The Dark Below

by DarthPeezy

Izuku was never Quirkless. Sometimes, Quirks hide until they are triggered. Izuku died and came back. He gazed into the abyss and it followed him home. Everything he thought he knew about the world is about to change because there are monsters lurking in the dark below. Izuku wonders if he is one of them. [Latest version crossposted to Ao3.] [Complete]

72. Epilogue II: Shouto in Umbra

'Finally, at the end, you are ready to learn the final lesson. Any battle can be won or lost due to luck. But the chance for victory increases the more you prepare. Prepare a threat assessment of your potential enemies and you will never be surprised. If your body is weak, then prepare by training it. If your mind is dull, sharpen it with knowledge. If your will is weak, emulate those you respect. Plot out your victory and make robust plans with robust contingencies. The future of your opponents can be controlled with sufficient planning, and with great mastery, even their subconscious thought processes and patterns can be planned for.'

—Excerpt from the 'Tenets of Combat' by Shouta Aizawa, the Eraserhead.

Shouto Todoroki watches the universe through his right eye. It had been changed when he ascended to his throne all those years ago. That day, so long ago, he had bargained with the godflame and come out on top. Heat and entropy in his soul, light and gravity at his fingertips, the very future in his sight.

It lets him see energy in all forms, every part of the electromagnetic spectrum, every electrical connection, be it manmade or natural, and the flow of heat. If he chooses, he can see further into the real: he long ago saw the particles that form protons and neutrons, and in recent weeks he's learnt to observe the strings on the quantum level.

That is only a part of his sight, the lesser portion. The more important portion is that it lets him see realms unseen. He can observe the abyss safely without worry of a possible attack, not that anything there worries him anymore. He's already reshaped Creation.

Not only that. The godflame birthed time itself. It is his right to view it as he pleases, endless iterations of possible futures swirling in his head constantly. From the mundanity of conversations before they will happen to watching the grand arc of the universe. Whilst he waits for the world to catch up with him, he continues observing the possible futures. His heart sinks the more he does so. There will pain and hardship. Some of it will be for him.

But most will be for Izuku Midoriya.

It's impossible to truly see Izuku or Fumikage. They are above and beyond time, gods equal to Shouto. Their presence obscures the future, forcing Shouto to rely on people of lesser importance. People like Kirishima whom Shouto thinks may very well be a universal constant by how ever-present he is in every future.

Shouto turns to face him Izuku as he sits. In his right eye, he sees the king upon his throne of nightmares crowned in eternal darkness. He turns his head a bit more so that he can see the Izuku he knows and loves, eyes burning green, scars as familiar as those Shouto has.

They say nothing. If they wished, they could have a conversation without a single word. This is not that. This is simply taking comfort where it is offered.

"You're blind in your right eye, aren't you?"

Shouto's lips twitch. After the Singers had blinded him, Shouto's regrown eyes had been different. His left eye, the human one, can still see colours and shapes and everything a normal human eye can see, but everything is blurry. It will forever be a mark of the powers the Singers wielded.

His right had simply refused to see anything normal.

"How?"

"I can see the layer of your contact lens. What's wrong?"

Shouto leans away slightly, a way of telling Izuku that he's not ready to talk about the main topic. Izuku smiles, a reassurance that he will wait until Shouto is ready.

"How long?" he asks, knowing Izuku will fill in the blanks.

"I don't think I'm ready to face the outside world. It's getting violent and the entire world wants answers."

"You used to be able to make these decisions."

"I guess I regret what I did. They called me father, Shouto. Me. Doesn't that make me responsible for every life the Singers took?"

Shouto flicks Izuku in the forehead. "No, you idiot. Am I responsible for every person who dies of cancer? Everyone who dies because they fell? Everyone who died to the passage of time?"

"No."

"I hold dominion over those forces. I assure you, Izuku, my dominion has killed more people than yours." He smiles his usual ugly smile, one that never fails to make Izuku happy. "That's just life. Humans live and then they die. We aren't responsible for every death."

"Except for the deaths we cause. I don't want to sacrifice any more lives."

"You must."

Izuku's expression falls. Shouto turns away and looks to the night sky. He stares at the electromagnetic radiation reflected from the shattered moon. It still shines brightly with the echo of the powers they wielded that day: life itself encompassed by Fumikage's chains; the judgement of a dark king in Izuku's lightning; the power of the sun that and a thousand other stars wielded by Shouto, amplified exponentially by the godflame.

Izuku bumps his shoulder. "What do you see?"

"Everything."

"What's really bothering you."

"Jupiter." He points to the world. "It's changed. We need to be ready."

Izuku sighs. "You're telling me we need to leave and face the world." Shouto inclines his head slightly. "How bad is Jupiter?"

"Can't say. I'd need to be in space."

"You just want to go back."

Shouto smiles. "Yes. Talk later?"

"In the morning. I'll leave you to it."

Shouto nods. When Izuku is gone, he lets the grief show in his posture. "I'm sorry," he whispers long after Izuku is gone.

He spends the rest of the evening parsing through possible futures. There will be blood and pain and no certainty that any of it will matter.

When Fumikage comes to check on him, he simply points to the night sky. "Jupiter," he whispers, knowing Fumikage will understand.

-TDB-

Shouto holds Momo close as they float in the depths of space. It's beautiful here, and he sees the song the sun sings. He can see the words the planets weave with each beat and pulse of their lives. It is a tapestry of light, the interplay of radiation in space.

This is their fourth day in space so far, months after that conversation with Izuku. Shouto knows this is the best path, but he also knows it will be difficult.

"Momo," he says, pulling her from her observation of the world.

"It's just…"

Shouto chuckles, a deep rumbling sound in his chest. "It is."

Space is beautiful in a way that can't be described without experiencing it. The weightlessness. The knowledge that the final frontier has been conquered in some form.

It isn't their moon. It can never be their moon. That moon is gone, crushed by Izuku's lightning. But this is a moon, similar in mass and composition to the one they had before, but it's just so plain and even. No scars mark its surface, no signs of what it has lived through.

"Don't be alarmed."

"That just makes me want to be alarmed."

Shouto smiles wide enough for her to see. "Sorry."

He extends his arm and touches the godflame. There are still chunks of the original moon. He focuses on the gravitational force of the new moon and makes a few shifts here and there. Slowly, the chunks move into a stable orbit around the moon, a ring like that of Saturn but around their moon. There, that gives it a bit of character.

"You have a huge ego; I hope you know."

It's not an ego when you're God.

