'Age is the great weakness of humanity. We only have so much time in which to succeed in life. We do what we must, failing often, but also finding glory and meaning to life. When your lifespan exceeds human bounds, when you see your hundred and twentieth year with your physical and mental faculties intact, something occurs. It becomes harder to care for people, harder to remember that all life is precious. Love for your fellows is important no matter your age. Never forget this, no matter how old you are, especially if the world is cruel.'
—Excerpt from 'My Eclipse' by Hawkmoon.
Shouto Todoroki's world is one of pain right now. He can barely understand why there's a dark blade through his torso—everyone I love betrays me—or the words Izuku is saying— a sacrifice of love? what love is this? I carried you on my back and protected you—because none of it makes sense.
He coughs, blood escaping his lips.
Izuku is many things; kind as the noon sun and generous in ways that leave Shouto breathless. He is also clinically insane and haunted by everything he has experienced in this place, driven to violence and the mad logic of this place.
But he is not evil, not a betrayer. Not like his mother, her grey eyes filled with madness. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
He forces his lips to work. "Why?" he whispers with the rapidly draining strength in his body.
He feels Izuku lean forward, his green hair brushing against Shouto's cheek. "You see, it asks for a sacrifice of love."
The world explodes in waves of pain and agony.
He hardly has the strength to look down and see the large gash through his side, bleeding profusely. Has no strength to stay upright and collapses. It doesn't hurt anywhere near as much as he thought it would. Or perhaps that is because the pain in his soul is so much worse.
"I love you, Shouto,"—why, why, why does everyone betray me in the end—"but not as much as I love my mother."
And there it is. A truth that Shouto can understand. That he will never compare, no matter how hard he tries, no matter the sacrifices he makes for another, he will simply never compare.
Izuku grabs his hair roughly, callously, without a shred of remorse or compassion, and drags him forward. Shouto stares at the slick line of red his body makes, unsure if the lack of pain means he's in shock or not.
"You have my respect for making it this far," his friend—not a friend, never a friend, don't trust anyone—says coldly.
His head lands on the ground, the pain hardly noticeable.
"I hope they remember you fondly. This is for every time you choked me."
He meets Izuku's eyes and sees only cold certainty and callous indifference. It is then that he understands this is no plot, no gambit other than selfish survival. I'm sorry, mother. Fuyumi. I'm not strong enough.
He closes his eyes.
The kick jolts him violently off the edge. The pain seems to return all at once as he falls through the vast and empty purple sky, clouds of motley blue-yellow and arcs of blue lightning all around him. He tries breathing, but it only fills his lung with blood.
He closes his eyes.
I'm going to die here.
The realisation leaves him calm, oddly enough. Throughout everything he's gone through in recent months, not once has he truly felt like he was going to die. Go mad, yes. But not perish. Not with Midoriya either on his back or walking beside him. It makes sense, then, that this is the first time he feels the spectre of death.
A jolt of ethereal darkness forces him awake as he passes through another barrier, still falling and bleeding half to death.
Only this time, it's like the water below is watching him. It takes all his remaining energy to freeze his torso together. And then the rest of his body. He does his best to interspace layers of entropic ice with liquid water with air, cushion after cushion to possibly survive the impact, whilst losing consciousness.
He closes his eyes once more.
The space between closing his eyes and slamming into the surface may be a second or a minute or an hour. All that really matters is the sudden, violent jerk upon landing on a liquid surface at terminal velocity.
He feels everything break despite the barrier of his ice.
Bones break. From the tiny bones in his hands and ears to the large bones in his legs, they all break from the impact.
Arteries rupture. The impact sends a wave of force through every blood vessel, one too large for the walls to contain.
Organs explode. His lung caves in almost instantly, his liver and kidney bursting. His largest organ, his skin, almost seems to pop open in its tomb of ice.
What remains of Shouto Todoroki sinks beneath the surface.
-TDB-
Watching someone you care for plummet to their possible death is an odd experience, particularly when you are the architect of events.
Izuku Midoriya watches his friend and enemy fall to possible death.
Deep in his chest is a pain the likes of which eclipses many of his deaths, a level of grief he has yet to feel. Right now, Izuku would take every moment of fear and terror that plagued him after that first death, relive that existential horror all over again if it meant never feeling this again.
"I'm so sorry," he chokes out, free to let his true feelings show now that the sacrifice has been made. "This was my only choice."
There is blood on his hands, still wet. It belongs to Shouto and seems all too mundane. It doesn't mutate, doesn't become an endless legion of creatures seeking revenge against their progenitor. No, this is plain human blood, bright crimson in its mortality.
He looks to the sky, impossibly bright and filled with swirling stars. It seems to mock him with its serenity and beauty.
"I hate this," he mutters, turning around.
There, approaching rapidly, he can see the Elder approaching them. The shadow of its future intent, its desire to consume Shouto's hellfire only seems magnified after Izuku's actions. Izuku glares at it, hating it totally and fully and wanting nothing more than to annihilate the creature.
And yet, he knows he is nothing compared to it. Not without the entirety of his powers. Right now, he can barely bring to life a single strand of shadows.
Izuku steps forward, letting the power of his mentor fill his body. He flings his arms wide and glares at the approaching abomination.
"You might not know who I am," he says softly. "Maybe you do and think this is your best chance. But you made me betray someone I love. Maybe you don't know what love is, maybe you can't ever fucking know. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. Fuck darkness and fire. That's nothing compared to a mother's love. It's nothing compared to the love I have or the things I'll do for those I love."
The abomination doesn't seem to care, more intent on shattering the throne worlds standing between it and the layer of the abyss Izuku exists in. That indifference, that level of complete disinterest, pisses him off more than anything.
You may not have all your powers but you are still the shadowking. You are still All Might's successor. Even if it means dying, I'm with you, brother.
"Thank you," he whispers.
Then, he plants his feet in the ground and summons the entirety of All Might's power. A bolt of green lightning fills the sky, a declaration of his intent. It stays there, bisecting the sky, frozen in time. Slowly, smaller bolts spread outward from it like veins of living lightning until the sky is filled with the electric potential of his mentor's quirk.
The abomination spares the tiniest fraction of its attention to observe Izuku. They are separated by an entire layer of the abyss and each layer is larger than a universe. Raw power and iron will make petty rules like distance and spacetime irrelevant.
"Listen to me!" The sky flashes once more, another lightning bolt cutting the sky apart. "You think you're powerful and maybe you are. But fuck you and fuck your power. It doesn't matter how, but I will annihilate you today. And I'll do it because I love him. Because I love my mother and my friends. I'll do it because I love life. Love gives life meaning, and life gives love the chance to exist."
Life may be weak and fragile, irrelevant in the face of ancient gods and unreal laws. It may be transient and passing, like tears in the rain and ash on snow, a tiny verse to the great story of the universe. But that verse is a prayer, a call to hope against indifference and cruelty. So long as life has a chance to flourish, that prayer will be spoken by each generation. That prayer is simple, carved in the very depths of every soul and every cell, crafted by the hands of something unknowable but fundamentally known, a cosmic force that binds the physical to the metaphysical.
Love and life are inexorably twined by the red thread of fate, bound by it, but also creating it—two halves of a singular whole, greater together and unable to exist apart.
That simple prayer is what keeps Izuku going in this dark place filled with sword logic and throne worlds. There are things he has done that can never be forgiven, too much time spent as a cruel puppet, and they will haunt him till his last day. Right now, he is free of all strings, free of any fate but the one he makes with each action in the present.
