Regular meetings with Kacchan were now a factor in his normal routine. Something Shouto found he surprisingly didn't mind. The calls from the summons broke up the monotony of his slow accumulation of power.

A side effect of such recurrent meetings was that Shouto became acquainted with the other mortals who made frequent appearances in Kacchan's life. The mortals around Kacchan took his presence amongst them in stride, a suspiciously easy integration that Shouto didn't understand, but would use to his advantage if it meant getting closer to taking Kacchan's name.

Deku and Shitty Hair were the first to accept him, and Shouto assumed it had something to do with him saving them from the oreads that second time Kacchan summoned him. The combined efforts of those three mortals had the rest of their acquaintances accepting Shouto's presence with little complaint.

Shouto didn't concern himself with them too much. They were just mortals after all, and he had better things to worry about, but the regulars were at least known to him.

Pinky, Sparky, Glasses, Round Face — to name a few that Shouto often met when Kacchan summoned him.

But there was one other creature that was part of this regular rotation that Shouto was utterly confused by. She was a full-blooded celestial, condensed in much the same way Shouto was on the mortal plane, but extra-planar creatures seemed to have a knack for recognizing one another.

Her (nick) name was Ponytail, an angel, and it wasn't even her complete assimilation into this mortal world that confounded him, though that was a close second. It was the fact that she was a wizard.

Wizards were the worst of the mortals. They didn't channel magic through deities and focuses; they seized it. Ripped the magic from the flow and forced it into a shape they demanded of it.

Wizards were creatures that always tried to take more than they deserved. They believed themselves above the laws of the universe, and that hubris always destroyed them in the end. The King had belied him with countless tales of stupid mortal wizards whose pathetic attempts for power ended in total consumption by corruption.

Ponytail was an angel, perfectly capable of wielding radiant magic, yet she willingly partook in the barbaric practice of mortal wizardry.

"Why do you lower yourself to such practices?" he asked one day.

Kacchan had summoned him for assistance with a magically protected mausoleum, though he proved to be 'fucking useless' as the wards had been invulnerable to any of his attempts to open it. On the outside of the crypt, amongst the runes, there was an inscription:

'No living being shall ever set foot here.'

Shouto had still been gifted a meal for showing up, and stuck around as they called on the angel for back up.

Ponytail had only hummed at his question as she traced out an intricate array of runes on a piece of parchment.

"You are an angel, yet you force the magic to bend under your will with wizardry," he said, unable to keep the contempt out of his voice.

His tone stopped her though, and she looked up from her crafting with a laugh.

"Force? Is that how you see it?" She laughed again, waving him off. "Well, I guess I was similar to you when I first started living among mortals, but here, look."

She turned the page she'd been scribbling on for him to look at. "Wizardry is not chaining the magic to servitude. It's about communication. The mortals developed a language to speak to the magic, talk to it in a way no being from the Faewilde or Upper Planes has ever been able to. Wizardry lets mortals ask the magic to perform magical feats beyond what we've ever comprehended."

Ponytail sighed dreamily, but Shouto didn't get it. When she saw his expression, she actually rolled her eyes.

"Have you ever seen transmutation magic? Here, watch," she said, turning back to her parchment and finishing the last few symbols. "Magic has a language, and language is a fickle thing. A group of words that so clearly mean one thing to you could be interpreted to mean the complete opposite by another, and all the magic cares about is your intentions in the moment. Wizardry lets us define our intention far more granularly. It is truly incredible the possibilities it has allotted mortals."

She was shucking her shoes off as she spoke, and once she was barefooted she pressed her hand into the small magic circle and invoked the spell. Shouto watched the magic answer the call, swirling around the circle before it traced along the runes and sigils. He could see no signs of corruption tainting Ponytail, the circle, or the surrounding magic.

Suddenly Ponytail was moving forward, crossing the warded barrier with ease and then scratching away the runes on the stone wall. "Ta-da! See? Mortal magic! I did not set foot in the spell."

Shouto looked down. Where Ponytail's feet had been, there was now a second set of hands holding her up.

"It is… certainly beyond anything I'd wish to comprehend."

She laughed. "This is the other thing you'll begin to understand about mortals. There's something beautiful about the way they think. The way they overcome their challenges and problems. They are creative in ways no one in the stuffy Upper Planes ever thinks of being. It makes life exciting, beautiful, worth living."

"You are very surprising, Ponytail," he said, watching as she took another lap on her hands before reverting her form back.

She sighed. "I know you can't know my name, but at least call me Creati."

"Kacchan calls you Ponytail though."

"Yeah, well, Kacchan is incapable of calling anyone by the correct name." She leaned back against the no-longer-warded tomb, her tone exasperated. Shouto could relate.

"It is extremely inconvenient for me as well," he said in commiseration.

She laughed this time, placing a hand on his shoulder as he joined her next to the tomb. "It seems Kacchan excels at causing headaches for beings across all the realms."

All the adventurers had preferred names they'd tried to entice Shouto into calling them. He liked the ones Kacchan used though, so he continued to call everyone by the Kacchan designated nicknames. He especially liked the way his eyes found Kacchan's when Shouto called the other mortals by the names they didn't prefer, and they shared fleeting, amused glances like they were privy to some great secret no one else was.

The mortals were pleased with the results, finding their prize in the tomb. Some sort of special set of manacles inscribed with runes that they needed, and Shouto excused himself quietly after he received a meal from Kacchan.

He allowed himself a single moment to consider maybe Ponytail was right about mortals before quickly banishing it away. Shouto could not afford to be conflicted about his goals.

It had been a good day before he'd gotten a summons from Kacchan.

Now, for some terrible reason, he was in a cold, damp, decrepit dungeon.

Wherever this was, it was ages old and hummed with a strange amalgamation of mortal and divine magics. Underneath all that was the unmistakable buzz of divination.

The softest traces of ozone tickled his nose and made it itch.

There was bioluminescent foliage creeping throughout the walls of the cavern, but the light shed by the organic material was so slight only creatures with specialized dark vision could use it to their advantage.

It'd been well over a year since he'd come to the mortal realm and been acquainted with these mortals, and the usual suspects were present: Kacchan, Dyna, Deku, Shitty Hair, along with a few others from the rotating cast, including Sparky, Round Face, and Pinky.

They were deep underground. The earthen smells and cool air gave that away easily enough, though it was unfortunate he was here now and not at the hot spring he'd stumbled upon. He'd been spending time with some of the local fauna; in the past month beasts had been more willing to approach him.

Admittedly, since Kacchan began sharing his meals, Shouto had been in much more amicable moods. The pleasures of well-prepared food had life in the mortal world become a little more bearable.

Kacchan continued to be an interesting mortal, fun to rile up, refreshingly competent, and all his food was delicious.

Also, it was chaos when he arrived.

The group was overwhelmed by monsters.

Kacchan's group was producing light, and that, coupled with Shouto's already exceptional night vision, gave him a clear picture of the board.

Deep dungeon creatures were descending upon the party of adventurers that Shouto had been getting to know fairly well.

Some might describe the creatures as horrors. The further one got away from regular sunlight, the more bulbous and horrific the creatures seemed to become.

It was the nature of adaptation. Most didn't need eyes where there was no light, or they developed huge bulbous eyes to take advantage of the miniscule light available. Thick hides and blubber did well to keep a creature warm when heat was scarce, and complex skeletons served a major hindrance when a creature needed to traverse and survive moving through small, ever-changing tunnels and holes and cave-ins.

He doubted such explanations would comfort Sparky, currently shrieking as a large carnivorous worm caught him in an oozy grapple.

The only creatures truly notable were the harpies present in the cavern. Normal harpies were far more commonly found out at sea or nesting in the mountains; they didn't tend towards subterranean dwellings.

The closer he looked, the more he realized there was something wrong with these harpies. They were clearly adapted to cave living, with extremely large bulbous eyes evolved to take advantage of the minimal light. They were thickly feathered, and none of them were flying.

But what set him most on edge was the thick, viscous liquid seeping from their orifices and slicking down their feathers. Each of them dripped with a familiar black ichor.

They were corrupted. He couldn't tell what parts of their unusual forms were due to evolution and what was from the corruption.

Unlike other harpies, these only had one set of upper body limbs, their wings and arms fused together, and they ran on all fours, a single wing finger protruding up where a membrane of skin remained folded up. The anatomy resembled more of a bat than a bird, but even that wasn't quite right. There was something even older there.

Luckily, Inasa was finally proving to be an effective investment. He'd been gaining exponential followers for Shoto lately, directly feeding Shouto's latent abilities.

It took only a few rounds for Shouto to neutralize the threat, and though Kacchan's party looked battered, no one appeared critically injured.

As everything calmed down, Shouto found himself next to Kacchan.

"There is very old magic lingering in this place."

Kacchan didn't look at him, one hand stroking over Dyna's head in a comforting gesture.

"Good, hopefully means we're in the right place."

"What are you looking for?"

"Some old artifacts said to belong to the Raven Queen."

"The Matron of Death?" Shouto asked, surprised. Kacchan and all his group seemed devoted to All Might.

Of the deities, she was the only interesting one, the only mortal to ever ascend to godhood. Further, the only mortal to successfully obliterate the existence of a god from every corner of every realm as well as her own mortal existence. She had completely eradicated the previous god of death from reality. The King said it had been a spectacle when it occurred; the deity gods had been beside themselves with fear of the same happening to them. King Endeavor always held onto that story with a particular envy.

"Yeah, an oracle's prophecy brought us down here. Apparently, there's something or other that's gonna help us defeat a powerful enemy."

Oh, well, that explained it.

"The magic down here is charged with the apprehension of a prophecy about to be fulfilled. I'd say you're in the right place."

Kacchan was looking at him now, disbelief clear.

"You can feel prophecies?"

"I am attuned to the magic of the universe. When prophecies are spoken, they become magically enforced, and magic loves fulfilling destinies. When divination magic is in the air, the feeling is similar to the moments before a storm breaks."

The mortal before him looked like the information was life-altering. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Once a prophecy is foretold you're fucking locked in to whatever it says? There's nothing you can do to change it?"

Shouto assessed Kacchan for a moment. He'd read that mortals were extremely concerned about the autonomy of their existences, and Kacchan seemed exceptionally upset over this revelation.

Shouto watched the magic agitate around Kacchan, and the urge to quell the mortal's unrest was inescapable.

Inexplicably, he remembered the discussion he'd had with Ponytail months ago, and a memory from much longer ago that he'd nearly forgotten. When he'd been told his own destiny for the first time.

"A brother of mine is a well-respected oracle in the Faewilde. And he told me this once when I was very young: Prophecies always come true, but rarely does a prophecy fulfill itself in the way you expect," he said. He wasn't sure if it was helpful, but Kacchan was looking at him with an expression Shouto was unfamiliar with.

It was almost the same expression that he gave Shouto when he made obtuse comments about things mortals regarded as common sense, but it was softer. He seemed to catch himself in the thought, banishing it with a shake of his head.

"You're getting stronger, by the way," Kacchan said as he cleared his throat. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. "That's good. I'm only friends with strong people."

The magic flourished, soft rolling waves enveloping the mortal with care.

"Friends?" Had anyone ever referred to Shouto in such a way?

His question appeared to upset Kacchan, the man's expression immediately going bright red.

"If you tell anyone I fucking said that shit, I'm denying it."

They didn't speak any more about prophecies or friendship as the rest of the group descended upon them. Several of them were feeding Shouto bits of their meals like small offerings, delighting in his reactions when it was a taste he'd never had in the mortal realm.

