(—and i won't let you choke on the noose around your neck)

Eijiro wakes the next morning to Inko having laid out two simple white shirts and a pair of trousers for him—he can tell as soon as he runs his fingers over the shirts that unlike what he's wearing now, they're made of soft and comfortable material. It feels sturdier, too, but that may just be because anything's bound to feel sturdier than clothes left to rot for a hundred years. Beside them are a padded doublet, clearly designed for warmth, and a pair of thick gloves.

He looks up to see Inko humming as she merrily gathers food for breakfast—eggs and rice. He's relieved to see she looks none the worse for the wear after losing out on her bed for the night.

"Where did you get these?" he asks, curiously. It's… not exactly like there are any merchants or tailors able to get up onto the plateau. Inko hums, distracted, before she glances up and seems to remember what he's talking about, and a bright smile crosses her face.

"They're old. They were all too big for me, so I took some time last night to tailor the shirts and trousers to something I thought might fit you better."

"Oh," he says, looking down at them. He's focusing real hard on not having a repeat of yesterday—he's so immensely thankful, but he's gonna try not to get emotional about it. Well, too emotional about it. Well, okay, he's already really emotional about it, but he can at least try to not get choked up. "I—thank, you, so much, I really don't know how I can—"

"If I hear another word about repayment out of you," she scolds teasingly, but Eijiro can tell she doesn't have any sort of threat to actually finish the sentence. Still, he gets the message, laughing softly.

"Okay, okay," he relents, "I just—I really do appreciate it."

She knows, of course. He's just glad he's said it enough to make it clear.

After they finish the omurice Inko's made, the two of them both get ready for the day. Eijiro's got a few plans, but his main priority is finding somewhere private and getting this scratchy hell shirt off of himself.

As Inko's tugging on her boots, she makes a face, more confused than bothered. She pulls the offending boot back off, turning it upside down and giving it a shake, and a familiar-looking seed comes clattering out onto the stone floor. Inko doesn't pay it any mind, but Eijiro blinks.

"Is that a Korok seed?" he asks, thinking of the five he's collected so far. He hasn't seen any seeds just loose before—they've all come directly from the hands of a tiny forest spirit, delighted to have been found in their odd little hiding spot.

"Hm?" Her tone is distracted, but when she follows his gaze realization crosses her face. "Oh, yes."

"You see them?" He'd thought—the first Korok he'd met seemed so surprised when he'd seen him. Eijiro thought most people couldn't…?

"Oh, no, not very often," Inko replies as she pulls on her other boot and stands, straightening her clothes out. "I think they have more fun playing their games and causing mischief if they keep themselves hidden. But they do seem to like me an awful lot; they're always leaving me funny little gifts. The seeds only started about a week ago. Why, would you like it?"

Huh. She talks so casually about it, like she has no idea how out of the ordinary it is. Of course, he thinks if he were a Korok, he'd probably think Inko was great, too, but still. It's a little odd, but it doesn't take much of his focus as they both carry on with their day. He's in too much of a rush to find someplace to change to dwell on it.

The verdict when Eijiro does find a more secluded area and get into the new clothes is oh, thank the gods, this is so much better, holy shit. His pants actually reach his ankles. The plain, undyed shirts she's given him are probably better suited to being undershirts, worn under a tunic or something, but they're so much better than something itchy and falling apart at the seams.

He might burn the old one, honestly. Or he guesses he could keep it as a rag. Cutting it up could be cathartic.

With that out of the way, Inko had suggested he try fishing, and he at least wants to make sure he leaves her something to have for lunch before he spends all day hiking up cliffs and mountains and undertaking trials. He knows Inko has banned all talk of paying her back, but he figures this is the easiest and sneakiest way to make sure she gets something for her troubles.

He's just a little proud of how crafty he feels, concocting this plan.

Eijiro finds himself aware of three different facts by the time he's returning to Inko's house with two freshly-caught Hyrule bass in hand, and he's not sure how many of them should have already been obvious.

One—Koroks really are absolutely, ridiculously everywhere. He accidentally found one in the water while he was fishing, and there's even one hiding out on top of Inko's house. She must not have been wrong when she said they liked her. He's genuinely not sure how it took him so long to start running into them yesterday, because it feels like he's stumbling into one every other step now.