Despite all that he has done, he is still the same person willing to try and forgive his killer, willing to find beauty in the cruelty of the dark. It may make him a fool, may make him naïve and childish, but perhaps that faith is why All Might entrusts his powers to Izuku.
Deep in his soul, he wishes to save everyone because saving even one person is to extend life just the tiniest bit.
Izuku takes a deep breath, feeling the strength in his body. The living lightning of eight generations permeates every vein and muscle and bone, enhancing him beyond peak human potential. It may not be enough. Perhaps human emotions and feelings truly amount to nothing in the face of undying gods.
How can he know without trying?
Hopeless though it may be, standing against a being greater than god is what gives him hope to continue standing. It is a cycle, hope feeding into hope, one step forward leading to another.
"I am the Shadowking!" he roars to the heavens, defiant even against a monster that destroys all hope. "And when I fucking say love is the most powerful force around, you had best be afraid. Come after me if you dare, but I warn you, you're gonna know what real death is like."
The abomination deigns to give Izuku a tiny sliver of its attention. One of its many eyes, each larger than a universe of endless darkness, observes him.
Perish.
From the very reaches of darkness, across the expanse of the universe, it attacks Izuku for the first time.
-TDB-
The only reason Ochaco Uraraka isn't a complete nervous wreck is because of the tortoiseshell cat standing on her lap and very insistently licking her chin no matter how far back she leans away. She isn't sure what the cat is called since it shies away each time she reaches for the collar.
She reaches around the cat for her cup of tea. Pushes the cat back with one finger. Takes a sip quickly before the cat bats away her finger.
Despite the cat being incredibly annoying in an incredibly endearing fashion, this is the single most relaxing thing she's done since the stadium attack three days ago. She is lucky that her parents weren't at the festival. Luckier still that she made it out with only a few bruises. She's only just gotten a new phone courtesy of the school and has sent a mass message to her classmates.
There is no certainty that anyone will come. Iida has been silent, and she knows for a fact that he's physically fine. And she doesn't really have any expectations for those with injuries or parents in the hospital.
The café is quiet and sombre. Only two other patrons are there, and both had thanked her for helping their eldest daughter during the attack. She had felt a flush of guilt that she couldn't even remember the lady until the parents had reassured her that saving their daughter was more than enough, though they did show her a picture of the girl in a white dress.
She looks up when the doorbell chimes.
It is Tokoyami surprisingly enough. It's not that they actively dislike each other. They just don't get along too well without a buffer like Kirishima or Ashido or Iida. Or anyone, really.
He looks around warily, wincing in pain when he takes a step. That might have something to do with all the bruises on his exposed arms beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, an ugly collection of motley yellow and deep purple-blues. No doubt many more litter the rest of his body. She feels a moment of sympathy.
When their eyes meet, he freezes like a crow staring down a particularly hungry cat. He approaches slowly, almost confused. Ochaco puts on her brightest smile and meets him halfway, the cat cradled in her arms.
"Hey," she says.
He raises his arm, still just as confused as ever. He says no words for a long moment.
She glances at his hand, awkwardly at a halfway point between his side and touching her, as though he is terrified she might disappear.
She shoves the cat in Tokoyami's chest. "Say hi."
He holds the cat awkwardly, incredibly wary of the animal. And, from the way all the other cats are staring at him like a particularly large piece of food, he has good cause for that. He sets the cat down and it slinks away to the table with the two parents, one of whom is making origami art between sips of coffee. She recognises blue cranes and a red dolphin and a white chrysanthemum, and wonders if they are for the daughter.
"In truth, I do not know what to say," Tokoyami says, adjusting the collar of his burgundy shirt.
She smiles. He may not be the most open person in the world, but he's rarely malicious. Way too socially awkward and the most obvious closeted goth in existence, but that doesn't make him a bad person.
"How do you feel?"
"Relieved to see you well. I worry that this is nothing more than a final fever dream before I die beneath the weight of rubble."
"Oh, you were…"
"Yes."
Ochaco winces. She knows a lot of people were caught beneath the rubble and nearly died. She just never expected to hear it from one of her classmates. Especially not one she worked with on the very same day to hand out supplies.
"Well, I'm more real than you." She pulls him by the wrist to the table she's claimed.
He settles into a chair. "I've come to understand what we consider real is rarely the full truth."
"I think you get too worried over nothing. You should spend some time outside your room and take a stroll in the park."
She's come to learn that Tokoyami frowns by pulling his shoulders back and leaning slightly to the left. "I do enjoy nature. Simply because we enjoy it in different ways does not invalidate my way."
"Wow, you two really don't like each other." She looks up at Kirishima. His arm is in a sling and he walks with the aid of a medical cane. "Can y'all not argue for five whole minutes."
"I very much doubt this counts as arguing," Tokoyami says, pushing a chair out for Kirishima.
"Thanks," he says, sitting gingerly. "You two look pretty decent."
Ochaco's smile is tight at the reminder she made it through easily. "Well, I got lucky."
"Indeed. Dark Shadow did much in ensuring my survival."
Kirishima glances at her and she nods. "Speaking about your quirk, what the hell was that during the festival? That definitely wasn't Dark Shadow."
"Yeah, I'm curious as well." She leans forward, chin resting on her steepled fingers. "How about a few answers now."
"Does it really matter? Not all quirks manifest fully until later in life."
"Yeah, I think it does. Come on, is it like Midoriya's quirk?"
Ochaco frowns. There's a conversation they're having that she's not part of.
"Actually, what's up with Midoriya's quirk?" They glance at each other, communicating silently between themselves. "Okay, we can't have a real talk if you guys won't say anything. You two saw what happened. Most of us weren't anywhere near."
Kirishima swallows. "I signed an NDA. And I might just be expelled if I talk about it."
"And I'm technically still under investigation by the government."
Ochaco blinks. "I'm sorry, what? Did you just say you're under investigation?"
"By technicality only." Tokoyami waves away her concern. "Those flames you saw were of a similar nature to those used in Shikoku."
Ochaco doesn't know too much about the incident, has never particularly cared about that piece of history. She knows the entire region basically lit up as a battleground between villains and police and whatever heroes were available at the time.
"That's messed up," Kirishima says, his smile gone. "And those flames, they're like…"
Tokoyami nods. "Similar."
Ochaco sighs loudly. "You want to include me in this conversation at some point."
"Sorry," Kirishima says. "I'm legally not allowed to talk about what I saw. But I haven't slept since I saw what happened."
"Nightmares?"
"No, I mean I very literally haven't slept since USJ."
"That's impossible," Ochaco says. "You'd die if you hadn't slept that long."
Kirishima shrugs. "Well, it's true."
"The dark changes all things," Tokoyami mutters, looking out the window. "You asked about my quirk. The truth is that I can… bind, things from dreams and nightmares. Like Dark Shadow. Like that dragon you saw."
Ochaco blinks. "That's insane."
Kirishima looks to her. "Trust me when I say that's pretty tame. I'm sorry I can't tell you more but after what I saw, I'm lucky I'm not in a white-padded room screaming myself hoarse."
She swallows. "Is that what happened to Mineta?"
"Maybe. Maybe he just got injured pretty badly by the purple thing. I don't know."
"Do you think Midoriya—"
"No," Tokoyami snaps. "He is many things. Different from us all, yes, but that difference is not malice or cruelty. Do not cast aspersions on his character."
"Aspersions? Is that your new word of the day? Pretty big word when you're failing most of our classes."
Kirishima buries his face in his hands. "Oh my god, here we go again."
