooses to shine? Wouldn't it be great if, in these seconds where his life is in danger, in a perfect moment of poetic retribution, Izuku's magic breaks through whatever chains were holding it back? Wouldn't it be great if Izuku's wings sprout like flowers in the spring, and it is then revealed that Midoriya Izuku is the most Kingly child in all of Fairytopia and therefore destined for great things?
It would. But life in Fairytopia has never been great.
Izuku, still magicless and therefore wingless, has stopped soaring through the air and is now heading enthusiastically towards the ground. For the first time in his life, Izuku says the f word out loud. Though the more accurate verb would be 'scream'.
Time does slow down, in moments like this, for the brain would like to savor as much time it could get before it's robbed off it by death. The ground gets closer and closer, Izuku closes his eyes..
..and still doesn't hit the ground.
He opens his eyes.
The ground is below him, a field of flower-houses visible below his feet—but he isn't falling anymore. He is … flying.
No, no. He is hovering. Gravity is nulled all around him, keeping him suspended in the air. This, Izuku realizes, is magic.
"Do fairies often"—a voice pants—"fall from the sky in Magic Meadow?"
But not his magic.
"I don't know how long I can hold this for," the fairy says. Her round face looks a little green, her hands clasped tight on Izuku's shoulders. "Sorry!"
Izuku might be magicless, but he can recognize magic when he sees one. Magic comes in all forms and shapes—there are no two individuals with the exact same magic. Izuku's mother's magic is push and pull, a soft, ticklish magnetism in the air. Kacchan's is rambunctious, loud, an irate splash of spitfire. But this girl, this girl's magic is—it feels like nothing. Her magic feels still, like stone. No, even less than than still—it feels like negativity in its purest sense.
"You're the Royal Messenger," Izuku says in a useless realization.
"I'm an understudy," she corrects him. And then she throws up.
It seems that along with releasing the content of her stomach, she is also releasing the hold of her magic. Izuku does not have time to protest the projectiles currently being projected onto him, because he is once again falling from the sky. Only this time, he has vomit all over his face. It's true what they say, Izuku thinks—when it rains, it vomits.
(A/N: an ancient idiom in Fairytopia.)
And then he falls into a pool of water.
Probably. He isn't really sure what just happened. One moment he is in the air, the girl's sick all over him, knowing he is going to have the stupidest death in all of the realms ever existed—and then he's wet. He gasps for breath. Blinking water out of his eyes, Izuku looks into the face of a scowling young child hovering above him.
"You idiots are so fucking stupid," Izumi Kouta says.
Izumi Kouta is five and a half years old and angry and, as Izuku will find out soon enough, is not afraid of kicking anyone in the crotch. He is also the second fairy Izuku has ever met who is blessed with elemental magic.
Kouta releases his magic, and the pool of water suspended in the air that has been preventing Izuku from hitting the ground is released along with it. Izuku therefore hits the ground.
"Oh my gods, I am so sorry!" Someone says, which Izuku belatedly realizes is the Vomit Girl. She has flown to crouch beside him, horror evident on her no-longer-green face. "I can't believe I—I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? I'm sorry!"
Looking at her face brings back some nasty memories, which consist of what just occurred not three seconds ago, so Izuku naturally scooches back from her reach. "It's okay," he says. It is not okay. She literally puked all over his face. Izuku has been treated like refuse all of his life, but never has someone actually dumped their actual refuse on him. "I'm fine." Thankfully, the water washed nearly all of it—at least he likes to think it has. He doesn't think he usually smells like anti-nausea tea and stomach acid. "I'm sorry!" she screeches once again.
"I'm fine," Izuku repeats. Perhaps this is payback for laughing at his peers in the past three days—the Universe just has to remind him again that Izuku is still located on the bottom of the ecosystem ladder. He just wants to go home now. "Thank you for. Um. Saving my life." He thinks what she did still merits some gratitude, even if she did vomit on him and then failed to save his life shortly afterwards. In that exact order. "And, um," he looks to the tinier fairy fluttering above him. "Thank you too. For saving my life also."
The boy scowls. How old is he, Izuku wonders. Five, six? Should be somewhere there judging from his height. But the child's wings are as big and powerful as Kacchan's, more than twice the child's body size. Izuku tries not to look at them with too much envy. The child says, "Humph," and looks away.