Two—the longer he spends around the plateau, the more he's forced to realize… there's something odd about Inko. Like, really odd.

For one, she's everywhere. Almost every time he's turned around on this plateau since yesterday, she's been there. Every time he's been anywhere near the campfire outside the Shrine of Resurrection, she's been at the campfire. Every time he's been anywhere near her house, she's at her house. When he raised the tower, suddenly she was at the tower. When he did his first shrine trial, she was at the shrine. She pops out of nowhere sometimes, and more than once he's thought she moved awfully quick for her age.

Then there's the odd amount of information she knows—and that's just including what she's told him. She'd said she didn't know much about Sheikah buildings, but she'd seemed to know that his slate had been what activated the tower—and then she'd pulled out all sorts of information on his slate, too. And fast travel! She'd also been able to tell him the shrine only started glowing at the same moment the tower had risen, but she'd come from the opposite direction of the shrine.

And there was the day before, too… she'd been so frazzled as soon as he was going to the shrine surrounded by the old machines, and just as much so afterwards. Like she'd known what he was going to run into—why else would she be so scared for him with that shrine, but not the other?

He thinks maybe he's just being paranoid, like when he'd jumped to the conclusion that he's dead, or been fully convinced he'd gotten possessed, but he can't shake the feeling that there might just be more to Inko than she's admitting. It's not like it matters, though—he can't mistrust her, even if it is true. She's done too much to help for him to ever be able to believe she could be untrustworthy.

And three—his little scheme to repay Inko right under her nose was doomed from the start.

He was going to just leave her the fish and go forage something for himself that he won't have to cook to take up the mountain, but the second he offers her the fish, she puts him to work. She's not letting him go up the peaks at the southern end of the plateau unprepared, she informs him very adamantly, and so instead she takes the next hour and then some to walk him through the recipe and cooking processes of several more dishes.

She tells him all about how when spicy peppers are cooked right, they make the body run warmer—and makes sure he sees how she does it when she cooks them into a meat and seafood fry with the last of the fox meat from last night, and an abundance of seafood rice balls. She wraps them all carefully in parcels made of paper, to keep them until he needs to eat them.

He's a little afraid his mouth won't survive the dishes, with all those peppers cooked in, but she swears that between them and the warm doublet and gloves she'd given him, he'll be comfortable for as long as he has to spend on the snow-covered cliffs. He's grateful, but he's also been foiled as she uses all of the food that he'd meant for her to help him.

He's going to do something nice for her to make up for this all, he's really going to. Eventually he'll find an act of kindness she can't counter!

As much as he wishes he'd been able to get away with his little plot, he's barely five minutes up the path behind the Temple of Time before he's so glad for the spicy dishes. The padded doublet she'd given him didn't cover his arms, but he thought he'd been smart about accounting for that—as much at it had pained him, he'd put his first, awful, itchy shirt back on and then layered both of his new shirts over it.

Unfortunately, the layers only did so much, and he could feel the wind whipping through them and biting at his arms. But Inko had had his back—so he'd pulled out the meat and seafood fry, torn the paper back, and gone to town on the meal as he walked along the riverbank.

Yes, his mouth was absolutely on fire like he'd feared, and he might be crying, like, just a little bit, but he's sweating within minutes. He'd be kept warm as long as he hurried and was smart about rationing the food, exactly as she's promised. If that came at the expense of looking ridiculous as he walked along with his mouth wide open in hopes the frigid air would soothe his burning mouth, then so be it.

When he reaches the bridge he'd seen on the map, he has a problem. He hadn't noticed that the bridge is collapsed—the supports are all still there, but most of the planks on his side of the river have fallen through. He spends just enough time despairing over the prospect of having to go all the way back to try and go around the river the other way to feel frustration welling up intensely, but then, of course, he remembers.

He can fucking do magic now. He had to walk past the giant, ruined metal doors of a collapsed gate just beside this bridge to even inspect the damage—after the hour and a half he'd spent puzzling out every potential creative usage of the magnesis rune in the shrine yesterday, he can't believe it takes him as long as five minutes to think of laying the two massive doors over the gaps in the bridge.

It's not the neatest job, or the most stable, but it gets him across safely enough. He does allow himself to be a little proud of his problem solving.