"Simply because you have no faith in someone who cares more for you than himself does not mean I will abandon him."
"That wasn't what I said and you know it."
"Then stop—"
"Can both of you shut up," a new voice orders.
They look and see Shinsou, deep bags under his eyes, and very thick bandages peeking through his shirt. Beside him is Yaoyorozu and she looks just as disappointed.
"She started it," Tokoyami says petulantly.
"You didn't have to continue it," Yaoyorozu says, seating herself between Tokoyami and Ochaco. "How are you two friends when you can't have a conversation without arguing?"
"Honestly, I think they like it," Shinsou says, pulling a chair from another table and sitting slowly. He shares a smile with Kirishima who looks just as bad as he does. Only now does she notice the pale scar around his neck, silvery pale and nearly healed and feels a wave of guilt. How had she ignored the bloody bandages after the stadium attack? Maybe the missing finger made it easy to ignore everything else.
Kirishima sighs. "Okay. How's everyone doing? I know Asui is with her parents and Ashido is still dealing with some broken ribs. I think Sato has a concussion or something."
"Ojiro said he's taking care of his siblings," Shinsou says, which relieves Ochaco a bit. "A lot of my classmates were running stalls outside the stadium so they're mostly fine."
It startles Ochaco at the casual reminder that he's not in their class even though he's basically a package deal with them these days.
"Iida's fine. I think he's with family. Anyone know about Kaminari and Sero?"
"Sero's got a neck injury. He's on bed rest."
"Kaminari was fine last time I saw him. Jirou's got food poisoning." Everyone stops to stare at Yaoyorozu. "What? We grabbed ice-cream together and she's badly lactose. And forgot her pills."
"That's pretty stupid."
"Yeah," Yaoyorozu agrees. "But we were stressed and ice-cream. Bakugou was in surgery last I saw him."
Ochaco puts on her best 'why are we talking about this' smile and says, "That sounds great." She glares at Tokoyami before he can say anything negative. "I got messages from everyone else except Midoriya. Oh, and Todoroki but I don't think he talks to anyone."
Shinsou picks up a cat from the floor, a dark one with a missing eye. "Haven't heard anything from him. Honestly, he probably did something heroic and got hurt."
"That sounds like Midoriya," Kirishima agrees.
She notices how Tokoyami very intently stares out the window, very unsubtly not joining in the conversation.
"You know something," she says, drawing their attention, and is gratified in the nervous way Tokoyami shifts. "What is it?"
Tokoyami sighs. "You know how I'm technically under government investigation—"
"I'm sorry, but I'm going to need some context here," Yaoyorozu says.
"Me too."
"I am not going to repeat this explanation again. Suffice it to say, black flames associate me with Shikoku. And the government doesn't like that."
Ochaco blinks because that's a surprisingly effective summary. "Okay. Now get on with it."
"I may have gained information that if repeated to anyone may result in me being shot in a dark alley by the imperial household."
Ochaco very instantly feels sick and sees the horror mirrored in the others. "Why are—"
Tokoyami raises a hand to forestall their questions. "Before you ask me for answers, realise that it is related to the same reasons I'm under investigation—and I will be cleared in a few days once the paperwork goes through—but there is a possibility all of us will be tried for treason if I answer fully."
"That's messed up. What kind of unmanly stuff are you involved in?"
"It's not like I said 'hey, wanna get me involved in something possibly illegal shit' one morning."
Ochaco isn't sure what stuns her silent. Maybe it's Tokoyami cursing for the first time since she met him. Maybe it's the sarcasm. Maybe it's the way his speech patterns went from grumpy old man to a normal teenager.
No, all those things play a part. But more importantly is the raw fear in his red eyes, the tenseness in his posture, and the defeated set of his shoulders.
This is the first time she has ever seen him truly uncertain. And that, most of all, scares her.
"Is it that bad?" Shinsou asks.
"Much worse than you think." Tokoyami inhales. "The truth that you can never speak of or risk all of us being sent to jail, is that both Midoriya and Todoroki are missing."
It takes her a long time to understand the pounding sound of drums is the blood rushing in her ears as her world shifts unstably.
Tokoyami meets her eyes and she knows, just knows, that he's going to say something to make this worse.
"And they can't be retrieved by conventional means."
Izuku stands defiant against almost certain death.
-TDB-
You know, perhaps antagonising it wasn't the best option.
He bares his teeth. "No, antagonising me was a bad idea."
A beam of darkness wide as a planet travels across universes, moving so much faster than light that it leaves a rip the width of galaxies in its wake. The beam eviscerates a horde of demons and shatters ruin world, makes irrelevant all known laws in its inexorable march.
It is a beam of singular violence and destruction, designed purely to destroy Izuku. It is a beam of hate and malevolence so concentrated that it makes Izuku sick to the core that he must face this Elder, this being capable of destroying a galaxy with only its shadow.
The beam slams against the lattice of living lightning.
The force of it hits him right in the soul. This cage of lightning protecting the waypoint is a manifestation of the quirk he inherited, One For All as it takes form in Izuku: living lightning to All Might's wildfire. Perhaps it is symbolic. Fire cannot survive without oxygen but electric potential can exist in the void of space.
Symbolism is a form of strength here. Raw power just happens to shit all over symbols and metaphors, and that beam has enough raw power to scour a solar system.
Even All Might's power is nothing compared to the Elder. The chasm between mortal power and god too great to bridge with hope alone.
He swallows nervously as the remnants of the beam approaches, diminished by the lightning cage. There is nothing he can do, no place he can escape to. If death is the only option, then he'll go out with style.
He gives the impending beam of death the middle finger.
"Bring it," he says, closing his eyes an instant before it can swallow him whole.
He doesn't die. It takes a moment to register this, and then Izuku opens his eyes to something odd: a wall of fire. The flames are pitch black, consuming space and time and gravity as fuel, growing larger and larger as they battle the Elder's beam.
True darkness and godflame wage war. Two fundamental forces vie for dominance, entropy and calamity opposing one another. For a moment his mind wanders to Shouto but that makes no sense. He would feel it in his bones if something changed.
This isn't Shouto's doing and it certainly isn't the doing of the entity that controls the godflame trapped by a copse of ancient trees.
This protection comes from something else entirely. But it is failing, the flames dying to the power of true dark.
The flames fade away and the beam continues unimpeded. It may be lessened by travelling through the shield Izuku created and dealing with the flames, but it is still powerful enough to shatter a mountain. Death is still imminent. But those dead flames give him hope that he is not alone.
In the next moment, a dragon floats between him and certain death. Its dark wings are spread wide, a shield to protect Izuku. There is an aura of power around it, a deep purple mist that declares its presence.
It roars so loud the very sky shakes and trembles, the ground cracking from the force. Izuku feels his ears burst as the power of its roar holds back the beam for a second. That second is long enough for the dragon to cross its arms over its torso, the purple glow intensifying and manifesting around its arms like armour.
The beam hits it right across those crossed arms. Izuku watches the beam shred its scales and shatter purple armour and tear through tough hide. And yet, the dragon never falters, never gives in no matter the destruction imposed on its body.
Suddenly and without warning, the beam fades away. The inky darkness that filled the horizon vanishes and light returns.
The dragon falls to the ground, breathing heavily. The impact shakes the cliff and makes Izuku trip as he runs towards it. The dragon's arms are ruins of bone and flesh, and there is a terrible gouge in its chest. He can even make out its beating heart, partially flesh and partially crystallised fire the colour purple.