"Yes."

There is one other major change to this moon. Its core is made up entirely of ferrite. He fires a beam of godflame straight at the moon. It punches through the crust and mantle, throwing up ejecta like a dead volcano, and reaching the molten core quickly. He remembers the structure of the permanently magnetic ferrite the scientists showed him. Creating it is no more difficult than commanding the godflame to obey.

And obey it does. In less than a day the moon, which he decides to call Luna's Howl in his head, will have a magnetic field, the first step in their terraforming project.

They spend months in space and on the moon working. For a good week, he is moved from location to location, and creates copious quantities of ice, at both poles and a bit where the new continents will be. The continents they create by having Shouto use his godflame to simulate the creation of shifting tectonic plates.

Some weeks he spends with Momo, his only duty to supercharge her quirk as she adds nitrogen and argon and all the other gases humans need to breathe. It's beautiful watching her work if only for how her quirk interacts with the godflame. Somehow, Momo Yaoyorozu stole fire from the gods, Creation to Shouto's Destruction. As they work, he tells her the secrets of Creation, teaching her the broad strokes of the power she holds.

She is much better with subtle work than Shouto will ever be. Everything he does is brute force because why should he have to negotiate with anything? Momo, however, coaxes her power to affect the material world.

Eventually, it gets boring and he resorts to watching the video messages from Earth: Izuku most prominently followed by Fuyumi and Fumikage; sometimes he gets messages from Natuso and his mother and Kouta and even the children Fumikage adopted because apparently, he's been adopted into that ragtag family.

"Hey. You doing alright? You sounded tired. We're not doing anything super interesting over here. We're adding argon to the atmosphere right now. Talk to you later."

He sends the message and returns to observing Momo. She's stopped her work and is watching him.

"You guys are good together," she says before returning to her work of making the moon habitable. Shouto shakes his head and puts that out of his mind.

Jupiter still makes him anxious when he observes it. The telescopes show nothing anomalous about it but with his sight, that red spot seems to be changing. Something is growing beneath the gas clouds, and they're blind to it. He just hopes they are ready to face the coming threat.

"I don't know," Izuku says in a message. "It's all so fucking hard. Everyone wants answers and reassurances I can't give. Everyone wants me to be the leader I'm not. I don't want to take over the country but everyone keeps on pushing me. You're not here and I need you. Fumikage's gone and I wish he was answering my calls. I know you said we need to do it like this, but I miss you."

Shouto ignores the pain in his heart. It must be done like this even if it hurts Izuku. They need to do some good before the world will trust them. Returning the moon and making it habitable is one step in the right direction. It will give people something to look forward to. It will also make them stop looking too deeply into events.

He spends a long and boring week alone at the equator, adding steam to the atmosphere. It's a tedious job. Create a huge chunk of ice. Superheat it and generate steam. Direct the resultant energy uniformly across the planet to warm it.

It's the kind of shit he can do in his sleep. Momo has the much more interesting job of expanding their comms network to earth. He notices the moment it is set up as radio waves permeate the air. If he wishes, he could probably learn what people are saying but that sounds like it takes more effort than zero.

Purely out of boredom, he starts superheating the artificial tectonic plate to create a volcano. He's stopped almost immediately by the scientists who are both annoyed with him for going against the plan and annoyed with themselves for having to follow a plan.

Izuku's latest message makes him falter in his resolve.

"The Indian Delegation had spies armed with these weird quirk suppressing weapons." He looks tired and about ready to collapse from stress. "I got to them before they caused too much damage, but they hit Kouta. They fucking got Kouta. I get that people are angry but they're trying to make things worse. And it wasn't even religious extremists or something like that. It was just normal people. And it's taking up so much time. I'm the only person Kouta has and I haven't seen him in three days. He's upset and angry with me and I don't know what to do. You always know what to do."

He's in his room on the base so he can respond immediately. "I'm sorry. You'll have to be strong without me."

A month of hard work later and the moon has its first body of liquid water. It has a heat vent beneath it to keep it warm, one powered by a spark of eternal godflame. Momo looks about ready to pass out from creating all the microbes and algae and bacteria the scientists wanted. As a result, the sea looks mildly noxious, but it will apparently play a key role in getting the moon self-regulating.

"I miss mum so much," Izuku says, tiny and balled up like a child. His eyes are red from crying and he looks tired. "I lost All Might. Dad. Mom. Mikumo. They all went so quick and I, and I… why is it always me? Can't I just-why can't I be happy. Fumikage's somewhere in South America doing something and he won't tell me what. You're on the moon. I can't trust anyone down here except Shuichi and he only cares about his war."

Shouto smiles sadly and responds. "I love you. Be strong for me. For all of us. Be the leader you know you are."

He's numb after that message and fucks up a routine introduction of steam to the environment. He fails to direct the excess energy safely and wind up damaging their comm tower. The scientists don't chew him out for it considering that he's the only reason any of them can see the Moon terraformed.

It is Momo that pulls him away from the disappointed stares and orders him into a vacuum suit. She helps him into his and he does the same for her. Soon, they're walking the surface of the moon.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No," he says. "Which is why I should."

She points at a crater and they walk towards it. "Talk."

Shouto huffs. She's become a lot blunter in the months they've spent on the moon. Then again, they're friends now. Have been for years ever since they started a war between Russia and China. Those had been fun times, simpler than what they're doing now.

"I miss Izuku. He's alone and scared. I'm here, no concerns. And he's carrying the weight of the world for me."

"Then go back," she says, sitting on the lip of the crater.

They can see the earth from here. There's something of a bluish tinge to it from the steadily growing atmosphere the two of them have created. He's certain that they could walk away and come back in a few hundred years to discover a thriving biome.

"I can't. We have to work here."

"I wouldn't mind a break. Take a few months rotation and then come back."

He chuckles. "If I saw him, I wouldn't be able to leave him again."

"That's all the more reason to go back." He stays quiet. "What's the real reason?"

"There's… a plan," he explains, knowing she won't betray his trust, "for peace. I'm doing my job here. Izuku needs to be alone right now. Me and Fumikage can't be in the spotlight for that plan."

"Is that why there's a push for Hokkaido's independence as a new nation and Kirishima's been trying to get me to join his supposed revolution?"

"We only skewed public perception a bit. A lot of people think Izuku's a deity or a demon. Him taking power isn't farfetched after that."

"I don't know if I like this plan." His heart falls. He thought she of all people would understand. "You're asking Izuku to take power. He just wants to save people and you're asking him to be a new Stormwind."