Well, all right. Izuku is used to that kind of reaction to his general existen—
"OH MY GODS."
Izuku starts at the sudden screech. The girl exclaims again, "Oh my gods! Oh my gods!"
She sounds so horrified and distressed that Izuku can't help but panic as well. He looks around in alarm, looking for whatever horror that could possibly be present to cause her such distress. "What? What?"
"You are not okay!" she says—screams, really—and proceeds to shake Izuku by the shoulder.
Izuku doesn't even have time to react. The fairy girl lunges at him with the urgency of a hurricane. Her fingernails dig into Izuku's shirt and Izuku—reflexively, nonsensically—braces himself for a hit. But she doesn't hit him (of course, stupid, his common sense makes a rare appearance at the back of his head. Why would she? You just met!) instead, she turns his back towards her as if to examine his—
"Your wings—your wings—they're gone!"
—non-existent wings.
Izuku stares. She looks terrified. Even the haughty little boy, he realizes, looks perturbed by Izuku's apparent lack of body member. Only then Izuku finally understands what seems to be going on here.
It's funny. Izuku thought he'd gotten used to this—to his differenceness. Magic Meadow isn't Fairytopia's largest region—everyone knows everybody, and everyone knows about Midoriya Inko's poor, unfortunate, Wingless son. Izuku has long since gotten used to hate, to disgust, to prejudice—but it has been a long time since he's encountered surprise.
It catches him off-guard. He keeps on staring.
"Maybe—uh, maybe—" she looks like she is about to cry as she frantically looks around, as if Izuku's missing wings were a dropped penny. "Maybe your wings, um, maybe they fell in the bush somewhere—"
And wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be great if Izuku's wings fell in the bush somewhere. "Oh right, my wings," Izuku says, finally getting a hold of himself. He stands up, wringing water out of his clothes. "Yeah, I think I left them at home."
Both of them stare at him.
"..That was a joke," Izuku says awkwardly. "I have no wings. Anyway—"
"You have no wings?" she repeats, astonished. And then she covers her mouth as understanding sinks in. "Oh.."
Yes, oh. An apt reaction. Now that, that look on her face, that apprehensive pity—that is familiar. Izuku turns around so he doesn't have to look at it. This day sucks, and Izuku has had enough. "Anyway. Uh, thanks again. Goodbye."
"Does that mean you have no magic?"
The new voice is young and a little nasally. Izuku turns.
The kid with the water magic is looking at him. Something about him is strange, Izuku thinks. There is no pity on the child's face. No disgust either. No expression that Izuku has ever seen directed at him before, really—he isn't sure what to make of it. Perhaps that's why instead of not answering and leaving right away as he wisely ought, Izuku says rather snarkily, "So?"
"How?"
Izuku stares at him. "What?"
Water splashes into Izuku's face.
Splash is a misleading verb to use. More accurately, water cannons into Izuku's face. It jet shoots into Izuku's face like the fart of a constipated whale—powerful, unexpected, and rips your face straight clean off.
"Kouta-kun! Sto—Kouta-kun, stop—!"
"How?" the kid roars. Kouta-kun, Izuku's logic provides, is his name. The name of the devil fairy child who is currently water-hosing him to death. "How could you possibly have no magic? How?"
Izuku has been bullied his whole life, but having a literal five year old magically assaulting him is a new low. He sputters, trying to raise himself up, slipping on the wet grass. He is drenched from head to toe, shivering, but the water attack has momentarily stopped—courtesy to the Vomit Girl currently wrestling the devil child into submission. Attempting to, at least. The child is putting on an impressive defense against someone at least two times his size.
"Kouta-kun, you mustn't!" the girl says, supplexing the smaller kid with all her strength. It's always sort of funny watching fairies fight—like drunk bees pushing each other in the air. "Kouta-kun, Aizawa-san will—"
"Let go of me, wench!" yells the devil child. "And YOU!"
Izuku has never seen someone stare at him with bloodlust in their eyes—not even Kacchan. Kacchan is violent towards Izuku, but it's always been out of some sense of privileged right—like how one would step on an ant—and not from any genuine intent to kill. But this child, Izuku knows, would claw his throat out if given the chance. "You! Tell me how! Tell me how you lost your magic! I demand you! To! Tell! Me! HOW!" Finally freeing himself from Vomit Girl's judo hold, the aquatic assault resumes itself.