Yet, there is nothing but determination in its massive eyes, an odd mix of yellow and ultraviolet. It does not seem to care much for the damage it has taken.
/What have you done, Shadowking? This barrier, this ward is of… love? True love? And yet darkness as well? It should not have been able to stop even the tiniest power of the Elder hunting you/
Izuku forces a smile, observing the Elder across universes. They've drawn its attention now, marked themselves out as possible threats to its goal.
"Love is the strongest force alive," Izuku says, a reassurance against the raw loathing of the Elder.
/The very fabric of the abyss felt the reverberations of your declaration. I do not understand. The love you wield as a shield is beyond true dark and you are the embodiment of the darkness. How do you wield this power?/
"I'm human as well."
/But that is a mortal shell. That skin you wear is your corpse, not your real body/
"It doesn't matter, we have to go."
He turns back to the cliff edge he kicked Shouto off and sprints towards it. He leaps over the pool of Shouto's blood, closing his heart off from the grief of what he has done.
The dragon follows a moment later, gushing glowing blood as it staggers over the edge. It catches up and matches velocity with him. Izuku lands on its shoulder moments below they dive below the surface.
A cold chill runs down his spine when they cross to the next layer. It should make him nervous, anxious even.
Right now, he only feels a sense of relief.
Below them, large as a country, is an eye. An eye that has never harmed Izuku. An eye that has saved him before.
-TDB-
Shouto Todoroki is dead.
Or close enough to make no difference. His body is a broken ruin of pulped flesh and shattered bones and ruined nerves. It is less a body and more a human-shaped splatter of blood and flesh, held in shape only by ice.
But he isn't completely dead yet. Only mostly dead and that is all that matters. In a realm where a moment can last an eternity and beings have witnessed eternity, a moment is more time than anyone needs.
The fluid enters his mouth and nose and every other open hole or gap or wound. It enters through every rip where it seems his skin has come apart at the seams, flowing through his veins and marrow and entering his ruined skull.
It embraces him gently as he sinks further and further to the bottom. The unusual property of the eye knits together his broken bones, patches burst blood vessels and seals his wounds. It is quick and almost instant, taking advantage of his entropic ice and accelerating the process.
Shouto inhales when his lungs are fixed.
It is the same inhale as a newborn's first breath, that tentative exploration of a new environment. It is the same breath after nearly drowning. It's the breath that says, 'I am alive and fuck death'.
Somehow, despite his lungs being full of the fluid, he can still breathe. The fluid is heavy in his lungs but he's never felt this much oxygen with every breath.
I'm alive, he thinks, staring at his hands in the fluid. There are scars on his skin, dozens of silvery marks and he imagines they are from his skin being reknitted.
He looks around and wishes very much that he could get the hell out of here.
Another body breaches the surface, large and with wings. It beats those wings and flows towards Shouto, cradling him in its human-like hands. He can see the gaping wound in the dragon's chest knit back together, a lattice of flesh and leathery hide and scales reforming.
The dragon rises through the fluid like a rocket, not seeming to care for concepts like aerodynamics. Perhaps the purple glow around it has something to do with that.
The air above is crisp and chilling. Refreshing, even, as he coughs out the fluid from his lungs. No single breath has ever felt so good, felt as necessary as these few.
The dragon opens its maw and makes a deep, guttural sound that he can't understand. Then Izuku fucking Midoriya slides down from its shoulder and lands beside him.
"Please don't punch me," Izuku says, hands raised in a placating gesture. And no doubt to defend his face.
Shouto punches him in the crotch instead. Izuku crumples to the ground, his face contorted in pain. The moment his hands are away from his face, Shouto punches him there.
"You stabbed me," Shouto roars, trembling with rage. Sick with it, even. "And kicked me off a cliff."
Izuku gives him the middle finger, one hand still covering his crotch. "Not my fault you don't care about me. Did you really think I was going to betray you?"
"Let's just count them: my mother, my father, my brother, and let's not even talk about how I killed my sister."
"You make a good point. I maybe shouldn't have said what I said." Izuku pauses. "But come on, this was also kinda your fault."
That drives Shouto to a further rage. He leaps forward and tackles Izuku, headbutting him in the nose. Blood gushes from Izuku's nose as Shouto punches him once.
Then twice.
Then a third time.
Shouto doesn't care that Izuku doesn't fight back. No, there is so much anger that all he sees is red, and only some of it is Izuku's blood as Shouto beats him to a pulp. He feels his knuckles break and doesn't stop. He doesn't stop when Izuku's eyes are swollen shut because that strange fluid heals him.
Which is good. It means Shouto can take his time breaking Izuku's jaw and nose and cheekbones and everything solid that makes him who he is. And he can do it again and again. It feels good to see Izuku bleed, fills him with joy to hear bones breaking and flesh pulping.
"I'm sorry," Izuku chokes out.
Shouto punches him again. Breaks two more knuckles. Wraps his hands around Izuku's neck.
He squeezes, applying the same cruel pressure he used to choke the life out of his mother. He stares Izuku in the eye, never wavering as those green eyes widen. He doesn't look away when Izuku taps Shouto's shoulders urgently nor does he look away when Izuku begs.
"It was the only way," Izuku gasps out.
Shouto, very frankly, doesn't care. He just wants to see Izuku feel the same pain he felt.
"I fucking hate you," Shouto screams, applying more and more pressure. He wants to hear the sweet sound of Izuku's neck breaking, wants to hear him give his last breath and see the life fade from his eyes.
He would have more to say if not for the sudden crash that steals his attention. A giant horn rises up through the eye, spewing ocular fluid and rainbow blood in the air like hurricanes of blood. Understand that the eye is the size of a continent. The horn made of some material that eats light is as large as a mountain range.
Deep in his soul, Shouto knows that the horn is the tiniest fraction of a percentage of the thing chasing him.
The eye makes a sound of pain that freezes Shouto because nothing without a mouth should be able to make a sound like that. He shivers the longer he looks at the horn because it's made up of red crystals the scream of nightmares and eternal misery.
Izuku throws him off with a flick of his power.
"Take us up, now!" Izuku shouts.
The dragon beats its wings and rises, shielding Shouto and Izuku with its other hand. Through the gaps, he can see the miasma of dread and undeath fills the horizon far as the horizon and perhaps beyond. Because, seeming to loom over the universe, is something of gargantuan proportions, a being of too many arms and spheres and dimensions folded upon themselves—a contorted entity of eternal darkness and cruel design.
Izuku grabs Shouto by the shoulder, spinning him around.
"We're out of time," he says, and only now does Shouto see how terrified he is past all the blood on his face. "I'm sorry but the thing that's been calling out to you is called the godflame. And you have to make a choice."
The dragon rolls to avoid a streak of blackness that tears apart reality, leaving a gaping hole for horrors of the deepest layers of this place to seep through, tainting the psychomutable reality with their presence.
"What choice?"
"I don't know!" Izuku trembles, eyes wild with fear. "That's what scares me. But you have to understand that I'm willing to die so you can make that choice. And I don't care what choice you make. Kicking you off that cliff was my last gambit."
The dragon breaches thick roots in the sky. It twists and deposits the two of them on one of the roots. It says something in the odd language Izuku seems to understand before it descends wreathed in black flames to fight the shadow of the Elder creature chasing them.
"You can't just expect me to trust you."
Izuku takes Shouto's hands between his own. There's blood on Shouto's hands, Izuku's blood, though his companion seems not to notice. Or perhaps he doesn't care.
"This isn't about trust anymore. This is when you pull the sword from the stone and decide what shape the sword will take."