That makes him realise she knows him too well.

"Better Stormwind than Titan."

"Do morals mean nothing, now?"

Shouto shrugs. "Maybe not."

"I don't know if I fully trust you," she admits, "but I trust Izuku. And, I think of everyone, he's the one trying to do the most good. Even if he has you as an advisor."

Shouto isn't hurt by that. After all, the lives of mortals don't matter to him. "Maybe he'd listen to you."

"Maybe," she mumbles. "My family's managed to keep their wealth even after everything that's happened. Enough money to buy a country or start a new one."

Trying to suppress his grin is a fool's errand. He knows what she's saying. "And you're the next in line."

"Just my father who profits from suffering is standing in the way. I don't think anyone would miss him too much."

"And maybe, just maybe, you'd like your massive palatial estate and its attending city put to good use? Maybe you'd like it to be the capital of a new nation?"

She doesn't answer, perhaps remembering him mentioning it during the Singer Incursion. He had warped to her home because he needed someone to talk to, someone who wouldn't make him feel like a complete monster for making Izuku make hard choices. She'd asked for a world without nukes and Shouto had given her one.

Since then, they've all had to make hard choices. In a world churning with chaos and violence, there is no good option.

"They were my friends," she finally says.

"Who?"

"Jirou and Shindo and Intelli. We thought we'd do something amazing with Katsuki but he…"

"Ah." He says nothing for a few long minutes. "They're all working with Kirishima now. Fighting the good fight and all that."

She leans her head against his shoulder. "Which makes them enemies."

"I won't pretend I have any interest in them. There's a list of people I can count on two hands that I really care for. I won't stop you if you want to go back but I don't want you to be our enemy. You've seen how much good we've done. Maybe you can show us how to do better."

"Am I on that list?"

She won't see his smile. "Would you even believe me if I said yes?"

"Probably not."

They spend an hour just watching the earth with no more questions between them. She doesn't judge him, doesn't make him unsure of himself. There's no ulterior motive with her. And for that, he will always be grateful for Momo.

"I loved him."

"Bakugou?"

She nods against his shoulder. "Yeah. Even those feelings… they don't fade, but they stop hurting as much with time and distance. He died as he lived. Angry and cocky and so bombastic. I wish I had loved him more."

He wraps his arm around her bringing her closer. "Should I be jealous?"

"Always."

"I've never been the jealous sort."

Eventually, the suits chime warnings for them to return. Something about oxygen levels. Shouto isn't concerned. They can both generate the substance. But it always makes the scientists fret and that's just not worth it.

The base is built in the shadow of a hill, a sprawling thing with dozens of prefab buildings the Yaoyorozu family has started a company around. With the copious money they've spent in expanding the launch capabilities and general funding, much of what Shouto wanted to do would be impossible. It'll get harder and harder to push them to his own ends going forward, but if Momo's in control, then Shouto will have the wealth of nations at his fingertips.

That money will fund their research into merging human technologies with abyssal powers. It will fund their armies and give them access to the world.

They enter the airlock of the main building, the door sliding open with a hiss. Shouto taps the screen and it slides shut.

"Are you and Midoriya ever finally gonna get together?" she asks suddenly whilst the airlock is cycling.

"We're not in a relationship."

"Bullshit. I've seen couples that don't love each other the way you two do."

"He's a friend. I love him. I love Fumikage."

"Oh no, you don't love bird-brain the same way. What's the real story?"

She's a friend and connected to the godflame, so he's more willing to confide in her.

"I love him but I don't want to do… stuff with him. He's mine and I'll burn the world for him. And I'm his and he'll drown the world in darkness for me."

"You guys are just so romantic." She laughs. "So, do you… like ever have urges? To do stuff."

"I'm nineteen? Twenty. Whatever. Every morning, I wake up wanting to have sex."

She presses her helmet against his. "We could do stuff."

He shifts awkwardly. "I don't really want a girlfriend."

"I don't want a boyfriend. I've learnt they leave you behind eventually." She smiles and it's bright even through the frosted glass barrier. "You can keep Midoriya for all the rest. Let's just enjoy life."

The airlock finishes cycling. He helps her out of her suit but every action leaves his finger vibrating in anticipation, in yearning. They are professional enough to dress in their off-duty clothes but when they leave the changing room, Momo holds his wrist delicately. She smiles and he nods.

She pushes off and pulls him along. His heartbeat increases as they get closer and closer to her room. At the door, her hand hesitates over the biometric lock.

"We don't have to do this if you don't want."

He takes the hand holding his writs and brings it to his lips. His kiss is gentle, her fingers soft. "I think I do."

She smiles. "Okay."

The door opens, and she pulls him in. He doesn't know what to do or say. But that's fine. She leads him through the motions, guiding his hands. His fingers tremble and he is so incredibly awkward, but she is patient and kind, allowing him to explore a new realm.

That uncertainty, that cautious exploration of boundaries in zero gravity, is what makes it beautiful.

-TDB-

It has been a few years since that conversation with Momo. The plan progresses apace with few disruptions outside of Kurogiri's surprise return to importance. Shouto spends more time organising their R&D departments than he does with those he cares for. Fuyumi had thoroughly scolded him when he visited.

He also spends time encouraging the religions, cults and movements that worship the three of them, especially in the army Spinner directs. That faith will be useful in the coming years. Right now, he's in the new capital updating the plan. Momo's former home now serves as the seat of their growing country.

From here, Izuku directs the efforts of their people. It is here that the Senate convenes and here where the most critical ministries serve. They are slowly moving the judicial system to Sendai and hopefully, the Senate will follow. One day, this estate will serve purely as Izuku's palace.

For now, though, he must share the space with everyone. From the division commanders of the former League who have been given land and posts in the government to Crawler who serves on the Supreme Court as its youngest member. The former members of the Imperial Household have been invaluable, filling critical positions in the administration Shouto hadn't even known needed to be filled, all overseen by Maya, former Royal Guardswoman.

As with all times he visits, Izuku finds him easily. He's looking weary. For all the power that he has, Izuku is still the same boy trying to make the world a better place, one person at a time. It is that quality that permeates his every word and motion, that reassurance that he will fight for you, that makes people believe in him more than they should.

He is also lonely, insecure and afraid. These are the things Shouto can see as easily as he breathes.

"I'm happy for you two."

Izuku traces the gold chain around his neck. It is the latest gift from Momo. It looks simple at first glance, but each of the twelve links has a depiction at the atomic level of their first trip terraforming the moon. Only he can see it and that makes the gift infinitely more precious.