It was comfortable, and the staticky magic of being on the cusp of a prophecy to be completed was easy to ignore up until he walked with the group to the massive, immaculate temple of the Matron of Death.

He left the group to their prophecy fulfilling — although he could feel it that didn't mean he wanted to be part of the group's destiny quest — and wandered the well-kept chamber, admiring the old magic runes carved into placards.

His fingers brushed along the carving, and when he pulled away, they came back darkened. Shouto brought his hand to his nose and sniffed.

It was soot, left behind by a very hot magical flame, and it had been done so recently.

His mind went back to the corrupted harpies, and then it went to Dabi. His eldest brother had a bad habit of toying with creatures, never killing, but pushing and pushing until their minds succumbed to corruption. Then the remnants of magical fire — it was too much to brush off as a coincidence.

But that left the question: Why had he been here?

The question was temporarily shelved as a brief flash of magic, just in his periphery, went off, demanding his attention. As he got closer, the itch of magic only increased, raising the hairs along his skin like he was seconds away from a lightning strike.

Along the wall was a hidden mechanism he was easily able to disengage, revealing a room that was probably the ancient treasure Kacchan's group was seeking. Well, he hadn't intended to assist the mortals with their prophecy, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

There was a rush of wind as a magical seal was breached by his engagement, and across the room he saw an inscription on the wall. In an instant, it vanished.

He felt a probing against his mind as a memory modifying spell attempted to erase what he saw, but that magic was old and tired. A protection laid centuries ago that was no match against the powerful warding spells protecting his mind, so he committed the words to memory.

A thrill passed through him as he backed out of the room, waving down the group of mortals he was slowly growing accustomed to.

The group's excitement as they celebrated Shouto finding the room — there was a special knife hidden within that they needed — and the revelation of the knowledge uncovered from within it left the questions about his brother discarded, forgotten, and unanswered.

When Shouto dutifully followed the long familiar pull of the summons, he was not expecting to be greeted by a shock of green hair and freckles that made up the half-elf Deku.

He'd forgotten that he'd gifted the mortal with a summons after the half-elf had taken a hit in Shouto's stead. It was jarring not to be greeted by Kacchan's familiar shock of blond hair and annoyed gaze.

They were on some sort of training grounds; the open space was covered in well-trodden dirt, and various sparring dummies littered the area for close combat practice.

"Deku," he said, as he assessed the mortal for wounds or otherwise. There was nothing going on, no explicit reason to have called on him, and that made Shouto wary. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Deku rubbed at the back of his head nervously. "I was hoping you'd be able to help me with some training, if that's ok?"

"Training? Can't one of your mortals assist with such a trivial thing? Surely you'd rather save a summons for when you are actually in danger," Shouto said, already scanning the area for a fae tear that could take him away.

"Wait!" Deku said, voice jumping an octave with the suddenness of the exclamation. "I called you because I want to practice deflecting magical projectiles and I know you're extremely talented and precise when it comes to aiming, so my chances of being maimed while practicing with you are slim to none!"

Shouto perked up at that. He was an exceptional marksman for firing ice projectiles. It was a skill he'd spent years honing, and he felt a rush of pride at being recognized for it. The feeling was unique, a tingling energy that buzzed in his fingertips and made him jittery.

Which was how he now found himself training a mortal.

Shouto had been a little hesitant at first about shooting deadly projectiles at Deku. If something went wrong, it was unlikely that any of the other mortals would believe it had been unintentional. But after a few rounds of Deku deflecting, catching, and even volleying ice back at Shouto with ease, he put a little more effort into his attacks.

He steeled himself, honing his intention and feeling the magic respond in kind with faster shots and sharper ice. Deku seemed to pick up on the shift, letting the shards glance off the gloves he was using. Shouto was surprised when a smile appeared on the mortal's lips.

Smiling? From Shouto making the training more difficult?

He had only a moment to note the odd reaction when he realized he was smiling too. The magic responded in kind with a giddiness he'd never felt before from casting spells. Had he ever used magic before without the pressure of the King looming over him?

Shouto sent another volley of ice knives, egged on by the joy of the magic responding to his call, encouraging him.

Deku blocked them all, but Shouto spotted the stumble; the mortal had barely kept up with the attack. And he saw a vulnerability, perhaps an old injury in his right elbow. Deku's reaction time was just a bit slower with his right arm; it may have even been a subconscious reluctance.

Shouto focused, feeling the razor sharp clarity of the magic heeding his call with vigor. He felt the familiar change, the excitement of his rushing heart slowed so that he could hear each resounding thump.

Elbow.

Thump.

Shoulder.

Thump.

Ribs.

Thump.

Neck.

Thump.

Heart.

Thump.

Time caught up to him before he could remember he was not trying to kill Deku — he even kind of liked the mortal — and all he could manage was the most minor of course correction as the projectiles hurtled towards Deku.

Shouto considered that maybe, just maybe, he'd been underestimating these mortals as Deku caught and deflect all the attacks except the one to the ribs, which seemed to have been calculated anyway.

Regardless, he dropped his battle stance to rush over to the mortal's side.

"I got carried away. Are you alright?"

Deku waved him off. "No, I'm glad you started getting serious. No sense practicing if I can't intercept attacks intended to hurt me."

"I don't know what came over me. I've never felt that when training before."

"What? You've never had fun training?"

Shouto blinked. "Fun…"

Training with the tutors had never been about fun. It was a job, a requirement, to ensure he would never be bested.

"Yeah, you know, giving it your all while fighting against a friend to test your skills."

Shouto stared at Deku, surprised. There was that word again, 'friend.' These mortals considered him a friend?

That warm feeling was back. The magic curled around him and Deku for a moment, quieter and softer than with Kacchan, before returning to the flow of the universe.

"I don't believe I have ever used magic for fun. This was also my first time training with a 'friend.'"

Deku grunted a surprised sound. "The more you reveal about yourself, the more I want to know about you… If it's alright with you, could I ask some questions about the fae?"

Shouto considered the question. His rational mind told him it would be very unwise to allow anything of the sort, but the word 'friend' echoed in his thoughts, drowning out any dissenting opinions.

He nodded. "I cannot promise to provide you any helpful answers."

Deku lit up at the affirmative regardless, his eyes taking on a glint that told Shouto he had an array of questions he'd been dying to ask.

"Why are you so intent on knowing Kacchan's name?"

"Surely you are aware of the power words hold within fae law."

"Yeah, but why Kacchan?"

Shouto studied Deku for a moment. The half-elf was looking at him with shining eyes; there was no hint of ill intention with the question, only curiosity.

"Names and mortals are not equal. Some seem to hold more power than others," he said, keeping it vague. "Sometimes the more effort put in, the greater the reward as well. Magic responds strongly to intention."

"Intention?" Deku asked, leaning in, and Shouto felt like he was suddenly just a decade old, learning from his tutors about the intricacies and beauty of magic. There was a sort of thrill in passing on the knowledge of the magic he so loved. Maybe if the mortals learned about its nature they would stop abusing it.

"There are two fundamental ways for faeries to take names and spin spells. Either by domination or devotion. Domination is what most think of when the fae laws are discussed, a taking by force, or overwhelming an opponent to inherit power." A slow and tedious way to accumulate power.

"Domination can be dangerous though, especially in spell casting. Take too much and the magic will punish you. Like what you saw happen to me when we fought the oreads."

Shouto was taught mortals almost solely used domination for casting, constantly tainting and taking and corrupting the flow of magic.

"Devotion is a much more precious thing. If something is willingly given, the payoff is hundreds, maybe even a thousand times greater than domination. Be it a name, or time, or effort, or a choice. I only use devotion to use magic. I call and let the magic choose to answer me or not. The first time magic answered my call was the greatest day of my life."

"So you want Kacchan to give you his name?"

"Perhaps, if he is willing."

"But why do you need power?" Deku asked. There was a shift in his tone, a pointedness to the question that Shouto couldn't quite decipher.

"What do you mean?"

"Kacchan said you come from an old Fae family. Even I know that old fae families are born with great power," Deku said, a little nervous, but with a gleam in his eyes that thirsted for information. "You're a winter faerie, so what is your house? Geten, Himura?"

Shouto felt the threat for what it was and couldn't keep the curling, feral snarl from exposing his teeth. Deku was close to him. Close enough for Shouto to reach out and trail a blunt fingernail down the muscle of the mortal's throat.

Old, coded instinct had any camaraderie with the mortal dissipating. A hard-wired drive to destroy a creature that would bind him with his name scratching against his self control.

"I know you mortals are aware of the laws that bind the Fae," he said, voice a whisper as he leaned in close. "Are you sure you're prepared to threaten a faerie with calling their name?"

Deku shook his head, darting back several paces to put distance between them.

"N-no, sorry, I got carried away. I didn't mean any offense," he said, hands held up in what Shouto had learned was appeasing surrender. A gesture usually directed at Kacchan.

Shouto leaned back, forcing down the urge to tear out the mortal's throat.

"A simple mistake then—" but a reminder that these creatures were the enemy. "Names to the fae are a sacred thing. To protect our names is an instinct. I hope you will not forget this in the future."

Deku attempted to wave it off, but the comfortable atmosphere was gone, and so was Shouto's patience to deal with this mortal. He excused himself since they could not continue the training because of Deku's rib injury and was gone in a flash.

How stupid of him. These mortals had done exactly what he'd been trained and warned about. They wouldn't hesitate to bind and break him the moment they got his name.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Shouto was in a bad mood. No, an absolutely foul mood.

He was usually pretty good about keeping a cap on his emotions, but as he walked a game path in the forest, he could tell the sentient beings around him were keeping a wide berth.

It had already been a week since the summon from Deku, but the acrid taste of his own shortcomings had yet to leave his tongue. To be so easily lulled into a sense of companionship when these mortals were just waiting for him to slip up. He was a disgrace.

Then there was the King. The arch fae of the Todoroki family had become restless, irritable, and impatient with what he deemed 'slow' progress of his power accumulation and had summoned Shouto back to the Faewilde for an in-person status update.

It went poorly. The immense presence of the King was not something Shouto had missed, and facing King Endeavor's ire had been exhausting even in his original faerie body.

After being on the receiving end of one of the King's 'pep talks' — you're incompetent, a disappointment, a mistake. Do better or you will be disposed of — Shouto had been sent back to the Mortal Realm immediately.

There was a certain adjustment period that occurred when jumping between realms. The makeup of a faerie's body was distinctly different between the Mortal Realm and Faewilde, and the switch took a unique strain on him.

In the Faewilde, all the signals that screamed his body needed upkeep had silenced. Coming back to the Mortal Realm had those signals rushing back with torrential force. It was a pain.

So his body was aching from either hunger or exhaustion or whatever other million things he needed to keep track of to make sure it didn't destroy itself, and he was upset with himself, and Shouto was in a bad mood.

Inasa had taken the brunt of his temper thus far. The warlock was his only ally on the Mortal Plane, and the mortal had the knowledge of his true name without any of the risk because of their pact. It made him an easy target for an ire that Shouto had no other release for.

It also didn't help that his warlock was infallibly cheerful.

"Heya Boss, glad to see you back around these parts." His blinding, full-toothed smile and overly formal salute accosted Shouto as he appeared through a fae tear.

"Inasa, I hoped you called me for a good reason," Shouto said, unable to keep the impatience out of his voice.