Izuku resents fire.
His whole life, he always resented the fact that out of all elements that Kacchan could be blessed with, he is blessed with the most destructive element of them all. Izuku has spent hours of his days washing away ashes on his clothes and applying ointments to his burnt skin. There was a time where Izuku wondered if Kacchan was blessed with something else—like earth, air, or water—perhaps Izuku's everyday life would not be as tormentful as it is.
Izuku knows now that he was wrong.
(A/N: As we have covered a chapter before, there is a stereotype in which elemental fairies are presumed to be ruled by their emotions what with their feelings being strongly tied to their magic. Most people assume that elemental fairies have the personalities commonly associated with their respective elements, i.e all fire fairies are fiery, earth fairies are down-to-earth, air fairies are light-hearted, water fairies are calm as a pond and so on.
Now, this is a common misconception. It is true that elemental fairies are ruled by their emotions. What most people fail to take note of is that elemental fairies often only have one emotion, and that emotion is anger.)
"Ghresghsurghuargh!" says Izuku, futilely attempting to be verbose in the middle of the very first waterboarding session that has ever been conducted in Fairytopia.
"Kouta-kun! Stop it right now!" Faintly, underneath all the vicious hydrous attack, Izuku can hear the girl's voice getting louder and louder. Just when a small part of his brain that isn't drowning points out that this means she is approaching him, Izuku feels a hand touching his body. And then, once again, Izuku is in the air.
Looking back, Izuku realizes that the girl was trying to get Izuku away from the tsunami attack by levitating him into the air. Izuku later understands that this move, while not well thought out, is well meant. At the moment, however, Izuku does not appreciate being magically yanked around in the sky like an inebriated pigeon trying to dodge a magically lethal water beam.
Izuku really hopes that Kacchan had shot the cannon into another direction, back then. If he had, maybe Izuku would not have to experience whatever torture he is going through right now.
"You can't use magic on other fairies!" the girl shouts as she uses her magic on Izuku by ping-ponging him in the air. "That's against the law, Kouta-kun!"
Kouta-kun ignores her in favor of throwing a good old tantrum. "TELL ME HOW!" he tantrums magnificently, a shot of water just missing Izuku's head by an inch. "HOW YOU LOST YOUR—"
Now that Izuku doesn't have to worry about choking to death and only has to worry about the rather large space between his feet and the ground, Izuku gathers enough brain cells to yell out: "I didn't!"
Both fairies that are currently dueling each other by proxy of inflicting their magic on Izuku stare at him. "I didn't lose my magic!" Izuku yells informatively. "I never had magic in the first place!"
A few silent seconds pass. Izuku pants, feeling sick to his stomach. Izuku doesn't know if he has sky-sickness (A/N: similar to sea-sickness but—and this might surprise you—in the air) or if the effects of being violently mauled by various magical forces have caught up to him, but he could use a good throwing-up session right now. After it seems like nobody is going to fire tsunamis at his face any longer, Izuku swallows. "Can you—" he tentatively speaks into the ensuing silence. "Can you put me down now please."
"Oh, of course," says the girl, slowly and carefully releasing her magic. Izuku lands, to his relief, rather gently on the grass. Feeling much less throwing-uppy now that his feet have touched the earth, Izuku cautiously looks at his assault perpetrator, who has suspiciously gone quiet. Izuku looks at the devil child and stares.
"Uh," Izuku says. "Is he.."
The devil child hiccups.
"Um," the girl says. "Kouta-kun, are you.."
The devil child sniffles.
Izuku and the girl stare at the kid. And then they look at each other. And then they stare at the kid again. And then the girl, slowly but surely, approaches the kid like one would approach a mentally unstable gorilla with wings and deadly hydrous powers. "There, there, Kouta-kun.."
For a moment, Izuku is once again, terribly shocked. Izuku almost feels offended, even. He is the one who has undergone cruel and devastating abuse! He is sopping wet, everything in his body is hurting all over, his breakfast is knocking hello at his esophagus and Izuku is seventy percent sure all that water broke his nose..
And yet. The devil child is crying?