But, the sad look Izuku has isn't worth all the gold in the world.

He lays his hand over Izuku's, traps it between his neck and hand. "You're mine. I love you."

"And you're mine," Izuku responds by rote. "But you love her as well."

"Yes. Not like you."

"But I can't give you what you want."

Shouto brings his head closer until their foreheads touch. Izuku is shorter than him, physically small in a way that forever surprises Shouto. But his presence has always been larger than life, his strength capable of carrying mountains.

"You're all I need. All I will ever need."

"I'm never going to ever want to…" Izuku trails off, embarrassed.

Shouto laughs silently, gentle as the Spring winds. "I never asked you to. It would be nice but you're perfect as you are. I don't need to have sex with you to love you. I love Momo but I probably won't in about a decade."

"I guess I'm just projecting my insecurities on you. The world is getting to a point where we'll have to look past Japan."

"The plan is progressing apace. Shuichi's reorganising your army well."

Izuku pulls away. "I never wanted to rule."

"Better you than a monster. It's time to accept Korea's requests for aid. It will divert our resources enough for us to ignore the next distress call."

"Who will suffer?"

"The Philippines," he answers, already seeing the possible futures. "They will starve, and their government will collapse whilst we restore order to Korea. When we arrive, they'll welcome us and we'll exert control upon them. Our armies shall rebuild their homes and we will give resources freely to any who accept registration in the Federation. We will teach their children and their current leaders will be allowed to stay in place so long as they follow our laws. When Kirishima's revolutionary army comes, the people will pick up arms and fight him. And we will bring our forces down and drive him out. Only then, will they truly become citizens of our Federation."

"The ruthless calculus of survival and conquest. Divided they fall. United we will stand."

"You agreed to this."

"Yes, but fighting Kirishima is… why do other people have to suffer?"

"Could you kill him?"

"I could never hurt him."

"He is our greatest asset. Only he will be able to oppose us. He'll fight us for decades and will be the one to lead the greatest revolutionary army. Only he will be able to win consistently even if he ultimately loses the war. And at the end, he'll gather up every last bit of resistance. And on that day, Spinner will crush him. We will break the image of the immortal Red Revolutionary. His final loss at the blade of your Wrath will secure the image of our invincibility. On that day, we'll be ready to face whatever remains of the world."

"I hate this. He was my friend."

"And he chose to stand against you. We will use him to further our purposes."

"We've become cruel."

"We've become cruel, not you." Shouto leans forward and kisses him on the forehead. "Take care."

"Have fun on the moon."

That simple reassurance helps him take the next step to make the moon habitable. It is two long years that he works with Momo and all the various scientists and engineers. Two long years away from Izuku. There is a certain satisfaction with breathing lunar air unaided. He helps Momo remove her helmet and watches her take her first breath of the atmosphere they've worked so hard to create. Then he steals that breath with a kiss. She smiles during the kiss and pulls him closer.

They spend another three months on the moon making sure it is self-regulating enough that they can leave. He helps plant rows upon rows of saplings engineered to survive even the harshest conditions. It won't be another earth by any means. The moon is colder and drier and the gravity lower. But it will be a new home for mankind amongst the stars. It will also be their first base against the horrors of deep space that will one day converge on them.

When he returns to Earth, he doesn't expect to see a man dressed in black waiting for him.

"Fumikage."

It's been years since they've last spoken. An abyssal crow perches on his shoulder, observing the world for its master. With his true sight, Shouto can see the horde of creatures that make up his soul, all chained to his will. His soul is a living universe, one teeming with life.

They don't dislike each other, despite the silence between them, but the way they love is infinitely different. Both are solitary creatures. Only Izuku's presence makes them forget what they are at the core.

"Let's get a drink," Fumikage says and that is how Shouto knows something bad will happen.

The bar they visit is already empty. Fumikage drinks whiskey on the rocks. Shouto takes a gin and tonic.

They do not speak during the first drink nor do they say a word over the third. Halfway through his bottle of gin, Shouto wonders if they ever will. Once his bottle is done, he needs to use the godflame to purge the poison from his body.

"My mother passed away," Fumikage says, voice steady as though he hasn't drunk anything. Which is inaccurate because he's nearly finished with his fourth bottle.

"Oh," Shouto says, understanding.

"Indeed. My quest for a cure in South America was successful. It's proven successful on all patients." He raises his glass in a toast. "But for my mother who died a month before I returned. Years of searching. Years of research. All that work only to fail."

His feathers are slick with tears, his words bitter. Fumikage may sound composed and eloquent, but Shouto can feel the grief as a physical thing in the air. He can see it in the many creatures Tokoyami has bound to his soul, all howling with the grief of their master.

Shouto doesn't care much for appearances and right now, his friend is grieving. He pulls Fumikage close and holds him tight as he grieves. They stay like that for hours, neither saying a word. Without Izuku filling the spaces between them, things are more awkward than usual, but they fit together.

Whilst he may never say it out loud, Shouto does love Fumikage. The feeling is mutual.

When Fumikage has recovered enough he pulls away. "Thank you. Izuku still grieves his mother. And we did not part on the best of terms."

Shouto nods in understanding. "What was she like?"

Fumikage smiles in that odd way of his, a shifting of his stance and a loosening of his posture.

"My mother was stronger than either I or my father could hope to be. Headstrong and stubborn. She never once backed down in her beliefs."

The stories go on well into the morning.

Years after that day, a time comes where Japan is truly ready to look outward and create their Federation by military force and not benevolence. Indonesia, the Philippines and Korea are all incorporated by now, their people citizens of Izuku's budding nation. Spinner's army is larger than ever before, having just broken the million mark. And they will need every single one of those soldiers for when they begin their war on Russia.

He maps out hundreds of possible futures, a dozen contingencies each. It will be a war that lasts decades and the soil will run red by the time it ends.

But that red soil will bear the fruits of their labour for generations to come.

He visits his family before he leaves. He doesn't know how long he'll be gone for, and he doesn't want Fuyumi shouting at him again.

The Todoroki home is much the same as it was in his childhood. It had been destroyed by the warfare, but Shouto had simply rebuilt it stronger than ever.

Fuyumi opens the door, her expression blank and cold.

"Hey."

He offers his usual awkward smile. It fails to make her smile. Strange. She's always found it endearing.

"I don't want you seeing her," Fuyumi finally says.

"What?"

"You heard me. Don't come to see mother. No more."