Izuku leans forward until their foreheads touch. Sticky red liquid smears his face and Shouto feels it drip down in thick rivulets, tastes the salty liquid on his lips, a promise sealed in blood.
"I don't think I can win," Izuku admits, smiling a bloody grin. "I'm pretty sure I'll die. But, if it gives you the chance to make this choice, then I'm willing to do so."
Izuku pulls away, his body glowing with power and green lightning. He looks like a hero even if his grin is sad and broken and tainted by blood.
"I said I love you. I wasn't lying. I'm willing to die for those I love." He laughs a mad and broken laugh. "I owe you that much at least."
Izuku leaps back and down past the roots, disappearing from Shouto's reach.
Shouto closes his eyes once more and takes a breath to centre himself. He closes his heat to the pain of betrayal and the warmth of Izuku's boundless affection. Because what more can he do but walk forward, no matter the cost?
What choice does he have otherwise?
He stands and looks around. The trees are thick and dark as night. Creatures like Dark Shadow observe him, spears held at the ready. He can't tell if they are enemy or friend, but they block his way to the very centre of this forest where the call is so loud it is all he can hear.
"I don't know if you can understand me," he says to the sounds of the cataclysmic clash going on beneath him.
Hellfire blossoms to life around his arm. If nothing else, violence is a universal currency, and the power of ash and brimstone is one he speaks fluently. Already, he can feel the dead trapped in a world of fire and misery screeching in agony and rage, gods and monsters and aliens made equal by his powers.
"But I'll fight you if you try and stop me."
They make no sound for a long time. Then, bridges of pale light form between the roots, all leading to the centre of the forest. Shouto wastes no time sprinting forward past the crowd that follows behind him like a royal procession. The trees get thinner and paler the further he goes, and he gets the impression that these trees are somehow older.
At the very centre, he finds a grove surrounded by a circle of trees, pale and thin as saplings. Yet, the immense weight of their presence leaves him breathless. Imagine standing in the oldest library in the world, one filled with ancient tomes from a time where the impossible was commonplace. Imagine the weight of history pressing down on you from all directions. Imagine all that, and you get the tiniest inkling of the presence these trees command.
/Come forth, vessel of the heart/ one tree says, a psychic imprint upon his bones.
It sends him to the ground.
Shouto grits his teeth and forces himself up. He isn't here to beg for anything and nothing, not even a presence that feels as old as his universe, will make him kneel. He glances behind him and sees the creatures all kneeling, all waiting, and refuses to be a supplicant.
"You know why I'm here."
He doesn't have to look at the cauldron holding the black flame of creation. The flame is low, deceptively tiny for something capable of destroying everything he knows. Half of him just wants to walk over and fall into the flame, the same half that is his hellfire.
/We have lived longer than your universe a dozen times over. You stand before us and must make a choice/ another tree says.
Before the psychic scream can bring him down, he burns it away with his hellfire and the screams of those he damned. It is his only protection against these trees. They aren't cruel, merely powerful.
"What choice?"
/We will perish this day, but this is all part of a plan. Our elder who carries our racial memories will continue, protected by another king, and perhaps one day start our species anew. All that matters is the nature of the sacrifice we make this day. For what reasons shall we give up our lives for you, bearer of godflame's heart/
"You're not making sense. Tell me what choice I have to make."
/You may consider your choice as long as you like/ another tree continues. /Time shall stand still until your mortal form perishes. Worry not for the shadowking or the slaveking's beast. The universe will stand still for your decision/
He grits his teeth in frustration. He's getting nowhere with these trees as old as his universe.
"What is it?" he asks instead. "The godflame. What is it really?"
/It is one part of the trinity, one-third piece that forms the abyss. It is heat and energy and entropy and the forward arrow of time. It sparked the first forms of life. You call it the Big Bang, that which we call the start of Disparity. It is the beginning and end of all things. At the end of all things, when darkness consumes everything, it will burn away true dark and give space for new forms of life to exist, starting the endless cycle anew/
"It really is a God."
/All forms of flame are derivatives of it, fragments and echoes of its true glory split off from the start of Disparity. All flames but those of you and your sire. The flames of the eternally damned, the fire that burns an effigy in the worship of the wielder. Yours is unique across the infinite possibilities of the abyss/
"Is that why it calls to me?"
/Yes. It wishes to unite the final piece of flame to its existence. And with it, the godflame shall burn all realities until everything exists as fire and ash. Godflame will consume every world, every universe, every reality and every layer of the abyss and bring in an age of infernal fire/
"I won't let that happen. I have people to protect back home."
/Your world, what you call the real, is merely the highest level of the abyss, the one in which heat and energy and orderly godflame reign supreme/
"Why me?" No, he thinks, that's the wrong question. "Why us? What makes the three of us so special?"
/In the beginning, there was true dark, and the inky foundation of the abyss was created. Nightmares of crystal madness, the Singers who must never be freed, the gods of desolation and their unborn Elder parents roamed and ruled freely. And then came the godflame, the spark that seeded true life and separated the void from your realm. By its heat, did it drive away the nightmares to the deepest level of the abyss. Two halves of different natures. Eventually dark and light would reach equilibrium, what we call disparity. In this disparity came the rest of life, both undeath and true death. It is that life which is the third pillar of the abyss, the final part of the trinity/
"So, let me get this straight. You literally call Izuku the shadowking because he's what? A piece of true dark. Like that nightmare chasing us? And Tokoyami very literally enslaves lifeforms. This is fucked."
/This is not about the king of shadow or the king of chains. This is about your choice. Will you rise to become the third king? Will you stand aside and become irrelevant? It is still possible for the shadowking to strike a bargain with godflame and reclaim his power, but the cost will be high. Will you take the power and set all reality to fire?/
"I don't know what choice to make."
/The choice does not matter. There is no right or wrong. All that matters is that you choose. Speak to the flame and make your choice/
In the end, it does not matter.
Right now, the one person he trusts and hates the most fights the monster chasing Shouto. Right now, Izuku stands between him and death all so he can make a choice. It doesn't matter that Izuku will die for Shouto regardless of circumstance because that's just the sort of person Izuku is. Right now, he's doing it to let Shouto experience true freedom.
Much of this may very well be Izuku's fault, it probably is, but at the end of the day, he would have died months ago in that hospital room. Shouto has suffered through untold pain and agony and betrayal since he entered this realm, but he suffers through that only because he lives. When they aren't fighting, aren't arguing, when Izuku isn't a puppet to a greater force, they are friends. He knows every secret Izuku holds and he has trusted Izuku with just as many truths.
It may be violence and blood that binds them together, but it is trust and affection that forms the foundation of their friendship. The same friendship that makes Izuku willing to die for Shouto without question. That friendship is so strong that Izuku could take the place of his mother in betrayal.
In the face of that kindness, the sort of unbridled love and compassion that gives time its forward momentum, how can Shouto do anything but walk towards the godflame and make the most important choice to ever be made?
He places his hands on the cauldron. The seals on the cauldron are ancient, barriers of disparity and darkness to hold back this god missing a tiny fragment of itself. The dark flames give off no heat, but maybe that's because they instead consume all forms of energy like time and gravity and dimensional barriers—for a moment he imagines his father watching him, but that image vanishes.
The impossibly hot presence of the godflame fills his mind, burning through all barriers he might make. Heat suffuses every nook and cranny, burning down every wall in his mind and laying him bare before the first flame, the truest expression of energy and light and time.
My heart, you have returned. It doesn't speak so much as it sings in exultation. Come, hellfire, and return home.