Insane. Preposterous! If anyone should be crying, Izuku thinks aghast, it should be Izuku. This is all wrong. What on earth kind of bullying procedural is this? At least Kacchan has always had the decency in allowing him to be the victim.
The devil child sobs.
..Well, this just sucks, Izuku thinks ruefully. It's difficult to demand his much deserved emotional and financial compensation from a little kid who is bawling his eyes out. Izuku sighs. He has never had much practice in demanding compensations anyway, so what's one more unfairness in his life, really?
"All right," Izuku says, carefully walking backwards. He needs to get away from the scene. Whatever this is, it's none of his business, and he would rather sooner forget everything that just happened in the past five minutes than—as one puts it—press charges. "I'll see you—uh—" never, hopefully. But before he could finish his sentence, the kid wails.
Not at Izuku, precisely, just at the world in general. What was just a mild sniffling now turns into a full on crying tantrum. The Vomit Girl looks just as urgently traumatized by this development as Izuku. "Kouta-kun! It's okay! It's going to be okay!" she says panickingly. Izuku soon understands why she is panicking. The amount of tears streaming out of the devil child's eyes is not normal. It's not normal at all. Izuku's mind flashes back to the last time he saw Kacchan cry nine years ago.
Coincidentally, the greatest fire Magic Meadow has ever had in history also happened nine years ago.
Izuku thinks he ought to walk backwards faster.
"Shh, shh, it's all right," the understudy begs, hovering over the child. The child's tears, Izuku notices with horror, have turned into a puddle on the cornfield. The puddle is impressively, before his very eyes, metamorphosing its way into a pond. "It's all right Kouta-kun! Don't cry! Don't cry!"
Izuku is an intelligent boy.
There are only two people in all of Fairytopia who believe in this statement: Midoriya Inko and—deep deep down where the sun don't shine—Bakugou Katsuki. But really; Izuku is quite the genius, what with having a more often trained logical processor than most due to his inventing hobbies and needs.
Therefore, Izuku is aware that the sensible thing to do right now is run away, go home, and perhaps warn his mother of an oncoming elemental-fairy-induced flood. This is after all none of his business, whatever this is, and only an idiot would go and console a child who has caused aforementioned idiot immense physical pain not five minutes ago.
Izuku is an intelligent boy. And like most kind people, he can be quite an idiot at times.
It took them half an hour to calm Kouta down.
In that half an hour, it took Kouta five minutes to try and kick Izuku in the crotch. Fortunately for Izuku, Kouta did not succeed three times out of five.
Unlike Izuku's crotch, the field is in a much worse condition. The pond thankfully hadn't grown into a lake, but Izuku knows very well that these corns would not survive. Kouta's eyes are red, but the boy is now just sitting sullenly by his magic-made pond. But he is yanking on the grasses around him instead of overwatering them, so Izuku counts that as a tentative win. From far away in a well-calculated distance, both Izuku and—as the girl has told him after Izuku received his first crotch-kicking experience—Uraraka stare carefully at the child as if Kouta is a bomb that would blow up any second. It is not a good metaphor, because metaphors are not supposed to be true.
"..okay," Izuku says, after several moments of silence in which it seems that Kouta will not be drowning every living being in one-hundred metre radius. He glances at the girl beside him. "Uh."
Izuku finds himself at loss for words. He has never really spoken to anyone before—no one beside his mother and Kacchan, if his bullying sessions can be called a banter—and he is rather confused about his next course of action. And then a neuron flickers in his brain.
Maybe he should get mad, he thinks.
That's right. He should get angry and yell a little, and then stomp out of here and forget about the whole thing. Or better yet, he shouldn't forget. He should get mad and then keep the precious memory of him being mad—to himself. After all Izuku has never gotten the chance to be mad at anyone before, and now here it is! He was wronged and they were like, basically about to kill him, so it's completely justified probably. He has all the rights in the world to be mad, right? He can even throw one or two curse words in, which is a pretty exciting prospect. It might even feel good to know that he can stand up for himself for once..
"I'm really sorry," Uraraka says suddenly. "For, um, everything. For the, for what I—" her cheeks blush as she recalls her vomit incident. "And for Kouta-kun. I know he's a little … umm," she appears to fail in finding a proper word to describe what kind of child Kouta is. "It's just that … he's been having a difficult time ever since his parents died."