"Whoa, everything ok, Boss? You look more tired than usual."

"Shut up, I'm fine. Let's make this quick. I've got things to do."

"Why're ya so busy?"

"Because I have an incompetent underling and an impatient boss—" Shouto cut himself off. He sounded just like the King, and the King's pep talks did not inspire motivation. Inasa may have been a mortal, but the pact ensured no backstabbing would occur. Shouto should keep his manners.

"I've just returned from a meeting with King Endeavor. It did not go well."

"Seems like there's more to it," Inasa said, coming over to place a hand on Shouto's shoulder.

He allowed the touch. Somehow, the weight was a comfort.

Shouto eyed the warlock, hesitant to elaborate, but who else could he talk to about all the confusing things mortals did and the uncertainty he felt?

"If a mortal calls you a 'friend,' what does that mean, exactly?"

Inasa gave him an odd look, but answered anyway. "Guess it means you are close with them. You do things like help them out, listen to their problems, have fun together."

Shouto nodded; it was similar to the definition in the Faewilde. He turned his full attention to his warlock, who was currently listening to Shouto's problems.

"Does that make us friends too?"

Inasa's eyebrows went up in surprise, his jaw opening just slightly, though he recovered quickly with a loud laugh and began hitting Shouto on the back with an open palm, soliciting soft 'oomfs' from him with each hit.

"Sure thing, Boss. I'm honored you consider me a friend. You making friends with other mortals?"

"I'm not sure. I'm concerned I am being deceived."

"Honestly, I'm surprised you've given any mortal the chance to talk long enough to even call you a friend." Inasa said.

Shouto considered the statement. It was surprising he'd created a relationship with the mortals. Kacchan was an unforeseen variable. He was such an intriguing mortal.

"Mortals have been nothing like what I was taught to expect."

Inasa laughed again. The warlock was always laughing, his high spirits unwavering.

"I think that's just how people are, Boss. No one is ever just the idea we box them into."

Shouto turned fully to look at Inasa. The mortal had his head tilted back towards the ceiling of the cavern, looking lost in a fond memory. "That was a very insightful comment."

"I'm an insightful guy. If ya ever want to talk about anything, I'm always here to listen."

This was a strange conversation, Shouto decided. He wasn't sure how he felt about this development or why he even bothered asking if Inasa was his friend. It didn't matter, right?

Then he felt the pull, managed a goodbye, and followed the magic.

When he jumped, Shouto immediately knew something was different.

He was inside of a building, not the tavern he'd been to the first time he'd been summoned and a few other times prior. Nor was it enemy territory; the atmosphere was too lax, no hair-raising sense of tension in the air.

His eyes were drawn, as they always were with the help of the magic, to Kacchan's form. He was hunched over a stone hearth inlaid into the wall, cooking something by the smell of the room.

"What is this place?" he asked, watching from the corner of his eye as Dyna raised her head from a cushion on the floor. It looked well-used, fraying at the seams and chewed on.

When Kacchan didn't answer right away, Shouto flicked his eyes back to him. The man was staring at him, looking uncharacteristically reluctant to provide an answer as he reached up to scratch at the back of his head.

"This is my fucking home… or whatever."

Oh.

Why did he suddenly feel flustered? It prickled along his skin, warring against his tired irritation.

He should say something instead of just stare.

"It's nice?"

"Was that a question?"

"No?"

Kacchan blinked at him, his eyes comically owlish in a way Shouto had come to enjoy seeing when he riled the man up.

"Glad to see you aren't being difficult today…" Kacchan said, but judging by his tone he didn't mean it in the slightest. "Go — sit."

He followed Kacchan's gesture to a small table surrounded by wooden chairs and took a seat as he was commanded.

Shouto watched the magic drift lazily around the mortal. It seemed content to drape itself over the man and rest there, like it was too tired to carry on without Kacchan's support.

Shouto's thoughts turned to the King, chiding him for his slow accumulation of power, and then his last interaction with Deku. How mortals were always working an angle, that their actions belied ulterior motives.

Perhaps that's what this strange relationship he had with Kacchan was. The mortal was trying to get something from Shouto.

"What do you want?" Shouto asked. Straightforwardness was his strong suit, not deceit; maybe he could claim Kacchan's name today and be done with this charade.

"You're full of fucking questions today." Kacchan made his way over with two finished bowls of a hardy looking stew, thick slices of bread stacked on top of the bowls.

"This is an apolo—"

"Do you lust after my power?"

"Ex-fucking-cuse me?" Kacchan's movements stuttered, nearly spilling one of the bowls in Shouto's lap. He caught himself though, deftly placing one bowl in front of Shouto and moving to the other side of the table.

"I am quite powerful and capable of making pacts. If you want access to this power, you don't have to steal my name. Bind yourself to me and I can grant you immense power and extend your lifetime ten times over."

Kacchan stared at him for a moment, mouth agape, before his free hand came up and slapped hard against his forehead.

"I knew it. Deku did fucking piss you off. He tried to say it was fine but I knew he Deku'd it up."

"We can make a pact. You seem to have an unusually powerful affinity for magic. You'd do quite well for yourself."

"Are you even listening to me? You're barking up the wrong tree there, Frosty. I'm no wizard desperate for glory and immortalization in history." Kacchan was glaring at him now. The bowl of stew hit the tabletop with a loud thunk as he threw himself into the other chair.

"Isn't that what all you mortals want? World-ending power."

"First of all, never use the phrase 'you mortals' ever again. It's fucking rude you'd put me in the same group as Deku," he said, sneering, but after a moment he deflated. The energy didn't carry through his actions as Kacchan stirred his stew and rested his chin on the heel of his palm.

"Some of us just want to leave this shitty world a little better than we found it. There's no ulterior motive here, Frosty. I just want some of your time every once in a while."

"Why?"

"That first time I summoned you, you just looked so alone and scared, like you had no one to lean on. I know that feeling. It fucking sucks."

A silence fell between them, and Shouto was surprised at the remorse he felt for starting the whole conversation in the first place. Even if other mortals were like the ones he'd been taught about, Kacchan wasn't like that. He was sure of it. Shouto couldn't help but remember Inasa's words.

Kacchan didn't fit in that box Shouto had put all mortals into.

"Seems like every other century one of you is trying to start an apocalypse."

It seemed Shouto had said something right. Kacchan laughed and looked up from his food, anger gone as he smiled at Shouto in a way he'd never seen before.

The magic buzzed around them. There was a beauty in how mournful it looked.

"You aren't wrong there, but you're looking at one of the guys trying to stop it."

Shouto didn't know what that meant, but he didn't press any further, instead eating the meal that was every bit as delicious as he'd hoped it would be.

When he looked back up, Kacchan was still watching him, the smile on his face warm.

The magic sang.

Sparky and Pinky were probably the loudest mortals Shouto had ever met. Both in appearance and volume. It made them easy to spot in a crowd, though. Why he even had to go through the challenge of spotting them in a crowd in the first place was still lost on him.

Earlier that day, his interaction with the mortals started as it always did: with the pull of the summons. The similarities to all his other summons started and ended there, on the other end of the fae tear was not the grumpy mortal and his reliable wolf dog.

It was a pink tiefling and a bright yellow tabaxi.

They'd grinned large, tooth-bearing smiles at him and said they'd stolen the summons from Kacchan earlier that day. A fact that annoyed Shouto because: Kacchan still wasn't respecting the value of his summons, and he had to stick around now because if he didn't get Kacchan a new summons then his entire plan would be ruined.

Something about his discontent must have bled into Shouto's expression. Pinky was slapping him on the shoulder. "I know we aren't Kacchan, but we didn't go through the laborious quest of summoning you for just anything."

They both hopped back a few paces, glancing at each and on some invisible cue sang out, "Mission Title: Kacchan's Very Secret Surprise Party!"

Pinky's fingers puffed little clouds of rainbow color, and Sparky released a flurry of sparkles to accompany an energetic wiggling of fingers.

"What."

"You two, I thought I told you not to overwhelm him." Ponytail pushed between the two, waving away the prestidigitation of magic.

Midoriya was behind her, looking a little nervous. They hadn't spoken since the training incident.

"Deku, it's good to see you again." He said with a nod in the mortal's direction.

Deku brightened at being addressed, the acknowledgement putting to rest his worries, and stepped out from behind Ponytail.

"We wanted to surprise Kacchan with you at his birthday party today! It's been a tough year for him."

Shouto wanted to push back at the suggestion. He was a busy creature, this hardly seemed worth his time, and he didn't understand what his involvement in a 'surprise' party or whatever this was really meant, but he paused. Kacchan's voice echoed inside his head.

"You looked alone — I know that feeling."

He closed his mouth, nodding his head at Deku.

"It would be wrong to refute such an earnest invitation. What can I do to help?"

The look Pinky and Sparky shared was the reason Shouto was now navigating the perilous streets of a large mortal town. Weaving between people as he tried to keep his eyes on the brightly colored duo as they made their way from shop to shop hunting down supplies.

Shouto had never been in a mortal settlement this populated before. Between the conversation, and the business, and everything, his senses felt overloaded. He wasn't sure why they'd forced him along for this part. All he was doing was carrying an increasing amount of bags and boxes with each store stopped at. He felt more like a mule than a high-ranking faerie.

Just when he thought it would never end, Shouto was saved. Ponytail and Deku intercepted him at the end of the errands, taking custody of his time, and offloading his burden to a cart that would take the party supplies back to the much smaller town their guild was established in.

"We wanted to give you a preemptive thank you for helping today," Deku said to him as they waved at Glasses — a fighter that excelled with a battleaxe — and Round Face — a cleric of All Might — as they paid someone to watch their cart of supplies.

Glasses was an intense guy. His baseline volume for speaking was yelling, though not aggressively, he was just extremely loud.

Round Face was an equally intense woman, though her flavor of intensity was far more intimidating. She was extremely friendly and welcoming, but Shouto felt he was one misplaced comment about mortals away from a frightening reckoning.

"So we're treating you to lunch!" Deku continued, a bright smile lighting up his expression. "Anything you want!"

Anything he wanted? Shouto stared blankly at Deku, suddenly very aware of himself. How was he standing? What was his expression like? Did he look weird? Was he projecting how lost that question made him feel? What was a normal way to respond to wanting something?

"What do you recommend?" He quickly decided on as a safe answer. Shouto felt a rush of pride when Deku beamed at him. He had chosen correctly.

"There's a fantastic noodle shop in this city. Ser — er Tape Face's family owns it and there's plenty of space for all of us. Does that sound good?"

Once again, the conversation had been volleyed back to Shouto. Luckily, this seemed like a much simpler answer. "Yes."

So now they were in a homey restaurant, nestled in an offshoot street away from most of the bustling noise of the city. Shouto realized he should have thought through his agreement, Tape Face was a satyr after all, and it'd only make sense his family was also satyrs, native Faewilde creatures.

He was currently sitting between Ponytail and Deku. On the other side of the table were Round Face and Glasses. Sparky and Pinky apparently wanted to visit a few other shops before they headed back. They were chatting amongst themselves and Shouto let the conversation wash over him as a passive bystander. This was the longest he'd interacted with mortals without Kacchan around to save him from conversation.

"So, Frosty," Ponytail was addressing him now. "Anything standing out for you? Have you decided what you want to get?"

More questions to field. He wasn't sure if his heart could take much more of the stress of answering these questions. How was he supposed to know what he wanted? What was the right answer here?

Wait.