He tilts his head, utterly failing to understand. He didn't foresee this conversation. "Why?"

"How many people died in the Philippines?"

"No more than five million," he answers easily. It had made him proud to minimise the losses to that extent. "What does that have to do with it?"

"That's the problem," she says furiously. "You think five million means nothing. You're a murderer."

"Those deaths are necessary. They're the reason you're alive. The reason your grandchildren will have homes. Why their grandchildren won't be consumed by a threat worse than the Singers."

"So, the end justifies the means?"

"I'm doing this for you."

Anger blooms, her pupils dilating and her heart pounding furiously. For the first time in his life, Shouto fears his sister will attack him.

"Do not. Lay this. On me." She steps forward and Shouto takes an unconscious step back. "I will not bear your sins."

"I'm not asking you to."

"How many people will die for your conquest? The truth."

For some reason, he feels cold. His mouth is numb, his throat dry, and his fingers shaking. Why, why, why?

"Conservative estimates place it at five hundred million," he says without emotion. "Should the budding Euro-African Coalition choose war when we turn to them, that number rises to no less than two billion. Still better than the extinction humanity would have faced through nuclear fire."

She slaps him. The force of it isn't in the physical, it is in the concept. Fuyumi, his beloved sister, has just hit him. The idea is so shocking that it knocks him flat on his ass.

"Get out and don't come back. Don't ever come close to us again."

"I'm doing this for you."

"That's exactly what father said," she spews venomously. "But at least he did what he did out of love. You're just a monster."

"I love you."

"No, Shouto, you don't. I don't think you've really loved us since the first time you went to the abyss. The only thing you love is your plans. Everyone else is just a pawn. You don't love your family. You don't love Momo."

"Don't," he warns.

"You don't love Fumikage."

"Stop."

"And you certainly don't love Izuku."

"That's enough!"

She says nothing, watching him indifferently, cast in a strange light. It is only then that he realises that black flames have engulfed him.

"Look at you," she says, tired. "You're willing to kill me. That's not love, Shouto. Just leave us alone and let us live the rest of our lives without you."

That will be the last time he speaks to another Todoroki. Touya is cold and unreceptive, his sister actively hostile and his mother silent.

They make their desire clear and so he honours it by staying away as he plots the conquest of the world, one crumbling nation after another.

Today Shouto plays the role of a diplomat. Izuku runs their nation and Shuichi their army, Fumikage their intelligence services, but Shouto assumes the role of diplomat. It has taken years to build his diplomatic corps and fill it with people who genuinely love the Federation.

He finds himself in Singapore, the current neutral meeting ground for the eastern nations.

He endures accusations by a dozen tiny nations that the positioning of their army is provocative and that the numbers of the armed quirk regiments exceed treaty limitations. He smiles through demands they stand down and allow the UN to take control of their army.

"We have colonised the moon and made it habitable. We do not intend on sharing our launch capabilities nor do we plan to permit access to it."

Shouto says that to the representative from the new Vladivostok Imperium—one of the dozen successor states to Russia following the incursion—who also happens to be a member of their rather inept intelligence apparatus. It had taken Tokoyami's Crows about three days to find every pressure point on the man and his extended family.

The Imperium is the largest amongst the Russian successor states and the one closest to Federation territories. That proximity is the only reason Shouto treats the man with any measure of respect.

"The moon is international territory by treaty," another diplomat, one from the Shandong Economic Bloc. "You shot down an unarmed flight without provocation."

China had suffered the brunt of the Singer's incursion. Where once there had been just shy of two billion people, there are now under eight hundred million. The Shandong Bloc in East China had cobbled together a government and seized vast tracts of land before coming up against other successor states.

Shouto doesn't roll his eyes. "It was armed with a kiloton of nuclear armaments." He doesn't add that the shuttle was intentionally moving below the speed limit before nukes stop working.

"A baseless accusation you have shown no substantial evidence for," another representative, this time from Malaysia. "In addition, you have long stopped paying reparations for Taiwan."

"That was a treaty signed by the Imperial Household and National Diet, both of which are defunct organisations. The Federation accepts no responsibility for their actions."

"Yes, your Federation that hasn't answered for the abyssal incursion. We know Izuku Midoriya to be responsible, yet you let him walk free without consequence."

This is the eighth straight day of this nonsense. They've made no headway on any sort of compromise. Not least of which because he's trying to juggle a dozen different interests from people that all hate each other for various reasons.

"He was tried and acquitted of all charges of abyssal malfeasance. It was determined that the individual known as All For One was responsible for those actions by a court empowered by the UN Court of Justice."

The way he sees the future doesn't give him an exact knowledge of the time an event will happen. He knows it's supposed to happen soon but soon might be an hour or three years depending on how things progress.

It forces Shouto to stay in Singapore whilst his peers get to do the fun things. At the very least, he gets to spend time with the junior members of the diplomatic corps, teaching them how to navigate the confusing waters of international politics.

"What does the Vladivostok Imperium want?" Shouto asks in Filipino to his current aide, a young man in his twenties. He's got a lot of potential, able to speak five languages fluently, including Russian.

"Resources, mostly."

"Then write it up. Be generous in fact. They need the money from taxes and tariffs more than we do. Give it a… let's say fifteen-year guarantee of rates."

The aide leans back, shock evident on his features. "Sir, that will be… that's madness. We can't afford that."

"Of course, we can. They don't have any resources we want. They don't have any industrial goods that will benefit us. What do they have to trade with us?"

"Land."

"Exactly." Shouto nods. "That's what we'll trade them for. The right for Federation citizens to purchase land. They'll likely tax it outrageously and even try to block a lot of it. But their currency is trading eighty-to-one with ours. A two hundred percent tax means nothing. We'll purchase their lands, their houses, and their apartments. That way they'll effectively pay us more than we will ever lose to them."

The aide sits back, observing Shouto keenly. His eyes are sharp and part of the reason Shouto picked that child up from the muck years ago.

"Is that what you did to my country?"

Shouto cocks his head. "Technically not."

"That answer is always yes in different words."

That startles a laugh out of him. His wit can be a thing of beauty or weapon to be employed. Shouto's spent years cultivating everything about the man from his intellect to his physical capabilities. In time, Shouto hopes he will take over as head of the diplomatic corps.

"We exerted different means of control. We brought food and resources and rebuilt infrastructure. All that you needed to do was register for Federation to access those privileges. We let your leaders continue to rule and after a few years, most of the population was registered with the Federation. There was a vote held as to whether your country should become Federated. As the first, you were given privileges and powers very few after will ever receive. But that's become a promise we dangle to a lot of other countries."