"No," Shouto says even as the flames threaten to sear everything he is. "You're going to listen."
Vessel of my heart, you have no presence here. You a mere courier for the shadowking's promise. Stay silent and let fire reign supreme.
"I don't fear you. I won't submit to you. No flame will ever control me."
Fire isn't something he fears.
He thinks of all that his father put him through, every torture and moment of suffering to get him to fear the flame. And only now does he understand the lesson his father tried so hard to teach, a lesson that broke their family apart and drove his mother insane. Fear the flame for it will burn you, his father always said but left unsaid is the true lesson: for only then can you control it.
It does not mean he can forgive the man, but maybe he can understand why his father did what he did.
Then speak, vessel of my heart. Make your case.
"I've come to bargain. I will give you my hellfire in exchange for control."
You will die, mortal vessel. I can wait till the end of time for another to come. Hellfire shall belong to fire once more. There are infinite possibilities, and in one of them, another will come bearing hellfire. You are irrelevant.
He doesn't really have an argument against that. If this flame really did birth concepts like time, then waiting for an aeon won't even register to it. Even now, it simply waits as Shouto considers everything. And yet, the more he thinks on it the more he is certain a piece of the puzzle is missing.
He sits and brings his hands together to meditate, the godflame waiting patiently as he considers everything.
I'm willing to die for those I love.
That one phrase keeps repeating in his mind like an infection. It burrows deep in his psyche, fighting for dominance as he considers everything he has gone through. The answer isn't in their journey on the back of a colossus or the first time he fought a godling.
He swallows and opens the dark corner of his mind where he keeps his memories of a world borne of blood, the world in which he murdered his mother and sister.
He considers what Izuku—or the thing speaking through him—said over and over again. This is his story, an exploration of the suffering he felt in the past. And if that is true, then is the answer not also in his past? Not the suffering, but the good?
The moments of good may be few and far between, but they exist. His life hasn't only been cruelty and suffering. It hasn't always been a challenge to grow stronger. To claim that would be to spit on everyone who cared for him, everyone who gave him the strength to continue moving forward.
"I think I understand," he says after a few hours of thought. "You really do think hellfire is all that you're missing."
It is the final aspect that will unite all fire and heat.
Shouto shakes his head sadly. "You've never felt love or compassion or kindness. I know this because I've seen things that use the godflame. You're the fire and heat life grows beneath, but you know nothing about life itself. Look at my heart and soul and see all those things you could never imagine."
He feels it search through him. Memories of Fuyumi baking cookies, of his brother teaching him to play soccer, of Izuku being a kind fool—most of all, Izuku's love born out of compassion so fundamental you could set gravity to its tune.
He lets the godflame, this being that is one-third of all reality, know what it means to love and be loved as a mortal does, fleeting and passing in nature. He lets it feel the loss of that love when his mother was taken so long ago and dredges up every memory of her compassion, of her love that brought light to their home. Every yearning to play with his sibling and bathe in their kindness. To hope one day that he will move past his father's influence as Fuyumi has, and give his life to making other lives better.
He lets the godflame feel these human emotions, insignificant and pathetic in comparison to it. But even something that amounts to nothing has value if only because it is novel. Even the most expensive experience is cheapened by repetition, becoming lifeless and dull. Is that not why the godflame wants hellfire? Because it is something new and unique. And if that is the case, maybe love isn't so pathetic.
Why would a barrier of love stop a dragon made of godflame if love was known to this god?
And so, he lets it taste the very essence of his love, the very definition of kindness and compassion. It is all he has, the only bargaining tool of any importance. It may not be worth much, but it will be worth less than nothing if he doesn't try.
And then he takes it away, forces the eternal flame away from his precious memories.
Yes. Yes. Yes. This fire, this warmth. Give this to me. Give me all of this.
"That's not how bargains work," he says patiently. "Passion is half hate and half love. I will give you both. My hatred and loathing as the hellfire to unite all flame. The greatest love I have ever known to give fire context. In exchange, I take control and decide the future."
Is this your choice, my heart?
It sings in exultation, a song of fire in his veins like nothing he's ever felt before. Right now, he has its full attention, every scrap of interest that one-third of all reality possesses. It is like the forces of gravity and electromagnetism all stopping to watch you, something incomprehensible halting everything simply to listen to your words.
It steals his breath, makes him full insignificant and tiny. But it also makes him feel larger than life. Because someone as meaningless as him has the attention of the universe itself. It may be callous and indifferent, but right now, he's the most important thing to ever live.
Thank you, mother. Forgive me.
"Yes," Shouto says, sealing an oath with the universe.
The pain has no words in the human tongue to describe it. How can you describe a quirk being torn away? Perhaps as a comparison to your limbs being sawn off. How do you describe the pain of every memory of the one you love the most burning away? Every second that passes burns away another instance of his mother, of the person he could never hate despite that grand betrayal years ago.
The godflame rips away every memory of Rei Todoroki from his mind, using her love and compassion like oxygen to feed its power. The love of a single human infuses everything the godflame touches.
He feels the empty spaces and cracks in his soul fill with power and fire. He feels his right eye change as it sees the world as the godflame does, the heat and energy of all life forms, and the ability to see the things a simple human eye cannot. He feels the scorching power of the godflame's entropy fill his left side as his hellfire becomes one with the origin of fire and time.
At the crucial moment, when the power he inherited from his father becomes one with the first flame, he feels every tendril of the godflame. It is vast, touching so much of all reality that he almost dies from knowing the magnitude of the power he now wields. He feels the sun and stars and time itself, feels their sweeping glory and listens to them sing his name.
When the bonding is complete, a wave of godflame surges outward from him.
The copse of ancient trees burns away. They are kindling to this flame, a coronation fire for a new king and a pyre for the deaths of billions. The black flames spread relentlessly, consuming their descendants.
He floats above a world on fire. His first act king has been destruction.
The psychic scream of their death slams into him. He feels the end of their existence, the loss of trillions of years of knowledge, and knows true grief. But he locks it away for now. There are other things that must be dealt with.
His left side is engulfed by dark and infernal flame, the power of god at his fingertips. His right eye sees the unseen, the things that exist in higher dimensions and other planes of reality. He sees all of time and space and reality like looking over a city from the tallest skyscraper. Every future is open to him, a thousand possible timelines collapsing as he comes to a decision.
It is his choice to burn away everything that is, was or can be. It is his right. Looking at the black flames now at his command, he says the only word that matters in the entire universe.
Shouto Todoroki makes a choice.
"Burn."
-TDB-
It is by true dark and infernal flame and the undeath that exists between the cracks that the abyss exists. Your choice is made and known to us now, Shouto Todoroki. Your kingdom shall be fire and chaos, the entropic march of the forward arrow of time. You are one of three kings. We have waited aeons for you three to appear. Uncountable iterations and variations have existed and still exist. This is the first that has succeeded.
What will become of abyss now that you stand amongst your peers? Shall you wage war amongst yourselves and annihilate everything in your path? Shall you set your eyes to conquest and subjugate all other realities the void touches? All things are possible to you now. All choices are yours to make. There is no destiny writ in stone for you.
How can there be fate for the gods?
-TDB-
Izuku wonders just how fucked he is.
The thing he's fighting barely even notices that he exists. Maybe if he had the full extent of his powers, he could drive the creature back. No, he knows for a fact that he could. He isn't the same scared boy he once was nor is he the teenager struck mad by the horrors of this place. No, had this happened just before the stadium attack, he would have shown this nightmare the true nature of darkness.