..And there goes Izuku's one chance to yell at people with good conscience.
"..It's fine," Izuku says. He shifts uncomfortably. "Um, anyway, I'm gonna go and—"
"And then what with his aunt losing her magic, it's been really rough for him," Uraraka continues despondently.
"..Right," Izuku says. And despite the sun still going strong in the sky, he says, "It's going to be dark soon, I think I should—"
Uraraka, to Izuku's horror, is wiping a tear off her cheek. "Not to mention when his house burnt down.."
This is all wrong, Izuku thinks once again in shocked bewilderment.
First of all, to Izuku, crying is something that only happens to him and not to other people. It is simply incomprehensible to see this happening twice in the past half an hour. Second of all, being confronted by the notion that other people might be having a worse life than he is is just ridiculous. It's an impossible concept. As impossible as acquiring Holy-Accursed Azure Phoenixian Rose-Lily of the Great Mighty Queen of Everlasting Spring.
Izuku is eager to escape this upside down world at once. "I get it, ok, it's really fine, um, I think my mom—"
"Ever since he was chosen to be a candidate," Uraraka adds, oblivious to Izuku's plight as she is immersed in her heartfelt narration, "Kouta-kun has been trying to lose his magic and.."
"—really, my mom must be looking for m—he has been trying to what?" and even more baffling, "he was chosen to be what?"
"Well, yes," Uraraka sniffles. "Before she lost her magic, Hero Tomoko chose Kouta-kun to be.."
Izuku stares at her, barely hearing anything. He tries to imagine a five year old boy—who had nearly crushed Izuku to death with nothing but water and spite—ruling all of Fairytopia for the next millennia.
Izuku has always had a good imagination. He is not liking what he is currently imagining.
"..but Kouta-kun doesn't want to," Uraraka's voice swims somewhere in Izuku's horrified consciousness. "That's why he's been, um, obsessed with losing his.."
This is ridiculous, Izuku thinks. First of all, why must Izuku listen to tales of some kid's tragic life? As if Izuku is in shortage of tragic lives. Second of all, why would anyone ever want to lose their magic?
"Why would anyone ever want to lose their magic?" Izuku says.
Uraraka turns to look at him. And then her face changes as she remembers that Izuku has never had any magic to lose in the first place. "Oh, gods, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
Kouta sneezes.
Both teens flinch to a stop. And then Uraraka continues, tentatively, "I didn't mean—"
Kouta sneezes again.
"..I really didn't—"
Another sneeze.
"..I really d—"
Uraraka cuts herself off with her own sneeze. And then Kouta sneezes again.
It is quite cold. Izuku has been shivering for a while. All three of them are drenched and have been standing around in the open air for a long time now. This, Izuku thinks, is the perfect moment for him to make an exit. Go home and forget about the whole thing. Especially the latest things. Because if Izuku thinks too long about a kid who has got magic strong enough that he has a chance to be king wanting to lose said magic, Izuku will go crazy and genocidal for real.
"Right," Izuku says, once again walking backwards. "I'm just gonna go now and—"
Kouta sneezes. Uraraka sneezes as well.
Izuku stops walking backwards.
I really am an idiot, Izuku thinks.
"Okay. Um," Izuku says. His house isn't too far away from here, really—just a ten minute walk or so. "Are you guys. Do you. Do you like honey and lavender tea."
Aizawa Shouta is having a very terrible day.
Shouta has made a lot of enemies in his life. Most of the creatures included in this list are fairies, but Shouta is starting to suspect that one or two gods are included in that list because someone up there, he's sure, is having it out on him.
"Disaster," Nemuri Kayama announces. "Malady. Calamity! Of the highest degree."
"Right."
"It has arrived," Nemuri continues, her visage shimmering through the magic mirror. "It has arrived, Shouta. We have sown the seed and now we are to be reaped. Here it is!" she spreads her arms theatrically. "Fate has caught up to us at last. At the crossroad of Destiny!"
Shouta knows that it is still noon over there at Fairytown, but she seems to be in the dark with curls of fog framing her body most ominously. "Right."