"What happens if the world ever learns of this?"

"Nothing. Everyone can see what's happening, but most people in Asia lack basic necessities and rule of law. They don't care who brings order. And besides, we bring order but let people retain their cultural identities. There's free trade within Federation borders. And we expend copious amounts of money to improve the basic standard of living."

"You just also happen to institute leaders who are easily paid off, school systems that paint the Federation in a positive light, and don't suppress any of the religious groups that support you."

"It's a domino effect."

All things considered, the deal is struck quickly. His aide spends weeks working for the Imperium's staff, moving things with startling efficiency. The Imperium needs an injection of wealth and currency desperately to feed its people, and the Federation has that in spades. For them, it looks like a victory over the much larger Federation.

"The ambassador is a reprehensible man," his aide says, disgusted. "Decadent and all too grabby."

Shouto frowns. "Do we need him removed? I'm not bartering my own staff away."

"It's fine. I'll deal with it."

"As you say. Get us an embassy with a military presence on their soil soon."

His aide stops pacing. "That's asking for a lot."

"I know."

The event strikes a decent middle-ground of two years later. His diplomatic team is thrown into a frenzy when the event occurs. He sends out assistants to stall until the final confirmation comes through. It is three of the Russian successor states that commit the act of setting off a tactical nuclear weapon in Bandung, Indonesia.

That is nothing short of a declaration of war, one Shouto will take full advantage of.

"What do we do?" his aide asks, tired, skin pale.

"What the Federation does best." Shouto smirks. "We go to war."

"Against Russia?"

"Yes."

"It would take no less than thirteen million trained soldiers to occupy it."

"If occupation was our only goal, yes, but in the decades to come, we will build infrastructure. We will give the people every reason to be citizens of the Federation. Do you think a poor farmer in Eastern Russia cares who runs their country?"

"How long do you expect this to take?"

"At best, twenty years. At worst, close to seventy."

Time will always be on their side. In seventy years, Shouto will look the same and Izuku will still be running their nation, Fumikage working in the background as always. In those years, other nations will face the issue of succession whilst their Federation remains stable.

"Buy why Russia? There's nothing there but energy resources. And we can trade those without an endless war."

"We need land. With my abilities, Russia will be the largest farmland the world has ever seen. That land will be used to stockpile food and mineral resources. We will control the single largest reserve of food. We will decide the price of a full stomach and who has the privilege of not starving. We will decide if you spend one pound for a loaf of bread or twenty pounds. That's why we want Russia. Follow the money. In this case, follow the food."

His aide stops pacing. "That's not all."

Clever boy.

"No, it isn't. Russia will be a testbed for abyssal technologies. In Russia, we will build our superweapons and test them. In Russia, we will generate more energy in a single year than the last century. Russia's empty land will be the key to our supremacy." He snaps his fingers. "Get me the ambassador."

It doesn't take more than an hour before the ambassador and Shouto are in a private room whilst the other diplomats and their attending staff are running around like headless chickens. Most people are terrified of the Federation's army led by the inexorable Great Dragon. Their nation is a hungry beast and the only food it will accept is new people to assimilate.

Shouto stares at the tiny ambassador of the Vladivostok Imperium dispassionately. "You know what's happened."

"We had no part in that."

"I know you didn't," Shouto says. "But now you'll have to make a choice. You can be the Federation's enemy or you can side with us. Food. Money. Resources. Most of all, we offer security. We already have a means of invasion. It'll take us six months before your capital falls. We'd rather not tie up resources."

"Russia can't be invaded," the ambassador says, cracking.

"Do you remember my fire?" he asks gently. "Do you remember my fires across the world, incinerating the enemies you were helpless to face? Do you remember that feeling of wonder and terror as Izuku Midoriya lit up the solar system? Push me and I'll do the same to your capital until it's nothing but a burnt crater. You have twenty-four hours to make your choice."

He leaves the ambassador and heads to the auditorium. It is time for the Federation's statement to be made. It is time to stop playing games and begin their quest for world domination.

Shouto walks to the podium and waits until the ambassadors are silent. Dozens of them from the eastern blocs stretching from the Middle East to the Federation.

"I will make this short. A nuclear weapon was used in Bandung. We have determined it to be from Russia and will now take this time to formally declare war upon the nation. That is all."

One of the representatives snorts. "The Motherland is dead, boy. Russia is no nation. What Russia do you speak of?"

Shouto cocks his head. "Then I'll make it clear."

Of the dozen Russain successor states, only three are responsible for the attack. But sacrifices must be made for a peaceful future. He connects to the godflame in his soul. Infernal flames surround four of the representatives for the successor states.

Shouto ignores the screams and panic. All those things are unimportant.

"That is what we consider Russia," he says, not caring who listens to him. "My father told me once to fear the flame. It was good advice. I hope you follow it."

-TDB-

Sixty years pass since that declaration of war. Since then, the Federation gobbled up Russia and Asia and India, the Americas and Australia. That had left the Euro-African Coalition as their only enemies. Shouto had expected a war the likes of which the world has never seen.

Instead, there is peace, tenuous though it is.

They sit in the High Consul's garden. The Chrysanthemums are in bloom today. They are Izuku's way of honouring the man who was his father, of honouring Hisashi Atakani who chose to die for their sake a century ago.

Izuku looks the same as always, though he wears his hair shorn clean to his scalp. It makes the scar of his first death stand out vividly. His eternal youth is sustained by his kingdom, the nightmarish hellscape and dread creatures singing a song to end all life in worship. That inky blackness taints his soul, and in Shouto's true eye his throne is madness and cruel design.

His physical youth is the only thing young about Izuku. Though he wears a simple shirt, a mantle of responsibility is forever draped over his shoulders. It is the responsibility of those they rule over, the promise to ensure prosperity and protect his citizens from the future. It nearly broke him in the first few decades.

Perhaps being a bloody peacemaker did break him. They've brought the world to heel over a mountain of corpses and oceans of blood.

Now though, even relaxed and away from the world's attention, he seems a benevolent leader through and through. There is a strength that he exudes just by existing. It isn't a result of his physical strength nor is it the mastery over the wind from All For One's dead heart. It also isn't the absolute control he has over the shadows.

No, this is the spiritual strength that permeates every part of his being. It is the inexorable momentum of his legacy, the depths of his hopes and love, and the simple promise he has made: To protect those who cannot protect themselves. It is the promise of the fallen hero Shadowshield, the heir to All Might and All For One. It is the promise Izuku Midoriya makes each time he orders another death.