Now, though, he is relegated to drawing the beast's attention away from the dragon battling with him. It only notices him when he flares his powers. The pain is excruciating, and his constructs are weak, but he makes them as large as he can and fills them with the intent of fucking the monster up.
One For All fills his body with strength. He still has some of that ocular fluid in his body, and more is in the air like a fine mist, so it doesn't break him in half when he uses his mentor's power to punch a finger larger than Japan. It does, however, nudge the monster just enough that the dragon can escape and burn a path to Izuku at light speed.
He reaches out and grabs its wing. They fly around the creature's appendage even as its movements give birth to black holes and areas of reverse time—he regrets forcing it into a well of that stuff to trap it.
"This is stupid," he says and dives forward, streaks of green lightning surrounding him as he takes One For All to his limits.
He kicks the creature's horn. Well, technically, it's the shadow of intent of its smallest appendage. Either way, it breaks.
If you love him then you will let him make the choice.
"He doesn't deserve to suffer like this."
He spins on the spot and dodges the dread knight created by the shattered crystal. His fist slams into and through its torso. He holds its heart in his hand and squeezes, crushing the metal thing. There are more to be fought and he tears through them rapidly, bringing to bear every scrap of technique he has.
Isn't that what his life has always been? Others making choices for him.
Izuku looks at the streaks of green lightning around him. Grabs one. Flings a bolt of lightning at the infernal engine powering this appendage.
The lightning strikes true and the green explosion burns through the engine. The lightning continues onward, tearing through dozens, perhaps hundreds of enemies.
It doesn't so much as make a dent in the uncountable trillions being forged with each passing second. It is a hopeless battle without the full extent of his powers. Even with every person on Earth, he would lose.
For the first time, he has tasted freedom. Let him make the choice and bear the consequences.
The appendage below him turns grey with the engine powering it destroyed and then vanishes. He sighs and hopes Tokoyami's dragon can catch him before he can fall into the black hole. It does, thankfully, and then decides to fly straight through it.
They come out in a dark space and see the shadow in its entirety. Izuku raises a brow at how large the Elder's shadow is. He imagines this is what the Milky Way looks like from the best seat in the galaxy. He shrugs and grabs another piece of green lightning.
He flings it with all his strength. It expands as it flies, growing larger and larger. Everything the green lightning touches disintegrates until it is stopped by the power of the Elder.
He pants tiredly. They've been at this for hours and they're getting nowhere. The Elder's physical form, its relative present, is nearly upon Izuku. And there's fucking nothing he can do to win.
If you love him, kindly, dispassionately and impersonally, then you will let him be free, brother.
"Oh my god, fine. Just shut up already."
The universe shifts.
The chains binding him to Shouto's story burn away.
He glances to the forest of floating trees. They burn in the godflame, kindling to the infernal fire. It is different than before. It isn't just infernal darkness. No, now there is the slightest warmth of compassion and an aspect of the power that let Shouto consecrate worlds in his image, hellfire merged into godflame.
He's changed the godflame itself, Mikumo whispers from the depths of his mind. He's made something new out of something eternal and unchanging.
"Oh, you're fucked now."
Shouto appears in a burst of dark flames. His entire left side is wreathed in the infernal flames, a sick parody of the power he showed during the tournament. One of his eyes is a black so dark that it very literally eats light.
Shouto raises his right hand.
A wall of ice larger than the arctic circle rises and blocks the creature's attack, not because of its strength but because at that moment, it becomes a fixed point in time, frozen against all deterioration. Against something a step from being a god, even manipulating time doesn't do much. The barrier shatters but it has served its purpose.
Shouto lifts his other hand high, almost as if reaching towards the sky.
The godflame swirls and rises to a crescendo. Then, a conflagration of infernal fire large as the sun sparks into existence. The dark sun emits waves of entropy instead of light and a cruel heat that sunders the bonds that permeate the most fundamental parts of existence.
Most of all, the howls of the damned exist within that flame. Hellfire and godflame unified as one entity, power enough to destroy a galaxy held in the hand of one boy. No, held in the hands of a king newly risen.
"Shouto, you know you're holding a sun, right?" Izuku asks from his place on the dragon's shoulder, irreverent in the face of power.
"Yes."
"And you realise that thing's shadow is larger than our galaxy."
Shouto turns to stare at Izuku, incredulous. Anything regal about him vanishes and he looks just like the person he's come to call a friend and ally.
"Are you seriously doing this right now when it's trying to eat us? No, shut the hell up."
Then, Shouto turns back to the monstrosity. Its approach is slow only because its vastness distorts the distance between them.
"Burn," Shouto commands and flings his arm forward.
The dark sun crosses the distance between them and the Elder thing. It looks so small in the face of a monstrosity that large. And yet, as it travels it rewrites fate and destiny. No longer are they bound to die to this thing. No, the shackles of the inevitable future burn away.
That sun expands, growing larger and larger until it is no longer a sphere and more a wall of godflame large enough to consume a galaxy a dozen, no, a hundred thousand times over. It burns away time and space and gravity and all unknown laws of the abyss in its path towards the elder thing.
Nothing can survive that wave, not even a monster like that. It isn't a matter of size but that of a power differential. And right now, Shouto stands at the pinnacle of power. Everything the flames touch burn away, overwhelming the Elder's shadow and physical form. It burns and burns and burns, powerless against the full extent of the godflame until nothing remains of it.
Izuku looks to Shouto as the godflame vanishes. He watches Shouto float slowly down to the dragon's hands.
He collapses and Izuku rushes forward, worried.
Shouto's shoulders tremble, his expression contorted in pain. He looks scared and horrified, a child and not a king.
"Hey, stay with me," Izuku whispers, gripping his shoulders tightly. "What's wrong?"
Shouto raises his head and smiles crookedly. "My greatest hatred and my greatest love. I gave that up."
Izuku swallows. "Your past."
"Yes. Hellfire and the memory of my mother. I can't recall anything about her. I must have loved her but the only reason I know that is because I can't ever forget the terms of the deal."
Izuku can't help but hug him because he knows he would never have the strength to pay that price. And this is all his fault. He holds Shouto tight until he stops trembling.
"Let's get out of here." He glances at the dragon and nods.
/I obey/ it says before beating its gargantuan wings.
"I can understand it," Shouto whispers.
"It's over now," Izuku whispers. "Let's just get out of here."
"How?"
"First, we fix my powers."
-TDB-
They fly through space and reality unimpeded. Izuku takes the time to calm himself, to let his nerves settle. The monster that's been chasing them is dead, burnt in the power of Shouto's kingship.
Shouto looks nothing like a king, tiny and cradled in the dragon's hands. His arms are wrapped around his knees. Izuku swallows uncertainly, not sure what to say in the final stages of their journey. He can't imagine losing his mother and would never be able to pay that price.
The dragon breaches another layer of the abyss and they pass through an ocean, kept dry by the purple aura around the dragon. Izuku drops down to stand beside Shouto as the dragon finally stops.
It deposits them on a beach of green sand. Izuku cocks his head and scans for the whales. And there they are, doing their best to shy away from the dragon. He waves in reassurance.
Izuku smiles and jumps onto the beach. "The godflame's heat can apparently fuse my conduit." Izuku removes his shirt and jacket, glad the latter is only a bit dirty.
"I don't know what I'm doing."
Izuku turns to face him, rolling his eyes. "You do." He points at Shouto's black eye. "What do you see now?"