He's all over the southern side of the plateau for the next few hours. The worst of his difficulties are over after the bridge, and the path to both shrines are mostly straightforward apart from a couple of surprise Koroks—seriously, even in the cold, high altitudes? They're forest spirits, where's the forest here?—and a handful of monster camps.

At Keh Namut Shrine, Eijiro spends over an hour figuring out all the applications of the cryonis rune—which allows him to make solid pillars of ice erupt out of any source of water. Even if his water source is shallow, barely ankle-deep, the pillars are always at least eight feet tall, and the great blocks of ice will even erupt sideways out of waterfalls. This… he thinks this one might be the most useful yet.

He can use it for a vantage point, for cover, to get to things out of his reach, to lift things out of the water, as stepping stones or bridges… and, if Inko's idea to get him off the plateau doesn't work, he might just be able to use it to hop down the waterfall that spills off the plateau, pillar by pillar.

He finally feels like he's made tangible progress.

Owa Daim Shrine, across the plateau, isn't so simple to reach. He's left with only one spicy seafood rice ball by the time he's painstakingly scaling down to where the shrine rests, halfway up the cliffside, but he's relieved at least that the temperature becomes more bearable on its own the lower he goes. He can save the rice ball for the return trip and move quickly.

Inside the shrine, the pattern holds, and he's gifted another rune: the stasis rune. The description the slate gives him of this rune takes longer for him to puzzle out than the others—it uses phrases like 'storing kinetic energy' and 'stopping an object in time', the first phrase confusing him for lack of surety at its meaning, the second confusing him for lack of ability to visualize its possibility.

Thankfully, the trial the shrine offers, just like the others, is nothing if not a perfect set of puzzles to allow him to figure it out. The rune has a wide range of uses—securing safe passageways from moving or unstable objects, halting oncoming projectiles and other dangers, and making temporarily immovable obstacles for others to traverse, to name the ones he grasps quickest.

The most important use, however, is the one where the stored energy comes into play—it takes him a little to work it out, but once he does, he's able to send even the most giant of obstacles flying out of his path. And to use them as projectiles. Even large, heavy stones can be moved by something as insignificant as arrows shot from a distance, as long as he hits it with enough of them for the force to compound. It's awesome, and it gives him the same giddy delight that the magnesis rune had.

When the last of the monks hidden away in the shrines on this plateau fades to nothing, Eijiro can't really deny that this spirit thing they keep doing to him is really getting to him. He might not be possessed, sure, but the bizarre feeling that's overtaken him after each 'gift' has only gotten stronger with each instance, and it's not fading.

There's—something, he's not sure, an energy maybe, that feels like it's thrumming under his skin and the sensation is so unsettling. It's supposed to be the strength of their spirits, or whatever they'd said, but he doesn't feel stronger, necessarily, just—just—just very noticeably affected!

He can feel whatever it is and it's distracting. He's not sure how it's supposed to help him.

It's late afternoon by the time Eijiro emerges from the entrance to the shrine, and he's confronted with the obvious evidence that his most worrisome of theories is true. Inko is not a normal old woman; can't be.

She can't be, because there she stands, on the wide ledge that houses Owa Daim Shrine, and there's just no way a simple old woman could be here. There's no possible explanation for it. She'd either have had to cross a wide chasm behind her house and then scale the cliffside up to reach him, or hiked the unforgiving eastern slopes of the plateau and then scaled the cliffside down. Neither is a reasonable task for a woman of her age.

So—so there it is, then. He knows now. There's something odd about Inko, something she's been keeping from him about her nature. He's obviously not so surprised as he could be, but it's still—it's still—hard to process that the woman who's helped him so much has been lying to him. All he can manage is a quiet, "Oh."

"Hello, Eijiro," she greets him, but her heart is clearly not entirely in it. There's something in her tone—she obviously knows as well as he does that this marks the end of—of whatever simple and easy experience they've been having together so far. A change is coming whether she chooses to explain what she's been hiding or not, and they both understand that.

"So, you've finally explored all the plateau's shrines," she notes, a gentle and rueful smile just barely touching at her features. Eijiro can only nod as he shuffles his feet, watching her with equal parts expectation and dread. "You worked hard to reach them all. I'm so proud of you."