Was this actually a trick? Some kind of torture to get Shouto to crack and reveal his plans? If it was torture, it was working. This kind of psychological torment was awful.

"Ah!" A sharp exclamation brought him out of his thoughts. When Shouto looked up, he could see his breath. When he looked down, ice was encasing his right ride, freezing his hand to the table and pushing against Deku.

"What the- what's wrong?" Deku asked.

Shouto blinked at the sudden appearance of ice. The mortals were looking at him with bewildered expressions. Perhaps he was overthinking this.

"I have never been required to know what I want before. I do not know how to answer your questions."

"You've never wanted anything before?" Round Face asked in the wake of silence that followed his statement.

Shouto considered the question. He certainly wanted for things related to his destiny, like Kacchan's name and the power to destroy the world, but that was also expected of him. He wanted it because he needed it. Things like personal preference had never been something he was supposed to put effort into thinking about.

His lack of response seemed to further concern the mortals. Ponytail was suddenly placing a delicate hand on his shoulder.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," she said, though that sort of sounded like it was a trick statement.

He was saved from the conversation by the interruption of an older satyr woman.

"Gods above, look at all this ice." She said, all cheery and smiley and familiar, as she greeted the group. "So glad to see my son's friends paying patronage to our shop. It's been some time since I've seen you lot."

Her suspicious lack of calling out names led Shouto to believe she'd been warned ahead of time of the company they'd be bringing today.

"Oh, and a winter faerie? Rare to see a faerie around these parts. I know something that you'll like. Don't worry that pretty little head of yours, Kiddo." The satyr woman said to him, a big warm smile that he recognized. This was definitely Tape Face's mother.

Her appearance alleviated the burden of having to make his own decision and Shouto relaxed. Able to focus now, he shattered the ice at his side; the vibration turning it to powder.

The mortals ordered and 'Ma,' as the others referred to her, whisked away to make the food. The group continued to converse, though as Shouto listened it seemed much more stilted than before.

When Ma returned, she placed a cold bowl of noodles in front of him, a surprising contrast to the other hot meals the others received. He glanced up at the satyr and she smiled at him, clearly waiting for him to try a bite before leaving.

Shouto turned to the bowl, picked up his chopsticks, and slowly brought the noodles to his mouth.

He froze.

"This is…"

"Tastes a little bit like home, right?" Ma said, the largest, warmest grin yet on her features, like she was expecting his reaction. "Back in the Faewilde we used to work in the kitchen of the Himura family, before, well — I know how you winter family kids like your food."

It was good, but it was more than that. Shouto was thrust into a very old memory. Of the Matron of the Himura house patting him on his head, telling him to enjoy the food. Her gray eyes warm, her touch a cold comfort atop his head.

"Enjoy little one," she'd said to him. "I hope you will want to come and eat soba with me again sometime."

And he had. So desperately he had wanted to eat meals with that woman, but the King wanted other things for him. And the burden had been too much.

He'd only ever had this dish once in his century of life, yet he had never forgotten the taste.

Shouto's eyes burned, his throat hurt. He stared down hard at the food, forcing down everything he was feeling as the chopsticks shook in his hand.

"This is very good."

He ate quietly, but quickly. Enjoying the taste, trilling soft songs between bites as he ate. None of the mortals tried to engage him as he finished his bowl.

When they left, Deku was walking beside him. The same nervous energy as always buzzed around him, leaking into the magic. "So, what did you think?"

"I think I want to go there again sometime."

Shouto had nearly forgotten he'd been summoned to be a surprise guest at a surprise party and was blindsided by the elaborate displays and decorations adorning the tavern when they returned. Sparky and Pinky grabbed him, shoving Shouto under a table and instructing him to stay there until Kacchan arrived.

He did as he was told, quietly lamenting on how he'd gotten himself into this mess — squatting under a booth table on the disgustingly sticky floor of a dirty tavern — when there was a roar of people yelling 'Surprise!' Shouto remained under the table, unsure of what was occurring. He waited until he heard—

"And look! Wait, ugh, hold on!" Then Pinky was yanking him forward, pulling Shouto to his feet and shoving him in Kacchan's direction.

Kacchan caught his weight easily.

"Oh. Surprise," Shouto said, but Kacchan only looked at him slack jawed before shoving him away, immediately digging into a satchel he had slung around his torso.

"Did one of you fuckers steal my fucking summons?! That shits not a toy you braindead stupid extras!"

Shouto held his hand out, manifesting a summons to cut off Kacchan's rant. "Happy Birthday. I was told it is a mortal custom to provide a gift."

Kacchan took it, beat red and embarrassed, and then was pulled away by some mortal Shouto didn't even have a nickname for.

He resigned himself to the outskirts of the party. Sitting at a quiet table alone, unwilling to interact with these creatures anymore than he already had, though most were more than willing to give him a wide berth. At one point he'd spotted Dyna making her rounds, sniffing around the floor looking for scraps of food as people dropped them.

He clicked his tongue at her, waving a piece of sausage he had snagged from a table of food even though he didn't really want it. She perked up and crossed the room to take the offering, immediately dropping the weight of her head into his lap, big eyes staring up for more treats that he easily handed over.

Bribing the wolf dog meant he at least had company now. She sat beside him, leaning her warm bulk against him as she begged for more food. He didn't know how long they were sitting there before Kacchan suddenly dropped into the open chair beside him.

"You better not be feeding her cheese."

"I'm feeding her whatever she desires." Shouto replied, pointedly displaying a chunk of cheddar. Kacchan grabbed his wrist, guiding Shouto's hand to him, then stealing the food with his teeth.

The magic thrummed a low bass note that sent shivers along Shouto's spine.

"No," Kacchan said.

"Ok," Shouto replied.

They stared at each other for a moment, though they were broken from their trance as a drunkard crashed into a table and the whole tavern began circling around two people chanting 'Fight.'

"Sorry my good for nothing friends roped you into this mess. It was probably a hassle."

Shouto watched Kacchan. He was looking away at the rowdy fight happening in the middle of the tavern, cheeks tinged pink.

"I didn't mind. I think you have very good friends. You're very lucky," Shouto said, voice steady, but he was surprised by how earnestly he meant it.

Kacchan turned his gaze to Shouto, eyeing him up and down for a moment.

"They're your friends too, you know."

It was a simple statement, but Shouto felt his heart skip a beat. An exhilarated warmth heating up his neck and ears as a smile twitched at his lips.

A soft warble sang between them.

"I think we have very good friends."

Shouto was reluctant to admit it, but Kacchan was right about sustaining his body regularly instead of waiting until he had no choice but to eat, or sleep, or perform any other mandatory function.

The long-term effects of eating and drinking regularly meant there were fewer signals to parse; he seemed to have more energy, and channeling magic was easier when he had a full stomach. The increases to his quality of life far outweighed the awful reality that putting more into his body also meant expelling matter from his body just as often.

It was the sleeping that was the real issue.

Constantly eating meant he could go even longer without sleeping, but he was now great at identifying when he was tired, and once he noticed the creeping signs of sleep deprivation it was impossible to ignore all the impairments exhaustion brought with it.

Shouto wasn't passing out from exhaustion anymore, but sleeping was a far more vulnerable affair than eating.

And although he knew some abjuration magic to help protect him, it wasn't a guarantee he'd be safe.

It took him a while to find places suitable for rest, and then he needed to craft spells, and even when he did finally sleep, upon waking all he felt was the seconds ticking until the next time he had to go through the whole ordeal.

All this to say that as he finally dropped his head down onto a conjured pillow, after going 19 days since he last slept, the call of the summons did not inspire joy.

He probably wouldn't have gotten up if the binding magic didn't force him to.

When he opened his eyes on the other end of the fae tear, it was a relief it wasn't in the midst of a chaotic fight in another dingy dungeon. Instead, it was the now familiar pleasant atmosphere of Kacchan's home.

He was, however, still attacked upon arrival. Dyna immediately accosted him with a fluffy tackle.

Shouto hit the ground with a soft oomph, making no effort to block the barrage of slobbery kisses he was greeted with.

"Dynamight, no!"

Dynamight, the name tempted him immediately. He was so tired, though; it wasn't worth the ensuing fight if he tried.

The beast was yanked off him in a moment. Kacchan held a ladle in one hand and had his wolfdog by the collar with the other. He dragged her away, shooting her a glare that required no words to properly reprimand her, then he turned his attention to Shouto.

"And you, I know you're strong enough to stop her from doing that shit, so stop letting her do it! All you're doing is reinforcing bad behaviors." He brandished the ladle like a dagger in Shouto's direction.

"But I like—" His words were cut off by a yawn. "—when she gives me kisses."

Kacchan still had the ladle pointed at him, but now his eyes were squinted in agitated suspicion. Shouto watched as the man shifted from admonishment to assessment.

"When's the last time you slept, Frosty?"

"We are reaching the three-week mark in a few days."

Kacchan gagged.

"You've been in the mortal realm for nearly two years, and the fact you haven't figured this shit out yet is an affront to sentient beings everywhere."

"It is much more difficult to sleep than it is to eat." It's vulnerable, Shouto was tempted to add. It makes me nervous, but that felt like exposing far too much to a mortal.

Kacchan was still in his face, scrutinizing and scowling, making Shouto want to press his fingers into the wrinkle between his brows. But he hesitated, and Kacchan was out of his space as quickly as he entered it. The magic humming along Shouto's skin went with him.

"Sleep here," Kacchan said, nodding his head like he was confirming it with himself.

"Dyna is a great lookout. At the first sign of trouble she's barking, so maybe that'll make it easier knowing there's someone looking out for you."

"Does that actually work?" he asked, watching Dynamight watch them, tongue lolled out and tail thumping a steady beat.

Kacchan shrugged, hand coming up to pick at a bit of scruff on his cheek. "Worked for me back when I used to have trouble sleeping."

Shouto didn't consider the proposal for very long; he was extremely tired. Any worry that the mortal was pulling a convoluted trick to get him to drop his guard seemed far-fetched and paranoid at best.

He had been moments away from sleeping before he was summoned, and willing to try anything to be just a little less exhausted.

He looked around the home. Shouto was aware Kacchan had a room that was not part of the main living quarters, but that didn't feel safe enough. No matter how much he didn't mind Kacchan, he wouldn't fall to unconsciousness where he could be easily snatched or chained in cold iron.

Shouto tilted his head up. The thick-beamed rafters would support him comfortably. Up high he could set an alarm spell that had little chance of being accidentally set off and a cloaking spell to keep him out of sight of any other mortals that may enter Kacchan's home.

It was easy enough to get up to the beam, though it startled an ugly noise out of Kacchan as he magicked his way up through a conveniently oriented fae tear.

"You think you're a fucking cat-bird or something?" The mortal called up to him as he settled onto the beam, chest pressed against the wood, forearm acting as a pillow.

"It is safer up here," he said, feeling the protective magic settling around him as he yawned again.

He watched Kacchan watch him for several more moments. His mortal shook his head and went back to tending to his meal, though each time Shouto blinked it took longer to open his eyes again.

He fell asleep faster than he ever had, the cozy smells of Kacchan's cooking enveloping him and the comforting presence of familiar creatures lulling him to sleep.

Inasa was doing a great job, and it showed in the surging energy Shouto felt day to day. He felt really good, and the magic could feel it too. Since becoming official 'friends,' Inasa had performed even better than before, and his draws on Shouto's magic barely affected him now. It made the mortal one less burden for Shouto to bear.