"Those things you tried to shield me from. I can see them all. I think the godflame burns away the barriers of life and undeath, real and void. And it all looks so…"
"Pitiful," he finishes for him.
"Is that how you felt when we were travelling, and you had to watch me struggle against such weak things?"
"Yes. But only because I was useless. Never because of you. But if you can see that, you can see what needs to be bridged. So, hurry up and let's go home."
He presents his back once more to Shouto. Warm fingers trace the base where the conduit is. That red orb is what connects him to the power source that makes him shadowking, makes him a peer to Shouto. He may never be able to utilise anywhere near all of his power in the real world, but that's only because heat and light reign supreme that high up.
"This shouldn't hurt."
It does.
The pain is excruciating. But Izuku is used to pain so he doesn't scream or howl in agony. He knows the moment it is done for the world seems to shift. The shadows become clear to him once more, his sense of this impossible place sharpening until he can sense everything about this layer and not only where the next waypoint is.
He lifts a hand and watches as a wave of eternal shadow rises to his command. The sky darkens as he wields the entirety of his power, darkness and shadow once more his to command. In the back of his mind, he can hear the shrieks of the dreaming dead gods but ignores it.
Izuku grins. It feels good to be back.
"Good. Let's go home." He waves at the dragon. "Return to your master. Your duty is complete."
The dragon leans forward and opens its mouth. It breathes fire at their feet. Izuku blinks because the fire is purple, not black. And the flames have a warmth to them that soothes Izuku. Within those flames is an echo of love, of kindness and even benevolence. All things which should be alien to an abyssal dragon.
But not things that are alien to Shouto Todoroki. He glances at his friend and wonders exactly how much has changed about this place he thought he knew like the back of his hand.
Then, Izuku watches in surprise as many of the growths and scabs on his skin fade away in the face of the warm light. He understands that this is the dragon's final gift to them before it flies away, power and healing given freely.
"Come on, let's leave this place."
Izuku walks towards the pier and savours the smell of this rotting sea. Right beneath the inordinately long pier is a patch of shadow that will work well enough as a portal. He takes Shouto by the hand as he sinks through it.
They land in the twisted version of his room. Izuku waves away Shouto's question before it forms and simply takes them through the next doorway.
He senses the real world in his soul long before his nose picks up the imperceptible scent of true life or his skin feels the warmth of their sun. They're standing on the arena. Izuku looks around at the broken stadium and sees the remnants of the makeshift structures.
Under the real sun, he can see the silvery scars on Shouto's body. Dozens of them, tiny and nearly reflective. Signs, perhaps, of the betrayal he endured.
"We haven't been gone long," Izuku says. "A few days at most. Use your ice to make a signal. I think there might be people nearby."
Shouto nods and steps forward with his right foot. A trail of ice streaks past, longer than the ones he usually makes, before a pillar of ice taller than the stadium forms.
"Good enough?"
"Yeah." Izuku lowers himself slowly and lies on his back, looking at the sun. "What does the world look like to you now?"
He hears more than sees Shouto mirror his action.
"It looks normal most of the time. But if I focus a bit, I can see the energy all around us. I can see your neurons firing and all of your nerves."
"And when you really focus?"
"I can see the truth. I can see all the things hiding in the dark. I can the see the realms unseen and the worlds of ruin. The godflame… it's burning away those barriers through my eye."
"Sounds bad for your eye," Izuku says lightly. After all, his bones are crystal and his neural network is far beyond human. "Make sure you don't go blind."
Shouto makes a sound part amusement and part annoyance. "I'll try."
"And what do I look like to you?"
Shouto shifts, his clothes rustling loudly in the quiet, the only sign of nervousness he gives.
"I see a throne of darkness, sometimes small and sometimes massive, but always as large as it needs to be. You're wearing a crown of true dark and horns of crystal madness. Izuku, those things you were terrified of in lowest layers of the abyss, that song you whispered to me that knocked me down. That's your domain, all of that madness and calamity."
"I thought so. I guess I am a monster."
"What makes a monster? I just committed genocide, and no one will ever know. No one will ever care. I feel their grief, I know their wisdom but only because I burnt them away for power. Does that make me a monster? Titan never killed so many."
He rolls over to look at Shouto properly. "That's dif—"
"Why? They cared for their young. They taught each other lessons and passed down their knowledge. They respected their elders and fought for each other. Just because they were alien doesn't mean they weren't alive. I don't understand… People kill each other all the time. How can they stomach doing that to people who look like them? I feel like I'm going to break because I killed sentient trees."
He looks it too. The only time Izuku has seen him so weak, so vulnerable, he had just killed his mother and sister. They're both filthy, covered in grime and muck, but right now that doesn't matter.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for everything I've put you through."
"Did you know I'd survive?" Shouto asks, his dark eye watching Izuku and laying bare any secrets he has.
"I couldn't be sure," Izuku admits. "I had to have faith. This was your story and everything was leading you to an ending. I had to hope that you would survive for narrative reasons if nothing else. You loved your mother so much, Shouto, even after her betrayal. But that betrayal changed you as a person. Things are cyclical here. I had to betray you so that you could change. I was out of tricks. It was my final gambit. One final dues ex machina in your story."
"You asshole."
He grabs Shouto instead of answering. He doesn't spare a glance with the ice blade suddenly at his throat or the anger in Shouto's eyes. There's a threat, one he's used to after all their time together.
"I need you to listen," Izuku says coldly. "I need to teach you how to lie."
Shouto blinks and the blade vanishes.
"What?"
"Look at us, we look different. They won't believe it was only a few days. There've been villains who can manipulate time before and we're gonna take advantage of that. I'm going to teach you how to lie. I'll show you how to be a keeper, lock and key to any truth. We don't have a lot of time and I don't want to be experimented on for the rest of my life."
Beneath the mortal sun, Izuku whispers the secrets of lies. He whispers the very nature of each lie, how to construct them and make them true. There isn't much time and this would not work with anyone else. But Shouto has seen physical promises and fundamental truths. This a language they both know.
When he has taught Shouto those truths, he takes a piece of stone and carves a symbol on his thigh. It means nothing personally to Izuku, but it is part of the lie, a calling card for a villain that lived centuries ago. Shouto does the same to Izuku with a blade of ice.
They lie in the middle of the ruined stadium, battered and broken until the authorities arrive.
A/N:
Well now, that happened. Some of you correctly guessed what would happen, but I don't think anyone guessed the reasons it would happen.
This is the end of the arc I've termed 'The Long Road' in my head. Izuku and Shouto are back. This also represents a mild shift in tone. So far, you've seen the unrelenting darkness in this world. But in the darkest night, a candle shines all the brighter. You're gonna see more and more that most of the viewpoint characters in this story are driven by the love they have. They may not always do good things, but that's what drives them. This chapter is all about revelations, and you're starting to see the answers.
In more general news, this story is gonna wind up being longer. Which isn't a problem for you, I guess, but it means there's gonna be some restructuring. Instead of 4 seasons, we now have 5. Season 3, the current season, is going to be 18 chapters instead of my original 14. Season 4 is now 10 chapters, shorter than the original 12, but now it follows one story arc instead of being two radically different stories. And season 5 will be 9 full chapters plus the five epilogue chapters.
As a final piece of news, I've uploaded a new story called IHI Threat Assessment: Kurogiri which is basically an in-universe document covering Kurogiri. Anyone who wants to know more about him, can. It's the first of about 6-10 in-universe documents that will be posted at some point.
If you've enjoyed this, let me know. If not, let me know as well. But as always, your readership is more than enough for me. Cheers.