"Thanks," he manages, tone barely audible.

Inko sighs. "That means it's time, I think, to finally give you an explanation. I can't keep shielding you from the worst of it forever, and I think you've more than earned the right to hear… well, everything."

Eijiro doesn't know how to respond, there's too much going through his mind—he opens his mouth to say—to ask—something, anything to grant him some clarification, but the words get caught in his throat. He stands there with his mouth opened somewhat helplessly, but it seems Inko wasn't intending to wait for a response.

"Meet me at the temple of time," she requests gently. "I'll be waiting for you there, and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

"Why—" There's so many questions he needs to ask that all start with that word, that they all tumble over each other before he can sort them out, but the most pressing of them is, of course, why can't you explain it here? He wants to ask, but Inko smiles apologetically, and she—

—she just fades.

It startles him, when he suddenly realizes that he can see through her, just a little bit—and then just a little bit more, and then all at once he almost yelps as she starts to glow and eerie flames spring up around her. It's not like watching the monks turn into motes of light that disperse up and away; she stays in one piece, but the light emanating off of her and the color of the flames hovering near to her are the same otherworldly blue-green glow.

Shaken, Eijiro stares blankly at the spot where she disappears for a few moments after she's gone, before slowly he sinks down to sit on the surface of the shrine. It's only a minute, that's all he needs, but—but he closes his eyes and uses all of that minute to try and process, and work through as much of what he's seen since awakening as he can.

The temple somehow seems more daunting when he emerges onto the path that leads from it, rubbing at his arms.

He takes a steadying breath, eyeing the decayed machines that dot the front of the structure around its entrance, and then shifts his gaze to the side of the building instead. On the side facing him, one of the massive, soaring windows that reach the entire height of the temple is empty—both of glass and the metal bars that make up the decoration and frame of the other windows.

The temple is huge, so with the window being one of the ones nearest to the back of the structure, it's a good distance away from the closest machine. And Inko hadn't said he had to come in the front door of the structure, so—he doesn't feel any shame in beelining towards the window, hoisting himself up, and toppling with at least some amount of grace into the sweeping structure.

The space is incredibly open—not just due to the high, vaulted ceiling or the lack of walls in the giant structure, but because a massive hole has been ripped out of almost the entire front half of the opposite side of the building. He only barely notices that, though, because the feature that claims his attention—nearly all of it—

—is a stylized, towering winged statue of Bakusatsuo that dominates the space. It's stationed to his right, against the back wall of the temple, and it must be fifteen feet tall, at least. And it's glowing. Faint, iridescent light seems to be shining straight up from the bottom and Eijiro just… is drawn to it.

He hasn't even looked around for Inko yet, but his feet carry him towards the figure without him really having to think about it. It's a crude and simple likeness of the god in the way all the shrines to him across the country are, not proportioned in such a way as to actually resemble a real being, and the statue's hands are spread out to its sides, palms up. The expression isn't incredibly detailed, but Eijiro thinks most people would see it as calm, if not quite serene. But Eijiro—he swears its eyes follow him as he approaches, and he would swear the look carved into its face was almost tender.

He climbs the steps that lead up to the statue and instinctively drops to one knee before it, though he doesn't bow his head in prayer. He keeps his eyes upturned to meet the figure's gaze as the faint light at its feet seems to flare, almost like it's reaching for him, and Eijiro swears he feels something like fondness radiating off of the statue, towards him.

You've done well, comes a faint whisper at the edge of his mind, and it—it sounds so much like the voice in Hyrule Castle. It's so similar but—but it's not quite the same, and Eijiro feels his jaw drop.

A warmth settles over him that somehow feels like the voice sounds, and that bizarre energy he's felt humming under his skin finally dissipates. It's not exactly like it goes away, more like it—like it finally settles, almost. It feels like the strange force that's been lingering there finally seeps into him fully, and finally feels like it's part of him. He realizes, when it finally happens, that he does feel stronger. Heartier, like Inko had said. Some of the aches and soreness that have built up in the past couple of days fade, just a little, as he stares at the statue in awe.