The King was also taking notice, and although it would probably kill the arch fae to ever give out a compliment, he hadn't berated Shouto in their last communication either.

The name Shoto was spreading rapidly, and Inasa was converting mortals to followers, and followers meant devotion. The payoff was exponential.

In the mortal realm Shouto's ice magic now surpassed what he could do in the Faewilde from before he'd first come here. He couldn't fathom what kind of magic he'd be able to do once he returned to his home world.

On this particular day, he wasn't anywhere special, just some isolated piece of tropical mortal land, pushing the limits of the power he now yielded. It was the peak of a summer season, when his fire magic was at its strongest, and he was in the warmest parts of the mortal world, yet he was staring down a field of snow spanning as far as he could see.

He felt powerful.

He flexed the fingers of his right hand, no frost lining his fragile mortal appendages, no chill in his bones.

He rode the high of his good mood along the fae tear to meet the call of Kacchan's summons into the heart of a blizzard.

The side of a mountain, maybe. It was hard to tell while being buffeted by the wind and ice.

He was a good distance away from where he could hear the telltale sounds of a fight further down the mountain.

Shouto rolled his neck, feeling the magic rush to aid him when he called for it. The ice formed beneath his feet easily, and it took only a shove for him to be shooting down the mountain, riding the ice as he rapidly descended to the battle.

He'd glided like this in the Faewilde once; the Matron of the Himura house showed him when he was only a few decades old. He never forgot. The King was mad when he found out though, so he hadn't done it again until now.

It was scarier than he remembered, and he hadn't been in the middle of a storm the first time, but it was also exhilarating. The mortal realm's weather was far more severe than anything in the Faewilde, and it was a little exhilarating.

Shouto felt himself laugh, an involuntary constriction in his chest, as he shot over a snowdrift, propelling him up and over a ledge. Straight into the midst of Kacchan's battle.

He stumbled a little bit, forcing himself off the sheet of ice he'd been using and landing next to Round Face. She startled at his sudden appearance but relaxed immediately, going through the rapid gesture of a spell towards whatever they were fighting without missing a beat.

"F-Frosty! Thank All Might you're here," she said, but he was already letting the magic guide his attention to Kacchan.

He was further in, unusual for someone who usually skirted the perimeter of fights to take out foes from a distance. He was a little hard to make out because of the weather, but it looked like he and Dynamight were guarding a down body.

Shouto couldn't make out exactly what he was facing, but there were at least two looming figures.

"Round Face, can you clear the field? It's magical weather." He watched Kacchan as he took a hard hit from one of the lumbering creatures. Just beyond them, he felt the pulse of magic as another creature concentrated on controlling the storm.

It took only a moment for her to catch on, and then Round Face's fingertips were glowing and the magic was successfully dispelled.

The effect was instantaneous. With his field of vision clear, he could see the two lumbering figures, hags. Annis hags specifically, flanking Kacchan as he stood over an unconscious Deku. Worse, behind them were two other creatures. Another hag, it looked like a bheur, far smaller, but much more of a headache to deal with, and Dabi.

The sight of them tightened Shouto's throat. Hags were faeries, after all. Faeries that had been completely consumed by corruption. Corruption destroyed a faerie's mind and body and magic. Hags had no place among faerie hierarchies, and many no longer remembered how to speak Sylvan.

The fact that Dabi was even cooperating with the hags was startling. That Dabi was even here was startling.

Shitty Hair was in the fight too, engaging the annis hag that wasn't focused on Kacchan. As Round Face cleared the storm, the dwarf spotted him and said something to Kacchan. Shouto watched Kacchan's shoulders relax, just slightly, though he didn't turn to look back, too busy attempting to dodge the attack of the enemy in front of him.

Annis hags weren't the real problem. They were bulky and a little grotesque, but it was Dabi and the sneaky creature between them that Shouto was worried about. As the lumbering annis hags took their swings, he saw the bheur take a chest inflating gasp.

There was only enough time to erect a shield around himself and Round Face as a torrent of freezing wind whipped across the battleground. When he skirted around the cover, Shouto felt himself hesitate.

The little bheur hag wore a rotting smile. Both annis hags had been caught in the attack's crossfire, though they were still standing. The bheur hag cackled, and the large creatures beside her rumbled along with her. Dabi's expression broke into a wide smile as well.

Only Kacchan remained standing. Though his skin was frosted and he looked one step away from falling, he stood strong, daggers brandished in defiance despite the odds against him.

Deku, Dynamight, and Shitty Hair were… frozen solid. Perfect little ice sculptures of themselves.

These creatures dare hurt his mortals?

The hesitation of seeing his brother vanished. Shouto sucked in a breath, already running forward and leaving the despaired shrieks of Round Face in his wake as she saw the fate of her comrades.

He knew what he had to do. All these creatures were either immune or extremely resistant to cold magic, so his ice would barely scratch them.

The magic swirled around him, thrumming through his left side, and then he erupted into intense red flames. Each step he took with his left foot sizzled, and as he got into range, Shouto extended his will. A line of fire raced out over the ground, spewing ravenous licks of fire upwards at anything in its path.

The fire connected with one of the annis hags and the bhuer, each screaming in distaste, and the annis succumbed to the fire.

Shouto was in front of Kacchan in the next moment, using every ounce of speed he had to place himself between the mortal and the hags, shoving him back and away from the fire that burned along his left side.

From behind them, Shouto could feel the manipulation of necrotic magic in time with a solemn note of a bell as Round Face attacked the bheur hag with an energy draining attack. Dark poison ran through the thin veins of the creature's neck, bulging like parasites, before dissipating and leaving the creature worse for wear.

Dabi's blue eyes brightened with an elated mania at his appearance. His arms immediately lit up in his signature blue flames.

"Little Brother, what a pleasant surprise. Come to help with a little extermination?"

"Fire magic…"

"Deku was already down before the attack, help him," Shouto said to Kacchan, keeping his eyes on the enemies before them, then seamlessly switching to Sylvan. "These are my mortals. Stand down."

Shouto could tell Kacchan was shaken, whether by the appearance of his fire magic or his fallen party, because he fell to his knees to help Deku immediately.

The remaining annis roared at him, spittle flying, and brought one of her meaty, clawed hands down into his side. The moment they touched, the flames around his body burned the hag, and it reeled back with a guttural shriek.

The bheur hag was still chuckling, one bony hand clenched around its staff as the creature pointed it at him. Dabi held up a hand to stop the bheur, and it listened without protest.

Dabi's grin did not falter at his words. It only pulled wider, unnaturally so. His eyes widened enough that Shouto could see the perfect circle of his irises, and the blue flames surged around him.

"What an interesting thing to say. How 'bout we fight for them instead? Winner gets the mortals."

His brother didn't wait for an answer as he attacked Shouto with a writhing blast of blue fire. There was barely enough time to throw up a shield of ice to protect his mortals, though it was shattered instantly by the blast.

The remaining annis hag had been scorched to death in the attack. The bheur hag had remained still since Dabi's command.

Shouto's only thought was moving the fight away from his fallen comrades. Behind him, he could already hear Round Face approaching. "Midoriya, Kirishima!"

He lunged forward, tackling Dabi and rolling them further down the mountainside. His brother only cackled as they rolled, gripping onto Shouto's upper arms and wreathing them both in fire.

It scorched his skin, hotter than any fire magic he'd ever produced. Shouto yanked himself away, surrounding himself with cold magic to extinguish the fire.

Dabi was still burning as he stood up. This close, Shouto could see where his pure white hair was streaking black. He could see how his brother was looking just a touch too thin, how he seemed longer, how his skeletal structure seemed not quite what it used to be.

"Give up. You're in no shape to fight," Shouto said, but the words seemed lost on his brother.

Dabi laughed some more, only pushing the blue flames to surge in a grander display around him. Then his eyes focused in on Shouto, and with a sudden burst of fire-propelled speed, he lunged for Shouto.

He barely dodged the attack, the flames brushing along his side but not doing significant damage, and Shouto returned the attack without allowing Dabi time to recover.

They went blow for blow, each collision thundering deafening booms, lighting up the mountain in flares of red and blue.

Dabi was thousands of years older than Shouto, and far, far more powerful too. Perhaps it was because he was on the Mortal Plane, or that Shouto was truly gaining significant strength from the work he'd done on this world, but he was actually matching his brother.

He knew Dabi could tell too. With each failed attack, he got more frustrated, summoned stronger swells of magic. He began manifesting his faerie form, growling and snarling and sharpening his talons and extending his fangs.

But even with the aided pull of his true form, Shouto could read the cracks in Dabi's stance, in his mind. In his soul.

The world froze.

Dabi below him, mania clear in his expression. Exhilarated by his own fear, dripping black blood from his eyes, and nose, and ears, and mouth.

At the last second Shouto switched from fire to ice, reflexes unparalleled in this time-stopped moment.

The ice blade was to Dabi's throat, his arms pinned at his side by Shouto's knees.

"Your loss," Shouto hissed, chest heaving with effort.

He was more beaten than he'd ever been after the battles Kacchan had called on him for. He was burned and his clothes were ruined, his body hurt, he was drenched in sweat, but he'd won.

Dabi didn't move for a moment, but then a grin crawled over his expression as he was overcome by a sickening glee.

"Didn't think you were capable of a rebellious stage, little brother. And what a hilarious turn of fate this is," he choked out from around the blade, pressing forward, unbothered when it cut into his skin. "Better keep a close eye on them. They might just stab you in the back."

Shouto clenched his jaw. That didn't make any sense. His mortals wouldn't do anything to him, and he was strong enough to protect himself even if they did. Surely Dabi must see that?

As both their shirts burned down to ash, blowing away as soot and ash, he was struck with a memory from a cold subterranean temple. "Why were you in a temple of the Raven Queen?"

Dabi's grin pulled at the seams of his lips, splitting open wider.

"Wouldn't you like to know harbinger. Seems the King is keeping secrets from his favorite little soldier."

Then he was gone, an interdimensional door consuming him and teleporting him somewhere far away.

Shouto pulled himself to his feet and walked the distance back up the mountain to where his mortals were.

When he arrived, the bheur hag was still there, trading blows with Kacchan. It turned upon his arrival, still grinning as it shot an attack off at him.

The frost shards that collided with him barely left a scratch, and that made the wretched creature's grin vanish. Instead, it mounted its staff, fleeing into the sky as the hag realized the favor of the battle had fallen to him.

Shouto tracked its movements as it raced away, anger at the creature's audacity simmering in the fiery magic around him.

She wasn't fast enough.

"Burn," he said, and watched as fire wreathed the hag from the inside out.

She screeched, then fell. The fire immolated the already damaged creature without issue.

Round Face was already at the sides of their fallen comrades, desperately trying to access their skin from within their icy tombs.

Kacchan was scrutinizing Shouto with suspicion. There was a distrust in his eyes that Shouto hadn't seen in a long time.

The fire that had enveloped Shouto was snuffed out when the hag fell from the sky, but Kacchan looked at him like he was engulfed in an inferno.

He didn't like it when Kacchan looked at him like that. The magic shivered around the man, making his eyes water, and Shouto averted his gaze to Dynamight. She was frozen. He moved to thaw her out, but Kacchan was between them a moment later, a dagger hovering out defensively.

"I thought you were a winter faerie?"

"I am."

"But only summer faeries use fire magic."

"I am also a summer faerie."

"I've never fucking heard of that. Is that even possible?"