Shouto rubs Izuku's shin, kneading the tense muscles.

They speak of everything and nothing in this garden away from the world. When you have known someone for a century, every word is important, and yet, at the same time, completely meaningless. Saying words is an indulgence for people who understand each other implicitly.

"Kouta did a good job," Izuku says. "And you thought peace was impossible."

"You're going to hold that over me forever, aren't you?"

"Yeah. When was that, anyway?"

Shouto shrugs. "For you, maybe twenty years. For Fumikage, closer to fifty. It's been a century for me."

He has a habit of getting lost in time whilst Fumikage tends to get lost in different realities. Izuku's presence on Earth has been constant, an everlasting king on his throne.

"We unified half the world and the glue we used was blood and bone. And yet, my little brat of a brother inspired peace with his words."

"I don't think a century makes him little."

They talk more, exploring the rest of the Palace. It has expanded greatly since Shouto was last here, back before they even fought Russia. Towers glimmering with abyssal powers and artificial lakes. Gardens upon gardens make up Izuku's sanctuary away from the world.

"I need to move on from him," Shouto says hours later when they're walking down a canal.

Izuku doesn't ask who. They've known each other too long for that. Shouto could paint a map of Izuku's scars and never once look to him for reference.

Izuku is short enough that even with Shouto leaning down, his oldest friend still needs to stand on his toes to kiss Shouto across the forehead.

"Come back when you're ready."

There is no expectation of his return and that makes Shouto love him more than he did before. After all the fights they've had, the decades they've spent apart stewing in silence, being able to talk with Izuku again is relaxing.

He takes his cloak and sets off. He walks without shoes as millions before he had done. He sleeps in the same hostels as pilgrims before him, accepting their kindness. He learns of the pantheon he created from priests he taught just as so many before him.

It may be disconcerting for many to see their High Priest dressed as a commoner, wearing threadbare clothes and walking barefoot. It shames them for if he can humble himself and walk as a mortal, what reason do they have for weakness?

At the end of his pilgrimage through Japan, he comes to the ruins of a city.

Fumikage stands tall, first amongst equals in his brilliant armour and gleaming sword.

His friend plunges the blade deep in the earth.

"I will hold this vigil in honour of this great legend."

He lays his hand on Fumikage's shoulder. No words are exchanged. That single touch carries with it the weight of centuries of friendship, of shared burden and heartache and love. This is how Fumikage loves him, silently and deep as the oceans. There is no question that Fumikage would face the world for him. Has, in fact, done so.

Fumikage always stands faithfully, a knight and protector, balancing duty and honour between Shoto's bloody vision of the future and Izuku's ideals. He and Fumikage have been lost in strange times and strange worlds, and always Fumikage stood to protect to Shouto despite them both surpassing human limits.

Shouto still carries the white blade Fumikage gave him so long ago, a reminder of Fumikage's willingness to sacrifice anything for those he loves.

Shouto nods and walks past Fumikage who stands still as a statue.

Upon this day, only Shouto has a right to visit the shrine. On this day, anniversary to the death of his father, on the day Endeavour fell defending the world, this pilgrimage site is closed.

He kneels before the pyre of his father's soul. It isn't him and lacks all the cold cruelty and steely determination that made his father more than an echo of fire.

And yet, it is more than enough.

His family is dead to the passage of time. He misses Fuyumi and Toya and Naoko and his mother but a part of him is glad. The mortals he loved are mostly dead and there is no chance his heart will shatter when they perish. Only Kouta remains and he has contracted an illness, one incurable by every means they have available. With him gone, Shouto will be able to live without fear of pain again.

It will make ensuring their plans progress far easier. There won't be a nagging voice that sounds suspiciously like Fuyumi or Kouta once it is done.

"Hello, father."

My legacy, my heir and son, the echo says, the flames burning stronger as it speaks.

There are many things he can say. He could rage or offer an explanation or simply ramble for hours.

He chooses to keep it simple.

"I forgive you."

Why, my son? Speak true your reasons.

Of course, his father would not make it easy. Even in death, he still challenges Shouto.

"I understand why you did what you did. I've had to make harder decisions. We've done things that can't be forgiven all so that there would be humanity at the end of the road. Do you know how many lives I've taken and the families I've ruined? All for peace and sanity. I think I should be asking you for forgiveness."

Fear the flame, my son. Fear it, for only then can you control it.

He bows his head, grateful for this tiny bit of absolution. He never once thought he would find forgiveness in Endeavour and never thought he would commit acts worse than his father.

Shouto takes hold of this altar, this blazing pyre to his father's legacy, and snuffs it out. The black flames that told the tale of the man who was his father fade and return to his soul. Shouto accepts them, accepts all that his father was.

And when those memories are part of him, he stands and walks away past time and space. There is work to be done and no time to mourn someone dead a century ago.

-TDB-

Shouto returns to the material world in a burst of black flame, landing lightly in the middle of a vibrant field. Blood red flowers cover the field as far as the eye can see, their scent strong and refreshing.

He's not sure when he is, relative to everything else. Things get a bit confusing when you row down the rivers of time as you please. The last thing of any significance he remembers is meeting Fumikage in the distant future. That had been odd as their relative timelines had been out of sync. The Fumikage he met had been much older than the Fumikage he knows and can feel playing at making an ecosystem in another solar system.

Admittedly, he has been running from everyone after Momo died. Shouto had been with her till her last moments and that had hurt him more than he could ever imagine. It had only been when he looked around and realised he'd been practically isolated for a century that he chose to come back.

He stays at the field for a few hours, taking his time as he walks. There is a deep ravine that he explores for a bit, finding a ruined mech and the carcases of dozens of missiles. When he emerges, covered in dust and muck, he finds Izuku. He's picking a bundle of flowers and tying them in a boutique.

Izuku thrusts the boutique in Shouto's hands. He accepts the gift, bemused. There's a whole bunch of them here. There's no reason for Izuku to waste his time picking them.

"You done running from your responsibilities?"

Shouto snorts. Apparently, they aren't fighting. "Hypocrite."

"Only sometimes. How are you?"

"I'll get over her eventually. Mortals are like candles. They just… vanish so easily."

Izuku reaches forward. Shouto leans forward and lets Izuku frame his face, fingers gentle and kind. There is warmth in his gaze, a depth of compassion to him that Shouto has missed. In the intervening years, it became harder and harder to be kind. Now, in this era of a unified humanity, Izuku has shed the mantle of bloody peacemaker and become something more.