Go, and bring peace to Hyrule…

Like that, the glowing fades, and Eijiro almost feels like he imagined it all. That's… he's pretty sure Bakusatsuo just spoke to him. The god. The patron god of Hyrule. Beloved of the Three Goddesses and protector of the entire realm, and he'd spoken to Eijiro. With clear affection in his tone. It's… unreal.

"Eijiro!" Inko's voice hails him, startling him out of his moment of shock. He stands, the motion stiff with his distraction, and it takes him a few moments to locate her once he's turned around. Of all the places to spot her, it turns out she's peering down at him through the gaping hole in the partially collapsed roof.

"You'll have to meet me up here, I'm afraid," she calls down to him, before both her luminous figure and the tongues of blue-green fire that hover around her retreat out of his sight.

Eijiro stares at the spot he'd last seen her and he gives a shaky sigh. He doesn't know what's coming, but he wants to, very badly. So he's going to find out.

There's a ladder that runs the height of the building.

Even though it stands just beside the collapsed temple wall—on the far end from the machines, thankfully—it remains intact. Stable, even, though he figures out about a third of the way up that he needs to let his dragonscales overtake his hands if he doesn't want to get splinters.

Inko is visible immediately from across the definitely unsound and precarious roof, waiting in the tower of the steeple at the front of the temple, still emitting that eerie light.

Balancing his way across the peak of the roof, he pulls himself up the rubble into the steeple to meet her, and despite having all this time to figure out where to begin, he's—he's still at a loss for words. Inko seems nearly as unsure how to start as he is—or simply reluctant. Either way, she heaves a mild sigh and attempts a sad smile.

"You've done so well since waking up, Kirishima Eijiro. I hope you know that," she says, voice emphatic if a little quiet and somber. He startles at the full name—it's—he hadn't even given thought to whether Eijiro was his given or family name, let alone what the rest of his name might be. He's had so much else on his mind. And this whole time—this whole time, Inko has known it? And not said anything?

"You don't know me," she continues with her eyes downcast. "At least—not very well, my son only brought you around a few times, and we never really spoke. But my name is Midoriya Inko. You should know, Eijiro—I know I've told you some, but the kingdom is not like it was when you entered your slumber. The Kingdom of Hyrule… it doesn't exist anymore."

Eijiro swallows, but he nods when her eyes flick up to gauge his reaction. The ruins everywhere—the monstrosity enshrouding the castle—the scarcity in meeting or even seeing other people—it all points to the same conclusion. He doesn't remember much—anything, really. He can't say if he's ever been to any of the ruins that dot the landscape as far as the eye can see, can't say if he ever knew anyone that lived in any of them—but he can say that he knows, knows deeply and inherently the wrongness of it all, to see or even think about.

The kingdom, or lack of it, isn't how he'd remember if he could, and he knows that.

As Inko speaks, a transformation seems to come over her—she looks the same, and yet, there appears another version of her like a second image overlaid atop. Decades younger, maybe only forty or so.

"The Great Calamity was merciless when it swept out over the kingdom. There was nothing in its path that it didn't devastate a century ago. I was one of the few who were lucky—the Sheikah village was remote and hard to reach, and well out of the Calamity's focus. I lived a long, full life after it was said and done, but I couldn't bring myself to move on, because… well, I'm getting ahead of myself."

Inko heaves a sigh once more, and the look she gives Eijiro is apologetic. "There's a lot I haven't told you, but you have to understand. What you've been through—it was awful, Eijiro, and it would traumatize anyone. It would have been unfair and dangerous to overwhelm you with too much horrible news so soon after you woke, with your memory still fragile. I'm sorry."

"I..." Eijiro manages, but his voice is weak. Overwhelmed is exactly the word for it, so he understands, but he only has more questions because of the time spent keeping things from him. He just wants to know already. "It's… it's okay."

"Such a sweet boy," she echoes the sentiment she'd told him last night quietly, before seeming to steel herself as she turns away to face the view of the castle through the steeple's window. "But you're ready, now, I think, to hear what happened one hundred years ago. All for One… that horrible monstrosity we can see from here—the stories said that long ago, that demon king was born into this kingdom, before he transformed into… into that."

"I… I remember the legends, I think," Eijiro tells her honestly. "That… that he'd barely been more than a fairy tale, a scary story people told, but—but didn't really believe until… more recently."