"Apparently," he said, expression still. "As far as I'm aware, I'm the only one like me."

Kacchan squinted at him, though Shouto watched the tension in his shoulders ease as his mind seemed to make all sorts of logical leaps to make sense of what had just occurred. Then he took in Shouto's appearance, the destroyed clothing, the burns, the bruises, and seemed to reach some sort of conclusion.

Kacchan's stance deflated and he reached out to brush his thumb along a section of unmarred skin on Shouto's face.

"Are you ok? You aren't seriously injured, are you?"

"Rest assured I don't have any plans of dying from neglecting a serious injury," Shouto replied, and he felt a self-satisfied pleasure dance within his heart as the last bits of reservation smoothed from the creases in Kacchan's expression.

"Coulda fooled me."

He looked like he wanted to ask more, questions burning just below the surface, but Round Face cut through the moment.

"Ba- Kacchan, I need help thawing them out before I can stabilize and treat the wounds!" She was at Deku's — Midoriya was his name — side, looking a mixture of determined and lost that had her hands hovering indecisively over his body.

Kacchan moved to help, but he was out of his depth as well. Despite his clear affinity with magic, he never attempted to wield it, and Shouto knew his explosives wouldn't be of assistance in this situation.

Both mortals were frazzled, standing around sculptures that used to be friends. Shouto could see the panic stuttering their thoughts in the jerky, hesitant motions of their bodies and the agitated stab of their syllables as they snapped at each other.

Shouto wasn't feeling the panic they were, but there was something there, an urge to ease what the mortals were feeling. So he stepped forward before properly thinking it through.

"Let me," he said, kneeling beside Kacchan, holding his left hand out.

His left side ignited, far tamer than in the heat of battle and without risk of damaging the surrounding mortals. He knew from experience the soft flames were wreathing along his exposed skin, most prominent in the red strands of hair on his head, making it dance. He knew his left eye had filled with a darkness akin to flesh burnt to a crisp.

It took only moments for Shouto to thaw away a section of ice around Midoriya's hand, and Round Face seized the exposed skin without hesitation.

"Thank you, Frosty, if you could melt the ice around the others, I just need to touch their skin to heal them," she said, and he nodded, standing without hesitation and moving to Shitty Hair — Kirishima.

As he carefully went about warming the remaining party, he could feel Kacchan's eyes on him the entire time. When he looked over his shoulder, the eyes he met weren't filled with the expected wariness and suspicion. There was curiosity and something intense that Shouto didn't understand, but made his skin prickle.

In the end, Midoriya, Kirishima, and Dynamight were all fine. Caught up in the relief that all their friends were fine, Shouto was not showered in the usual praises or gift that would allow him to bestow Kacchan with a summoning orb.

The mortal was currently hugging his wolfdog; the beast slobbering all over his face in a way Kacchan usually scolded her for but was enthusiastically allowing in the moment. It felt wrong to intervene, but he could also feel a call from the King that could not be ignored.

With a flick of his wrist, he created a summons and left on the magic of the King.

Placed on a section of cleared ground where it would stand out: a gift left to the mortals with no debts attached, and a note that said:

'See you later.'

Shouto expected to be killed by the King when he heeded the arch fae's call, but all he received were compliments on the recent amounts of growth that he'd been accumulating. The words were begrudged, tinged with a contingency that should the King catch even the slightest hint of weakness he'd be reduced back to the incompetent child. The King's words were nothing like the compliments and kind words given so freely by his friends.

Dabi had not told the King of what occurred that day, and Shouto realized his brother probably never would.

When Shouto raised his gaze to his brother's in the court, he only received a wide grin and an over-exaggerated wink.

His eldest brother had always been at the mercy of his whims, and all Shouto could figure was that he found the situation entertaining enough to outweigh the importance of telling the King.

As Shouto walked out of the court and to the teleportation circle that would send him back to the Mortal Plane, he paused.

Why would it be such a bad thing if the King knew?

His time with the mortals was a legitimate part of his mission to accumulate power in the mortal realm. He wasn't doing anything wrong.

Right?

"Little brother," Dabi slung an arm around his neck. "Not even a hello to your favorite sibling?"

Shouto narrowed his eyes, attempting to duck out of the hold, but Dabi tightened his grip. He leaned his voice low. "Why do you think the King would send someone after info on that uppity little God Killer?"

Dabi was gone before Shouto could even exhale. Leaving him with a lot to think about, he wasn't sure he fully understood.

As he teleported back to the Mortal Realm, the welcomed pull of a summons immediately greeted him. He eagerly followed it to reunite with his friends.

Sleeping was a nonissue now.

The first time Shouto slept in Kacchan's home, he woke up feeling fully rested for the first time since he began walking the mortal realm. He woke up groggy, mouth dry, limbs heavy and warm, feeling more relaxed than he'd ever been in the century he'd been alive.

It was an addictive feeling, being rested and full at the same time.

He told Kacchan how good he felt afterwards, and the mortal had gotten embarrassed, then insulted his intelligence in a way Shouto'd grown accustomed to hearing.

The second time he slept in Kacchan's home was about a week after the fight on the mountainside. When he was summoned, up in the rafters there was some cloth strung up, pillows and blankets piled up as well. Kacchan had called it a hammock and said whenever Shouto felt tired and didn't have anyone around to watch out for him while he slept, he was welcome to use it.

It felt like an invisible boundary had finally been cleared. A final barrier knocked down as Kacchan let Shouto into his life, into his family.

The magic around Kacchan nearly glowed as it coiled around him affectionately. Shouto had to turn his eyes away from it and instead focused on the hammock.

He worried he might be getting too close to Kacchan, but the temptation of achieving the same restful sleep from weeks ago outweighed any of those concerns.

The hammock was far better than the bare rafter. As he settled into the makeshift bed Kacchan set up for him, a trilled whistle sang on his sigh.

Below, he heard Kacchan huff a laugh, muttering about 'bird-brained half 'n' half bastards.' Shouto was already dozing, too content to bother saying something instigating to irritate the mortal.

When he woke up, Kacchan said, "You'll always be welcome to sleep here."

In that moment, the magic glowed brighter around Kacchan than Shouto'd ever seen.

It was the third time Shouto slept in Kacchan's home there was a real change. This time, he was summoned to Kacchan's home after a very long spell of sleep deprivation. He was exhausted.

Kacchan squinted at him with disapproval, and Shouto immediately felt like he was a child being admonished for wrongdoing.

"Your brain finally freeze over or something? I thought we fucking talked about not pushing your body to its limits?" Kacchan crossed the threshold into Shouto's personal space, his thumb coming up to trace underneath his eye. "You don't have to worry about getting attacked if you sleep here. You'll be safe."

Up close the magic buzzed happily, itching Shouto's nose with the fondness it emanated for the mortal man it surrounded. Shouto batted away his hand to keep from sneezing.

"It's more than being unprotected. This weakness of needing to sleep so often, I worry that one of these times I will not wake up."

Kacchan made a disgruntled noise. "There's absolutely no way that would happen."

"Faeries are different," Shouto elaborated, trying to get his mortal to understand. "We do not require sleep at all in the Faewilde, it is a leisure activity. What if the magic mistakes one of these frequent sleeps as a desire to completely shut down?"

Kacchan took in a huge, lung-stretching breath of air. He let out the breath slowly, and at the end of it he held Shouto's gaze. His demeanor rattled the surrounding magic with a confidence that Shouto leaned into for comfort.

"What if before you go to sleep we say: 'See you later?' You're always saying magic responds to intentions. That way, the magic knows you have plans with me when you wake up. Would that make you feel better?"

Shouto contemplated it for a moment, but he could already feel his panic settling with Kacchan's words. That could work, if the magic knew he had absolute intentions of waking up.

He nodded, magicking himself up and settling back into the hammock.

"Alright, see you later, ya fucking weirdo. Sweet dreams," Kacchan said, and Shouto looked over the edge of the hammock to see the mortal craning his neck to look at him, features set in a familiar scowl. "I swear, you're gonna be the death of me one day."

It was said softly, as an afterthought, and it sounded like he didn't mean it at all.

The magic was warm, cozy, content, and lulled Shouto to sleep as he whispered the incantations for his protective wards.

"Yeah, Kacchan, see you later."

After that, Shouto took advantage of Kacchan's invitation with little reservation.

That third sleep was the best he'd ever gotten. Waking up again feeling like his body wasn't trying to tear itself apart or jettison his conscious to the hells was a luxury, and he didn't want to lose the feeling.

Kacchan summoned him to his home enough times that Shouto could follow the fae tears to its location without the assistance of the summoning magic. So he popped into the home whenever he felt like he could use a nap.

The first time he showed up without a summons, Kacchan tried to kill him.

Shouto appeared in the home in the middle of the day. It'd been about ten days since he'd last seen Kacchan, a far longer amount of time than usual compared to their recent schedule.

There was a dagger to his neck before he'd opened his eyes. Kacchan pressed close to him, breath ghosting along the back of his neck. The tension lasted less than a second, but Shouto felt suspended in the moment.

That close to Kacchan, the magic swirled around them both so intimately they may have been the only two beings in all the realms. His heart stuttered in his chest, skin tingling like an adrenaline rush had hit him, and then Kacchan was out of his space.

"All Might above, Halfy. I nearly took your fucking head off. What are you doing here?"

Shouto turned to stare at his mortal, not sure what to make of the feeling that rushed through him when they touched. Kacchan didn't seem to have noticed it.

"Oi, Bird-Brain, I'm talking to you. If you're just gonna randomly show up in someone's home unannounced, at least have the decency to listen when they're talking to you," Kacchan said, waving the dagger in his face that moments ago was pressed to his neck.

Now that he was further back, Kacchan seemed on edge.

"You're anxious," he said.

Kacchan pinched his features, then waved him off. "We've been going after members of a cult trying to get information. They haven't taken kindly to the interference. Everyone's been working overtime 'cause of it. What are you doing here?"

"You said I could use the hammock whenever I wanted, so I've come to use it." When Kacchan didn't respond immediately, he tilted his head to the side. "You aren't going back on your word, are you?"

Kacchan scowled at him, the crease in his brow and the pinched expression highlighting the bags under his eyes.. "Fucking — you're annoying as fuck. Go take a nap. I don't give a fuck."

He started to storm off towards the back of the home where Shouto knew he had his own sleeping arrangements.

"Wait," Shouto called out before he could think about what he was doing. Kacchan stopped, turning to face him. "I'll stay up and keep watch while you sleep."

"Why would you fucking do that, Halfy? You came here specifically to sleep too," he said, irritated, though it seemed less to do with Shouto and more about his current situation and stress.

"You know I can go far longer than a few days without sleep. And you're the one who told me it helps to have someone watching out when you're having trouble sleeping."

Kacchan hesitated, though he seemed to be seriously contemplating the idea.

"I will protect you, Kacchan."

That seemed to tip the scales as Kacchan went red, yelled at him to do whatever he wanted, and stormed into the back room in a tantrum.

When the door slammed, Dynamight woofed at Shouto from where she lounged in her own bed, tail thumping a lethargic beat. Unlike her master, his appearance didn't seem to have disturbed her at all. Shouto conjured a small piece of ice and tossed it to her; she barely moved her head to chomp the treat gratefully.

He dropped himself into one of the wooden chairs that had been designated as his in this home, letting the comfortable atmosphere calm his heart as he resigned himself to the burden of staying awake for a few more hours.