"Oh, come on, Shouta." with a snap of her finger, the darkness dissipates and the mirror brightens, though the fogginess persists. It's embarrassingly inappropriate to waste all that magic just for theatrical effects, but Nemuri Kayama is known to wear inappropriateness like a dress. "Isn't all of this quite exciting. We might die, you know. Or worse.." she sighs dreamily. "Lose our magic."
Shouta is not surprised in the least to see the Hero having fun with the possible demise of all Fairytopia. Nemuri Kayama is also known to be insane. "Right," Shouta says. "Did you summon me just for this."
What Shouta thought was fog is actually—he watches in distaste as Nemuri takes a drag of one of those darned faep things—vapor. "Of course not. I wanted to check up on you, see if you're still alive," she blows more vapor into the mirror, grinning. "Someone is hunting all the guardians and all, didn't you hear. We are in great danger."
What, that's it? If that's all she's got to say, Shouta is going to be pissed. More pissed than his factory setting, anyway. "This could've been a letter."
"A letter would take days to arrive," she says. "What have you got against magic mirrors, really."
Shouta has got a lot against magic mirrors. Shouta is the exact opposite of sociable personified, but even he thinks you are supposed to look people in the face when you talk to them and not via some magicked mirror. Fairies have become far too reliant on magic these days, if you ask him. Using magic to do something as simple as communicate is beyond ridiculous. What next, will they be using magic to do all their work for them? Dry their clothes for them? Wash their damn dishes?
And they are! Shouta has seen the … contraptions. 'Dishwashers', hah! In Shouta's days, he thinks sullenly, Dishwashers meant hands. And long distance communication was properly done by letters on fireflies or words in a messenger's mouth received in a three day's time. None of this 'instant' rubbish. No wonder this generation is so soft.
As if knowing what Shouta is thinking—and Shouta knows full well that she certainly does—she says, "You are such an old man." Nemuri is Shouta's exact age. She sighs more vapor. Shouta doesn't think that's right either, faeping. Fairies used to smoke with proper smokes and cough their ways to death, as they ought; none of this healthier option business. "Be more modern, why don't you."
(A/N: Like many other living creatures, fairies enjoy a good tobacco inhaling session. Fairies who smoke have been known to have their life expectancy cut short—-at worst—by half. You might wonder, then, why on earth would fairies still smoke knowing that it directly impacts their health and also those around them. You might wonder why, pray tell, is smoking even still allowed for gods' sake. Logic concurs that the King should ban smoking altogether for the betterment of Fairytopia—and that's where you are wrong. Smoking is good for Fairytopia. It provides a rather fulfilling stimulus to Fairytopia's economy, to be exact.
All right, you might think, that still doesn't explain why fairies still smoke. Surely a fleeting surge of dopamine—one with a price, at that—isn't worth half your lifespan?
Unfortunately, all living creatures in all sorts of societies and universes have agreed unanimously that while smoking has all sorts of harmful side effects, it also has the side effect of making you look really super cool.
(A/N:A/N: Anyway, faeping is the most recent magicked reinvention of smoking. It is believed to be a healthier option for smokers as its magic charms some of the harmful properties away. Faepers can now enjoy a good tobacco inhaling session with only a quarter of their life expectancy cut short.))
Shouta would like this conversation to end as soon as possible. "You've seen that I am still alive." To the dismay of many others.
"A tremendous relief. And as of your Whorcrux?"
"Safe," Shouta answers shortly.
"Splendid," she croons. Around her neck, Shouta can see, her own Whorcrux glows red, matching Shouta's own pulsing midnight blue.
(A/N: The W in Whorcrux™—an absolutely original plot point, by the way—is silent. You may or may not choose to put an e in that spelling.)
It's beautiful, the Whorcrux; it's shaped like a butterfly, identical with the rest of the six Horcruxes except for their hues. It gleams like the most polished crystal. The Whorcrux hangs on a thread as if a pendant, resting on Shouta's collarbone coldly—a cold, dainty little thing. "Is Tomoko's Whorcrux…?" but even as Shouta says it, he already knows.
"Vanished," Nemuri answers cheerfully. "A Guardian's Whorcrux—taken for the first time in millennia! Dreadful affair." She looks giddy again. "Tomoko-chan has not woken up since."