It's so frustrating, what he does remember and where the blanks are instead. He remembers the tales, remembers that there'd been a shift from them being treated as fiction to being treated as an impending reality, but he doesn't remember when or why.

Inko, for her part, nods, and seems to pick up on his frustration. "There was a prophecy," she informs him, "Maybe twenty years or so before the Calamity came to pass. We knew it would be coming back, but the prophecy also promised a way to stop it, lying dormant beneath the ground. The Sheikah, the royal family—the entire kingdom came together, to try and find the aid the prophecy mentioned, and they were quick to find several ancient relics made by the hands of our distant ancestors."

"The Divine Beasts," Eijiro supplies, though his tone isn't certain. But—but he knows this information, he thinks.

"Yes. Four giant machines, to be piloted by warriors," she says, affirming the information that he thinks he has in his mind. "And, later, we discovered creations our research eventually taught us were called Guardians."

The lifeless robots, decaying and overgrown with nature, which dot the plateau flash into his mind as his breath catches and his fists clench. As soon as she says the name, he's sure of it.

"They were meant to be an army of mechanical soldiers, that fought autonomously to aid us. We realized—in the ancient legends we'd heard echoed so often, many of them told of these machines. That meant all of the legends—the prince with a sacred power, and his appointed knight who was chosen by the Sword that Seals the Darkness, who were the only ones who could truly seal All for One away with the aid of the relics we were discovering—all of it must be true."

Yes, he knows those legends. Everyone knows those legends—there were far more of them than simply the ones centered around these ancient creations.

"One hundred years ago, there was a prince who would come to wield that power," Inko continues, before she turns her head to meet Eijiro's eyes, "and a skilled knight who fought at his side. The path laid before us was obvious, even without the prophecy. There were too many legends that echoed it all. So four Champions were chosen from across the kingdom to pilot the Divine Beasts, and together with the prince and his appointed knight, we were so sure we would be able to turn back All for One's assault the moment it began. We had—we had all the pieces in place, after all."

With that, Inko's voice suddenly breaks. She turns away from Eijiro once more, with her hands pressed to her eyes. "We didn't know—we couldn't have—we never realized, All for One had spent all of those thousands of years plotting to—we never imagined it would appear from below Hyrule Castle itself, or take control of the Guardians and Divine Beasts. All that time spent restoring the machines to—to protect, and—"

Eijiro's heart breaks with how devastated she sounds, and he stumbles forwards a few steps, reaching out a hand to—to—he doesn't know, but he just wants to help. He wants to fix this, though he knows there's no changing what's already happened. He doesn't remember any of this, but it hurts to hear, hurts to imagine.

"The Champions were killed, so many in the castle, in nearly every town nearby—and the appointed knight nearly lost his life in protection of the prince. He almost didn't survive his wounds, he was in no shape to continue the fight. If the prince hadn't survived, and returned to the castle with—with another chosen of Farore—if they hadn't gone to fight the beast, alone, there would have been no hope for those who survived."

Taking a shuddering breath, Inko chokes off the beginning of a sob, and Eijiro stumbles the last few steps forward to place a hand on her shoulder. It's little comfort after everything, but she sags with the gesture.

"Eijiro, that other chosen of Farore… he's my baby, my Izuku, and he's risking his life to help Prince Katsuki hold All for One off. And the courageous knight, the one who kept Prince Katsuki safe until the very end, so that he could make it there at all…. Oh, Eijiro, honey, it was you. You were so brave, you did—you did so well, but even you couldn't endure such an onslaught."

Despite the tears still flowing freely down her face—and, shit, he realizes now that his own cheeks are wet, though he doesn't remember any of this—she lays her hand over his on her shoulder, and the gesture somehow feels comforting even though he was the one trying to comfort her.

"You were carried here, to the Shrine of Resurrection, and spent one hundred years healing. I couldn't rest with my Izuku still trapped in the castle, and I couldn't bear to think of you awakening here alone, with no one to turn to, so my spirit settled here naturally when I died. I've been looking after you as best I can. And… and the voice you've been hearing, guiding you since you woke, that's Prince Katsuki himself."

Eijiro's eyes pull from her face, and he finds himself looking out towards the castle with a feeling of desperation. Katsuki. That's the name he can put to the voice. Katsuki, fighting with Izuku. Katsuki, who asked for his help.