In the other room, he could hear the breath of his mortal settle almost immediately. Shouto amended his thoughts: it was not a burden at all.

At first, Shouto didn't show up too often, maybe once a week, but after a few months Shouto dropped all pretenses and was visiting Kacchan's home nearly every other day.

Satisfying his body's need for sleep was a luxury he wasn't going to live without anymore.

Inevitably, the frequent visits meant he often showed up at Kacchan's home when he wasn't there. It was harder to sleep comfortably without being able to say 'see you later' before he dozed off. Shouto always cast protective spells around himself if Kacchan wasn't there, and if Kacchan returned, the presence of another being woke him immediately.

Kacchan didn't get mad when he came home to find Shouto rolling himself down from the 'Freeloader's Loft.' Mostly he just rolled his eyes and tried to hide his smiles with forced scowls, muttering about how he got stuck taking care of a useless fae bastard.

Shouto knew he didn't mean it. Kacchan still summoned Shouto whenever he needed help fighting battles, and he never kicked Shouto out when he came home to find Shouto there. Kacchan would start making a meal, asking if he was planning on sticking around with poorly hidden anticipation.

Shouto always said yes.

Eventually, Shouto stopped having trouble falling asleep when Kacchan wasn't home. The residual smells of black powder and spice were so strongly engrained in him as safe that he stopped casting abjuration magic all together.

He stopped waking up when Kacchan came home.

Once he woke up to a quiet home that was not empty. The soft breathing of Dynamight and Kacchan sounded off a nondescript roll call of their presence. Shouto dropped from the rafters to find a lunchbox sitting on the table, as well as a piece of parchment depicting a crudely drawn visage of Shouto, judging by the split hair and scar.

Shouto placed his palm flat against the lid of the box. There was a warmth coursing through him he couldn't identify, not dissimilar to his fire magic, but also not the same at all. It was deeper, behind his ribs in his heart, and it caught his breath in his throat.

He couldn't identify it, but he liked it. He wanted more of it.

Shouto had been to very few parties in the Faewilde. Faeries loved parties, and celebrating, and indulgence. Shouto had been restricted from Fae indulgences — the King worried such frivolities would distract him from his prophesied destiny — but he was aware of them.

Mortal parties were not so different. Perhaps smellier and stickier, but not so far removed that Shouto was completely out of his element.

He was crammed into a booth in the tavern near Kacchan's home. The same one he nearly killed Kirishima in. Celebrating… some sort of win? It hadn't been clear, but apparently they'd finally got a lead on something they'd be hunting, so Kacchan and his party were drinking before they set off on their next adventure.

He'd awoken from a nap earlier in the day to Kacchan arguing with Kaminari Denki and Ashido Mina — he'd covertly learned everyone's full name except Kacchan's — about going out for drinks.

He'd rolled off the hammock and landed delicately on the ground, but it wasn't until Dynamight barked at him did Kacchan's friends notice him.

"Oh, our Fae Friend is here?" Kaminari asked, leaning around Kacchan and pushing further into the home. Ashido was right on his heels, willfully ignoring Kacchan's indignant complaints.

The tabaxi and tiefling flanked him with a friendly familiarity Shouto had learned to expect. Many of the mortals Kacchan surrounded himself with had no regard for personal space.

"C'mon, Frosty likes us. I bet he'd want to hang out with everyone."

"Yeah, what do you want to do, Halfy?" The pair leaned up against his sides.

Shouto knew they were right. It'd been a little over three years since he'd become acquainted with this group of mortals, and he did like them. He liked most mortals quite a lot, even the complete strangers. Most weren't anything like the King had taught him. A troubling thought, but one he'd decided on as the truth.

"Come drink with us! You like us, don't'cha?" Ashido said.

Shouto's eyes drifted to Kacchan. That specific mortal was glowering by the doorway, arms crossed over his chest in agitation.

He liked all his mortals, but—

"I like Kacchan the best," he said. "If Kacchan doesn't want me to go, I won't."

Kaminari and Ashido cooed in impressive harmony. Predictably, Kacchan got angry with him.

"Are you — do you — how do you say embarrassing fucking shit like that?" His tone was agitated, but he didn't seem upset, and it sent a tingling warmth through Shouto that had a smile forming on his lips. "Do whatever the fuck you want, I don't care."

Ashido and Kaminari had cheered, and now Shouto was in a tavern nursing a terrible malt liquor that wasn't nearly strong enough to make him drunk. Mortal alcohols didn't have the right kick to inebriate fae creatures. He was shoved between Midoriya and Kacchan, with Kirishima, Ashido, Sero, and Kaminari filling in the various other spots around the table.

Everyone was excited to see Shouto, chatting amicably amongst each other about this adventure they were about to go on while he watched Kacchan out of the corner of his eye. Kacchan was watching his friends, a barely noticeable smile on his lips that Shouto was sure he wasn't aware was on display.

He got the prickling urge to have Kacchan look at him with that expression and no one else.

Shouto shifted slightly and knocked their shoulders together. Kacchan's eyes jerked to meet his gaze, immediately flushing before throwing back his drink.

"I'm getting us more drinks. Finish that before I get back," he commanded Shouto, gesturing at his barely touched glass.

"Oh, get us some too, Kacchan!"

"Fuck no, get your own you shitty extras," he said before stomping over to the bar where a loud and rude blonde half-elf Shouto had met only once before was serving drinks.

Shouto watched as Kacchan leaned against the bar, waiting for the mortal to finish with the person he was currently talking to.

"Heya, Frosty." Kirishima slung an arm around his neck. "Can you go tell Kacchan to order us a few more drinks?"

"He already said he wouldn't."

Kirishima laughed loud in his ear, "Yeah, but if you ask, he'll say yes."

The dwarf said the words without a trace of doubt, but Shouto wasn't so sure. Still, he nodded his head in agreement. He liked seeing the ways Kacchan treated him differently from his friends and wanted to test the theory.

Kirishima cheered, and then Shouto was on his way to have Kacchan order a full round for the table.

As he approached, the half elf was just turning to Kacchan.

"Bakugou Katsuki, are you sure such a high and mighty A-Class could lower themselves to converse with a B-Class adventurer?"

Shouto clocked it immediately: a name. A full, true name.

The magic surged up in an exhilarated flare around Bakugou Katsuki, bright and joyous. It set his heart jackrabbiting in his chest, his body locking up for a moment in shock. The force of the revelation hit him with a blood-pumping rush of energy usually only felt during a battle.

Shouto turned on his heels and marched right back to the table.

He didn't need to say it to taste the power and know it was the name he'd been pursuing for so long, finally in his grasp. He was already taking it when his mouth suddenly snapped closed.

He didn't want to take Bakugou Katsuki's name.

He couldn't even remember the last time he thought about it. It'd been so long since there'd been any ulterior motive to his presence around his friends. It had to have been over two years since he took any mortal names at all.

All the power gain was coming from Inasa's efforts as his warlock.

"Hey, is Kacchan getting us a round?"

Kacchan's true name was Bakugou Katsuki.

"Whoa, Frosty, you're smoldering."

Shouto blinked in surprise to find himself already sitting back at the table. Kirishima looked at him expectantly, but his expression shifted to curiosity as Shouto only stared. Shouto could feel Midoriya side eyeing him hard too.

He quickly reigned in the errant fire magic licking through his hair and up his neck and cheek.

"Ah, sorry, no. He said no."

Kirishima didn't respond to him, and Shouto found his eyes drawn to Bakugou Katsuki's back. The magic was dancing around his mortal with a euphoria he'd never seen before.

Thinking the name had soft warbles whistling on his exhales.

"Did something good happen?" Kirishima asked, and it was a testament to Shouto's self-discipline that he was able to look away from Bakugou Katsuki at all. The dwarf was sharing a look of bewildered concern with Midoriya as Shouto turned his gaze back.

"Good? No, nothing of the sort."

"What the fuck. What's got you in such a good mood?" Bakugou Katsuki said, returning with two drinks and impeccable timing. Shouto wanted to kick himself as he warbled at the man's return.

Shouto watched as Kirishima's expression turned to amusement. He ignored it.

"I don't believe my emotional state is any different from when you left," he said, careful to keep his tone and expression still.

Bakugou Katsuki scoffed, rolling his eyes, but there didn't seem to be any annoyance behind the gesture. "Then why are your pupils blown the fuck out?"

"A trick of the light, perhaps?"

"Uh huh. And are the lights the reason you were song-birding?"

Song-Birding: A term Bakugou Katsuki coined whenever Shouto was delighted beyond normal means and couldn't restrain a pleasant warbling that Bakugou Katsuki said sounded like meadowlark song. Most often when he got to experience new flavors presented by the mortal.

Shouto could hear himself doing it. On each exhale he whistled.

"The bards are quite good at throwing their voices. Maybe that's what you're hearing?"

"Right… So are the bards why you look like you just successfully tricked some poor fool into giving you their firstborn?" Bakugou Katsuki asked.

"Indubitably."

Bakugou Katsuki eyed him suspiciously, not believing his excuses for a moment, but he settled into the spot beside Shouto regardless, passing Shouto another glass despite his being untouched, muttering into his glass about 'freaky fae fuckers.'

Shouto pushed the new drink towards Kirishima, and the dwarf lit up, distracted from further pursuing their previous conversation. It was Midoriya Shouto still had to worry about. The friend's eyes were still on him, though he didn't say anything.

Ignoring him, Shouto nursed his disgusting drink, but couldn't keep the small, warm smile off his lips at the feeling of Bakugou Katsuki sitting next to him.

Something had been festering within Shouto for quite a while now, but he hadn't been sure what it was until last night.

The mortals around him continued to intoxicate themselves, his friends becoming a rotating cast at the table. Iida, Uraraka, and Yaoyorozu all filtering in and out at some point. Kacchan never left the table, stuck steadfastly in the spot left of Shouto.

The more they drank the further their inhibitions set loose as they leaned into one another and reminisced about old memories and laughed at jokes Shouto didn't understand.

Bakugou Katsuki, which was his full, true name, was knocking back drinks like he'd never see alcohol again after the night. He wasn't participating verbally, electing to glower at his friends, but it was easy to see he was enjoying their company.

The magic hummed between them. Tonight it was especially enamored by Bakugou Katsuki, hugging close to him, sidling up to his mortal with embarrassing desperation. The grandiose display prickled along Shouto's skin with enough presence to raise goosebumps along his arm adjacent to Bakugou.

The name had more sing-songy coos strumming along his vocal chords.

"You've been song-birding since earlier," Bakugou mumbled, suddenly moving into Shouto's space. Their arms pressed flush together, and Bakugou leaned his cheek against Shouto's left shoulder.

He stiffened at the contact. Shouto had never been more aware of a mortal's touch than in this moment.

"I am happy to be among my friends," Shouto replied.

Bakugou hummed a soft sound. "You're warm, IcyHot."

"My left side tends to run hotter due to the nature of my magic casting."

Bakugou hummed again, far drunker than Shouto had ever seen him before.

"S'nice. Maybe all you fae fucks aren't so terrible."

"You mortals aren't so bad, either."

And that was the crux of his situation.

King Endeavor raised him with a specific purpose, had trained him to know his place and his destiny. He was not to form attachments to mortals. Shouto was destined to be the harbinger of mortal demise.

But mortals were nothing like the King had taught him. Mortals could be like the lessons King Endeavor drilled into him, but far more often they were not. More often, they were a group willing to open up a place in their family for a stranger in need of help. For a stranger that looked lost and lonely and in desperate need of friends. Mortals were complex beings, multifaceted and interesting and so full of drive and hope and defiance.