Shouta's Whorcrux has been with Shouta since the moment the previous Guardian chose him. It is connected to Shouta intrinsically, melded into his magic—and in return, it gives its Magic to Shouta as well. A Guardian is their Whorcrux as much as the Whorcrux is its Guardian's. If the Whorcrux is taken from him, he doubts he would fare any better. "And the King?"
"Dying. Hm. Dying-er, I suppose," Nemuri says thoughtfully, tapping bright red nail against bright red lips. "It isn't easy losing a piece of your soul, I reckon."
Fairytopia is held together by a single ancient spell.
This happened a long, long time ago—before any of our characters here have been born. In the beginning, before Fairytopia, there was One. And because one is the other and the other is one, there was also All.
Magic isn't in abundance. Magic wasn't in abundance. Magic was worked for, Magic was hard earned, Magic was laboured over, for this was the oldest Magic of them all: to Give and to Take. One Gives to All, and All Gives to One.
In the beginning of Fairytopia there was One. And there was All. One Gives and All Takes. One takes, and All..
To achieve Perfection requires a great price. And Magic has never been one to bargain.
In the beginning there were Two. Or perhaps Two is indeed One. It's hard to tell—siblings, after all, is the oldest Tale of them all. One is the other and the other is one. They love. They believe. They desire. They fight..
And there can only be One. And thus there was One. One kills the other. One splits One's soul for the good of All. One Gives Magic to All. One for All.
Fairytopia is perfect. Fairytopia has always been perfect. Perfection or Nothing At All.
The Oldest Tale: Siblings, and the Second Oldest Tale: Sacrifice. And the Third?
Well, Happily Ever After.
"The King shan't go on for much longer, I fear," she croons. "If we don't find the Chosen One before All for One does.."
Disaster, malady, calamity of the highest degree.
"So you haven't found them," Shouta says. "The child."
"They aren't in Fairytown, I fear," Nemuri says. "The others haven't found the child either. You'd think it'd be easy to find a Wingless Fairy in this land."
Shouta doesn't say anything.
"I've found a good Candidate to take my place, however. You?" at the look on Shouta's face, she coos, shaking her head. "My, my, Shouta. Choosey choosey.."
"These children could never replace us." Mere kids! What do they know about Guarding the entire land? What do they know about sacrifice and sacred swears? "They barely could distinguish one hand from the other."
"We were chosen at their age, you know."
That's different. Shouta doesn't say it. He says, "They're soft."
"So were we," she says. "You better choose quick, Shouta. The Magic insists so. We must find the Chosen One, and the Chosen One will need their Guardians," she billows vapor, glittering like sawdust. "The Magic must be handed down. And with All for One reappearing after so long.."
"Are we sure it's really All for One?"
"You know it as well as I do. You can feel it, don't you?" her voice sounds dreamy. "The Whorcrux. It's … terrified."
"Right," Shouta says, waving away her dramatics. "Is that all you have to say."
"Ah, two more things," Nemuri says, cheerful once again. "One, we have a Guardians meeting scheduled on the morrow—"
"Meeting?" Shouta says, the way one would say their most loathed thing in the world.
"—and two, you are to do a public announcement for Magic Meadow on this whole affair—"
"I must do what," Shouta says.
"Public announcement," says Nemuri cheerfully. "This is after all an unprecedented time. The citizens are greatly distraught. As one of the mighty Seven Heroes of Fairytopia, one or two reassuring words from you would do much good, no?"
Shouta has never, in his life, done any good with any of his words, nor has he ever intended to do so. And being 'reassuring', as far as Shouta is concerned, is nothing short of a personality defect.
"Anyway, the rest of the Guardians are also—if you keep Looking like that, Shouta, the mirror would break."
"Pah," Shouta says, but he stops Looking at it and is now only looking at it. There is a difference between Shouta's looks and Looks. When Aizawa Shouta Looks at objects, objects tend to try to get away from him, and their number one method of getting away is usually to end their lives. Six mirrors have said goodbye to the material world in face of Shouta's Looks and the palace has started to churn out complaints on replacement expenses.
"Public announcement is not within my job scope." Shouta would do a great many things for the good of Fairytopia. But public announcing—now, that's politician stuff. Shouta has never fancied himself a politician. Shouta would sooner dance naked in the townhall than fancy himself a politician.