"He's still there, with my baby, fighting to restrain the Calamity, and—oh, Eijiro, honey, you're so young to ask this of you, all three of you boys, you're all so young—but they won't be able to hold out for much longer before they're going to need you. You're—you're the only one who can help them stop the Calamity from consuming all life left in the land. It's so unfair to ask this of you, I—I can hardly bear to, but please save my son. Please bring my Izuku home, and destroy All for One before it can destroy anything else."

Clearing his throat and swallowing roughly, Eijiro manages, "I will. I'll—I'll do it."

This only makes Inko cry harder. "You shouldn't have to. I'm so sorry." She turns and embraces him suddenly, and the feeling now that she's revealed her nature as a spirit is odd. Somehow warm and cold at the same time, but it doesn't matter—he wraps his arms around her tightly. When she speaks again, her voice is muffled against the doublet she'd given him.

"You can't go to the castle yet. Even Prince Katsuki wouldn't expect that of you. There are things you still need to know, and—and All for One still has control of the Divine Beasts, and all of the Guardians. Please, please promise me you won't make straight for the castle."

"But..." Eijiro's voice is still wobbly, and his hands are still too occupied to try wiping at his eyes. "I have to help them. Where else..."

Inko pulls back as he trails off, and she does her best to draw to her full height and look stern through a faceful of openly flowing tears. "You won't be helping them or anyone else by charging off towards certain death before you're fully recovered from your slumber. You should make for Kakariko Village, down the eastern road that cuts between the Dueling Peaks. The young man who leads the Sheikah, Aizawa, was an advisor to the Prince, and he'll be able to give you counsel on the best steps for you to take. You'll want to speak to him."

Eijiro's brow furrows, and he casts a look at the castle. Katsuki needs him, had asked him to hurry. "How long do I have? Before they run out of time in the castle? Do you know?"

"Long enough," Inko says firmly, though the effect is somewhat undermined by the sniffle that follows. "Prince Katsuki would expect you to be smart about this, and he would know that will take time. Meet with Aizawa."

Every fiber of his being wants to charge off, but… as painful as it is to promise, he tears his gaze from the castle to meet Inko's eyes, and nods numbly. "Okay. I will."

Relief floods Inko's features. "Thank you. And you—you'll need these." She turns, then, to grab something he hadn't noticed before; a pack that's considerably less aged than his current one, with lots of different compartments. Flapping one such compartment open, she withdraws what she'd been seeming to work on the night before, and holds it out to him.

What he'd mistaken for a blanket, he now sees could never have been one—it's too small, and the fabric is more like canvas, though it's not quite as stiff. Still, he can tell that air won't flow through the fabric easily, and even water would have a hard time soaking the material. He takes it from her, noting two wooden handles that run the length of its sides. "What's…?"

"It's a paraglider," she informs him, managing a small smile. "It will support your weight and let you glide down from the plateau. And this bag is enchanted by Koroks. It belonged to my son, but he didn't think… he didn't think he would need it, to go to the castle. Each of its compartments can hold much more than it should, and it will be nearly weightless."

He looks up from the gifts to meet her eyes once more, and the tear tracks on both their cheeks are still wet as he breathes, "Thank you. For everything."

Inko's smile grows, and she begins to fade once more as she presses the bag into his hands. "The best way to thank me is by staying safe. Take care, Eijiro. I'm so proud of you."

Fifteen minutes later sees Eijiro standing at the very eastern edge of the plateau. The sun is setting, and the wise thing to do would be to rest for the night and set out in the morning, so he isn't traveling in the dark.

Eijiro can't wait. Impatience hums in his veins, making him twitchy and full of restless energy. Katsuki needs him, Inko's son needs him, and he needs to be doing something. He won't be able to stand the wait. So Eijiro takes a deep breath, new bag strapped to his back and paraglider clutched tightly in his hands.

And he leaps.

A/N: find me on tumblr at belladxne!
I DID IT I GOT HIM OFF THE PLATEAU LADS
catch me crying about my sweet baby boy and how desperately he wants to help katsuki... and about inko just wanting these kids to be SAFE

leave a comment or shout at me on tumblr, i'd love to hear all your thoughts !