Mortals had shown him more kindness and respect than the King ever had. What had Shouto's destiny ever done for him?

Bakugou lifted his head suddenly, blinking blearily at Shouto, studying him with an intense concentration that didn't match his inebriated state. He looked like he was trying to contemplate life and death itself.

Then his hands were cradling Shouto's cheeks, holding his face still and in place. Bakugou was squinting at him like Shouto'd done something offensive. Without warning, his mortal squeezed his cheeks, hard.

"You're too pretty."

"So you've told me before," Shouto replied as clearly as he could through squished cheeks.

Bakugou growled, applying more pressure. "No — fuck, I don't mean in general. It s'like, you're so — s'not —"

"You aren't making sense."

Bakugou dropped his hands, his face flushed beyond what the alcohol had already done to him.

It looked like it was taking monumental effort to keep his head up and maintain eye contact with Shouto.

"I fucking like you the best too," he said, though a yawn cut him off, his weight tipping forward to resume his position leaned against Shouto's warm side.

Shouto wasn't sure he wanted his destiny anymore.

"If you don't want me to go, I won't go," Bakugou mumbled.

Shouto blinked, confused. "What?"

There was no response, and he realized that Bakugou Katsuki had drunkenly dozed off on his shoulder. Shouto looked around the table, surrounded by a group of mortals — his friends — he'd grown quite fond of in the years he'd known them, and felt the static of magic prickle over his skin.

Maybe it was time to take a stand against his destiny.

Shouto was course correcting, subtly as he could to not alert his nearly omnipotent King of the radical shift in ideals that had overtaken him in a dingy tavern a week ago. But that was fine. He didn't need to do anything yet.

Inasa was still gathering devotion for him, and Shouto wasn't about to turn down any extra power for when the King inevitably found out. He could feel his warlock calling upon his power now. It tingled under his skin, but was no longer a debilitating process.

An angry arch fae was a frightening thought, but the name Bakugou Katsuki far outshined the looming shadow of the King.

Shouto felt the magic burn with excitement at the thought of his name alone, and he found himself eager for the mortal's return to his home. He was in Bakugou's home now. Poking around the kitchen instruments and moving things to make them just slightly not right that was guaranteed to infuriate his mortal in hilarious ways.

Then he felt it, the long familiar pull of his summons. The little trinkets were always given to Bakugou, and he'd even offered them as payment to other mortals in their circle: Midoriya, Uraraka, Kirishima, though once they were spent he didn't supply another.

Already in Bakugou's home, he reached out to the fae tear he usually used to enter with, allowing the magic to pull him through to his destination in less than a second.

It was the heat that registered first; before he even opened his eyes, Shouto could feel the blistering force of hot air on his skin. The next was the smell, the pungent sharpness of melting iron and noxious sulfur.

The assault on his senses was overwhelming, but not enough to miss what was happening right in front of him.

Bakugou Katsuki prone on the ground.

Yoarashi Inasa standing above him.

A sword wielded with the intent to strike a killing bow as Inasa muttered incantations and slid his fingers down the flat of the blade. Shouto could feel the magic coursing through him as Inasa called upon his power to kill Bakugou Katsuki.

Shouto was right there, his feet on either side of Bakugou's head, both the mortals looking surprised by his appearance even as the remnants of magical ice from the broken summons slowly cleared around them.

He looked down and saw the relief in his mortal's eyes. Even in the middle of this dire situation, the magic shivered around Bakugou Katsuki like he was the most exalted creature in all the realms.

Inasa's sharp laugh broke the moment.

"This was your big play, Hero? Summoning my patron to help put you and your party down like the dogs you are," he sneered the words with a booming voice, manic glee glinting in the dull glow of the lava that surrounded them in whatever dungeon Shouto had been brought to.

"What…" It was spoken so quietly, barely formed on an exhale like Bakugou'd just had the wind knocked out of him, but Shouto's unnatural hearing reverberated the sound in his ears.

He watched as a hope that had flickered to life in Bakugou's eyes extinguished in a moment. Replaced by a flat, cold betrayal.

"IcyHot, you are Shoto?" Bakugou's voice barely carried past his lips. "You are the prophesied evil meant to end the world?"

There was so much in those words, the syllables were swollen with the incredulity, the shock, the hurt, the betrayal. The weight of his voice stalled Shouto's movement.

"I am," he said back, because it was true. King Endeavor had created him for that exact purpose. "But—"

"And now my Lord Shoto will put an end to this futile attempt at stopping the inevitable."

The air was buzzing, raising the hair on his body. The magic of prophecies to be fulfilled could not quell their anticipation.

Shouto could nearly see the realizations happening in Bakugou Katsuki's mind, follow the flow of his thought process. He'd spent years watching this mortal, knew so much more of him than he should have, gotten so attached without realizing.

So he saw the moment Bakugou stopped feeling and made a decision.

Bakugou whistled.

Shouto was tackled by a mass of muscle, fur, and teeth. He was knocked to the ground by Dynamight's weight, startled by a beastly strength that had never been turned on him before.

He hit the ground hard, his forearm taking the brunt of an aggressive bite from the wolfdog. She snarled at him, clamping down on his arm harder, ripping into his flesh like it was softened butter.

"Now!" Bakugou yelled.

There was nothing Shouto could do as a magic circle he'd been pushed into activated, animating cold iron shackles to grab his wrists. He recognized the shackles. Manacles inscribed with powerful binding magic that Shouto would never be able to break, stolen from a mausoleum with especially potent warding bonds.

There was nothing Shouto could do as Inasa's blade, glowing with the charge of Shouto's previously summoned magic, sunk into Bakugou Katsuki. The flames exploded out from the blade in an ethereal crimson as Inasa carved into him.

There was so much magic congealing around them he couldn't separate the divination from the normal presence of magic around Bakugou. He couldn't see how it reacted to the wound, how severe it was, and that somehow made it worse.

But he could hear it, the awful involuntarily choking sound caused by a wound to the fleshy softness of an abdomen.

The blow was not dealt to Shouto, but a foul sound tore from his throat anyway. A nauseating dissonance of a beastial roar and despairing cry.

Shouto surged against the chains, the metal sizzled against his skin, but there was nothing he could do without his magic. Bakugou continued choking around a wound to his side where the sword slashed him, having moved just barely to avoid a fatal hit.

Dynamight was off him now, prowling the edges of the runes that contained him, though it was obvious she wanted to go back and defend Bakugou.

"Inasa, stand down," he commanded, and if he had access to his magic, he would have forced the mortal to.

Inasa froze at his word, though. His arm stalled, reeled back in the motion of a second swing.

"Todoroki." Shouto's eyes didn't waver from Bakugou's prone form, but he stiffened at being addressed. His senses homed in on the mortal, focusing as a reflexive growl rumbled at the sound of his name on a mortal's lips.

The magic quivered between them, destiny rattling the very essence of the world. Disconnected from the magic as he was, Shouto could still feel it in his bones.

Bakugou's eyes were cold as he glared at him. Anything else he may have felt towards Shouto buried under an unwavering conviction. In his periphery he could see movement, possibly Midoriya or Yaoyorozu, closing in to flank him.

"I know your true name," Bakugou said, forcing himself up despite his injuries. As he rose, his body convulsed, gurgled retching forced blood out his mouth.

Inasa made to defend Shouto, but Iida appeared behind him, a rapier poised at his neck to prevent him from moving.

"It is my destiny to keep you from growing stronger," Bakugou told him.

Shouto was helpless shackled with cold iron. He didn't respond.

The smell of ozone was so thick in the air Shouto choked on it.

"I watch the pillar crumble," Bakugou whispered. Words meaningless to Shouto, but so clearly a line from a prophecy he could only accept the fate that was being written before him.

Shouto didn't look away as the mortal approached him.

Even as Bakugou loomed over him.

Even as Bakugou drew a dagger looted from a secret room in an ancient temple of the Raven Queen.

Even as Shouto yielded his neck.

Were this to be his last moment he'd take in every aspect of Bakugou Katsuki before he was gone.

Bakugou's gaze was twisted, eyebrows pinched in a nasty glare. The dagger was held with a white knuckle grip so hard his fist shook.

Shouto stared back at him, the effort it took to not betray his emotions monumental in the face of the inevitable.

They were frozen in that moment for an eternity. The divination magic swirling around them in violent whipping waves only Shouto could perceive. It sang and screamed a cacophonous symphony as Bakugou stared down at Shouto like he was less than an insect.

Destiny had come to claim her payment.

The sound of metal hitting the rocky ground pierced through the rushing current of magic, and everything went silent.

Bakugou fell. So hard and so quickly, it looked like his legs gave out. One hand gripped at the terrible wound in his stomach. Now he was eye level with Shouto.

"Why you?" he asked, barely getting the words out around the blood and betrayal. "Why is it you?"

The enraged mask was crumbling away to reveal something true. A pain far deeper than even the stomach wound. An agony pulling his mortal apart at the very seams of his existence.

"I didn't know," Shouto said quietly, his own voice wavering with a regret for what was so obvious in hindsight.

Bakugou sobbed, or choked, or growled, or maybe all three.

"Why did it have to be you?"

Bakugou looked at him with the desperation of someone lost.

"Prophecies are rarely fulfilled in the way you expect."

Shouto watched the words wash over his mortal; he went far away for a moment, before focusing back in on Shouto with razor clarity. He surged forward, pressing the cold iron blade against the soft flesh under Shouto's jaw. The skin flared and hissed at the contact.

"So tell me why I shouldn't put you down right fucking now? That should put an end to this whole thing, right?"

Bakugou was right. It would be easier to kill Shouto, it would end both their destinies. It would relieve Bakugou of this awful reality and burden.

But Shouto didn't want to leave Bakugou.

And he didn't want to walk the path of his predetermined future.

And maybe it was finally time to do what he wanted.

"I don't want the destiny the universe chose for me, and I think you don't want yours, either."

Bakugou jerked back like he was the one getting burned; the dagger falling harmlessly away to the side. He couldn't look Shouto in the eyes as he turned and forced himself back to his feet despite his injury. He barked at his party to subdue them and take them as prisoners for further questioning about the prophesied extinction event his friends were apparently trying to prevent.

The one Shouto was meant to bring.

He watched as Bakugou made it only a few steps further before he collapsed, and then the rest of the mortals converged on them, blocking Shouto's line of sight on his mortal.

It was Midoriya and Kaminari who ended up grabbing him. Both looking supremely uncomfortable with the turn of events and apprehensive of approaching him. Shouto realized they might have been scared of him.

"As long as the cold iron touches my skin, my connection to magic is completely cut off. You have nothing to worry about," he said, jostling his chain-wrapped arms as the contact burned him to show them the proof.

They shared a look, but approached him, each hooking him under an armpit and hoisting him up to his feet. The chains around his feet dropped away, and he was hauled up, wincing as the shackles around his arms pressed in further.

He could see Inasa being flanked by Iida and Kirishima. The mortal was looking at him for a cue, but Shouto shook his head instead. The warlock looked confused but didn't make any attempt to do something reckless.

As he scanned the low lit cavern, Shouto took in the familiar visages of the mortals he'd spent three years coming to know, look at him with unfamiliar faces. Bakugou Katsuki and Dynamight were nowhere to be seen.

He tried not to let the thought weigh on his mind as he was taken prisoner by his friends.

75