"Can't be helped, we are short-staffed at the time," Nemuri says, her face shimmering through the reflection. "We can't manage to send out proper official Messengers to announce things—we are implementing the travel ban, you see—and as of now, you are the most official fairy in Magic Meadow, and thus … really, Shouta, Majima would hate to fix you another mirror. "
"Pah," Shouta stops Looking. "This meeting, will it be conducted via—?"
"Magic Mirror, yes."
"Pah!"
"Go with the times, Shouta, really. This is quite a convenient invention, don't you think? Communication is much quicker now. I think Nezu's Remote Working idea might be working out after all."
This Remote Working business isn't right either. Being a Hero is a job without rest, and Shouta has sworn himself to carry that duty night and day hundreds of years ago. But Shouta thinks he ought to, rightfully, have a rest from communicating with other fairies. Now that they have this … mirror communication … communication, to Shouta's dismay, has been made easy. It has even been made mandatory. Appalling! Shouta loathes the idea that he should mandatorily be contactable—or as they put it, mirrorable—at all times. A violation of his fairy rights, that.
(A/N: Aizawa Shouta has long championed the notion that all fairies deserve a certain length of time per day in which they are allowed recluse from other fairies. It is Shouta's deep-set belief that loneliness should be a basic fairy right. This basic fairy right, he insists, should be exercised for as long as twenty-four hours a day.)
"This is a violation of my fairy rights," Shouta says.
"Don't be such a drama queen," says Nemuri, whose existence is the origin of the idiom. "Give it a chance, Shouta, and I'm sure it'll grow on you. Majima added a new feature as well, didn't you know? Watch this. Mirror mirror on the wall, what sort of weather is upon us all?"
Nemuri's visage ripples and fades; in her place, the mirror shows a wavering visage of a sunny sky. Nemuri makes a delighted sound. "See? Isn't that charming?"
"Right," Shouta says coldly, already planning to cover this thing with some sort of cloth. Or better yet, bury it in some swamp. "What, does it sing for you too?"
"Funny you should ask," Nemuri says, "Mirror mirror on the wall—"
"—do end this goddamn call," Shouta says.
Nemuri rolls her eyes as the magic cuts and Nemuri's visage disappears entirely. The mirror now seems like a regular old thing, showing nothing but Shouta's face. But Shouta knows better. As someone who is excellent at charms, Shouta distrusts charmed things.
Shouta Looks at it. "You," he says.
The mirror rattles in fear.
See, this is why Shouta dislikes charmed things. When you charm things, you give them life—but things don't possess hearts by principle, which makes them cowardly. And mirrors are especially terrified of their own reflections.
"Get ahold of yourself!" Shouta barks. The mirror suddenly stills as if too afraid to even move a muscle. Not that it has any. Shouta considers it. He can feel Majima's magic interwoven in its atoms, an organic thing inside an inorganic thing. Pah. "All right then. Get on with it."
The mirror seems to gleam questioningly. Shouta tsk-ed. "Majima charmed you to Connect," he says impatiently. Nothing but mirror-to-mirror connection; it's quite a limited function, really. But that weather visage there, that wasn't divination. Divination is too complex for something so visual as a mirror. No, that was Seeing. And that is something Aizawa can exploit. "And he charmed you to See. So.." he Looks at it sternly, his own magic injected into the poor thing like a shot of narcotics. "See the Chosen One."
The mirror shakes again, and then Shouta's reflection clouds over, ripples, fractures, and then new things take shape, reflecting on something that is real and not just image, scrying into a spacetime in the present..
The Chosen One's visage appears ever so slowly. And beside the One is two other children, sniffling and sobbing. They appear to be having tea and roasted seed.
Ah, Shouta thinks idly. So that's where those brats went. "Enough."
Shouta's reflections turn back and the mirror sags, as if exhausted. Shouta ignores it, sweeping around the room, thinking, thinking..
All for One has returned. The Chosen One has appeared. The King is dying. Fairytopia is..
Perfection or Nothing At All.
Shouta must make a move. Shouta must choose. It is not his choice to make. And neither is it, he thinks, a child's choice to make.
The Whorcrux pulses against his skin. Insistent. Magic insists. It demands payment. It demands its sacrifice. The oldest Magic of them all.
And what do you know?
Midoriya Izuku is destined for great things, after all.