Staring into his green eyes, Shouto remembers why he fell in love all those centuries ago. It hadn't been his strength or power, not his intelligence and certainly not his wit. It had been that promise he carries, the promise that Izuku Midoriya will save you despite your best efforts to remain damned.

Shouto leans forward until their foreheads touch.

"I missed you."

"Well, you can be a difficult person to deal with."

Shouto huffs. "Maybe that's why Kouta sent me on my quest?"

"Maybe. You made any progress?"

"I know I loved her, but she's the only human I love. I don't care for the rest of them."

"Give it time. You'll learn to love again."

He leans forward and brushes his lips against Izuku's forehead. "I love you?"

Izuku shoves him back playfully, nothing hard in his gaze.

"The fact that you have to ask is why Kouta sent you on the quest. Love spurs people forward. Just look at this place. Kirishima's Last Stand," Izuku gestures to encompass the endless field and its red flowers. "How long did he last against us? Even after the unification, he was still fighting."

That was the name Izuku had given this land after burying Kirishima on the hilltop where he fell. Once, the land had been scarred and ruined. Even now, the cracks and ravines remain, but there are flowers and water and life. It is sacred ground by decree, and very few have had the opportunity to walk it.

"Eijirou's Folly is what they really call it."

"I know that but I never liked it. Kirishima fought for what he believed in. He didn't compromise. He didn't give up. Unlike me." Izuku takes a shuddering breath, remembering his old friend. "I was too ashamed to watch it. You were there. Tell me about it."

Shouto nods. He remembers the event perfectly, the final battle between Kirishima's failed revolution. He had been the last of his friends, the rest having passed from a bullet to the heart or old age. And yet, old and battered, Kirishima had fought without fear.

Of all the mortals, Kirishima is amongst the few he respects. Not as high as Endeavour, but a close third.

"He couldn't win, not against Spinner. That overlook was where the remnants of his army were cornered. He chose to fight Spinner alone, a duel to decide everything. Even then, Shuichi was massive, probably thirteen metres. Eijirou was in a mech and looked tiny in comparison. Still, he fought with everything he had. He knew there was no chance. Everyone did. What no one realised was why he was in the mech suit.

"This entire region had been laced with traps and explosives. Eijirou always knew, somehow, that this would be the end. So, he planned his last stand. The first explosives shattered the ground and forced Shuichi into a ravine. Then, ancient missile batteries brought a mountain down on your disciple."

Izuku snorts. "Shuichi still complains about being buried."

"Shuichi clawed his way out, only to get hit by a railgun shell to the face. They didn't hurt him, his scales were too hard, but they made it difficult. And then Kirishima jumped right back in and the two went at it. Kirishima, the crazy bastard, ordered an airstrike on his position and used Shuichi's size against him. One mortal man winning against the invincible Great Dragon. Inconceivable. That's when Shuichi got serious. He tore off his armour and summoned his lance. That's when the real battle began. I don't know why, but Kirishima left his mech. Maybe it was damaged by the airstrike. Maybe he had accepted the end. Either way, he tore off the mech's war hammer and fought with that. That battle was magnificent. Even Fumikage acknowledged it. One human fighting against God's Disciple."

Izuku sighs sadly. "It wasn't enough. It could never be enough."

"He fought as hard as he could. By the end, his corpse was impaled on Shuichi's lance."

"Just like you said that night."

The night when they decided to go down this path over a century ago. One night that decided humanity's future. That night had been the single most important event in human history. It had determined the grand arc of humanity going forward. It had changed the shape of the human spirit and even the definition of humanity.

It was the day Shouto truly became a kingmaker. It may have taken a century, but mankind is firmly under Izuku's control.

"Not everything went to plan," Shouto admits. "I could never predict you or Fumikage. The best I could hope for was that I knew you, and even then, I never thought you'd do what you did to Hanoi."

Izuku glares, his gaze darkening. A cold wind ruffles the flowers, bright red petals following the currents of the air, mesmerising. Everything about Izuku has shifted, from friend to potential enemy. His crime that day, his great sin that nearly destroyed the Federation all those decades ago, is something no one has forgiven.

Quite frankly, Shouto doesn't care much, but apparently, Izuku isn't over it. It's not like Shouto hasn't done far, far worse. It was only a matter of time before Izuku did something like that.

"Fuck off. I never meant to do that."

"I think you did. We're Gods, Izuku, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise. Human lives are nothing to us. They only matter because we acknowledge them."

"Is that why you were fine with our friends dying? With making an enemy of Kirishima?"

"He was never my friend."

"Yes, he was."

Shouto shakes his head. "No. Iida was. Momo as well. But the rest were only ever your friends. I never cared about them."

"Bullshit."

"Izuku, they don't matter. They never did. Mortals never will."

He sees the punch coming and summons a wall of infernal fire. Izuku's hand, coated in darkness and lightning, strikes it. It takes a bit of concentration to shunt the aftershocks to the asteroid belt.

"Say that again," Izuku whispers, his voice like death and madness. "I dare you."

"You're responsible for their deaths," Shouto says cruelly. "You chose this path and your armies killed Kirishima's rebellion. Should I name them? Ashido. Jirou. Fuck, I don't even remember the rest."

Shouto is smart enough to teleport the two of them to the far side of the universe. When their fists meet, the force of it kills the binary stars there. They glare at each other, half the solar system burning in black flames, the other half drenched in swirling darkness.

"I fucking hate you!"

Shouto shrugs. "Feeling's mutual."

They go at it without restraint, their blows sending aftershocks across the galaxy. Their battle kills neighbouring stars and shatters black holes. It tears apart the fabric of spacetime and eventually, the laws of the universe simply give up.

Shouto coughs blood. There's a giant spear through his chest, one made of cloying darkness. A burning spear impales Izuku on a nearby asteroid.

Then Izuku transforms, drawing on the full extent of his power. Here we go again.

By the time they are done, the Virgo Cluster is an uninhabitable and churning expanse of chaos and destruction, a region that is anathema to life itself. It is a cluster of some fifteen hundred galaxies, and whatever life may have existed there has been annihilated. Perhaps something can grow in the cracks, but the churning miasma of godflame and darkness will make that difficult.

-TDB-

Shouto ambles along the walkways of Creation, cataloguing the hidden nooks in the farthest reaches of time. He's walked the distant past and watched mankind evolve, giving it a nudge here and there. He spent a century talking to the greats of history, those who truly changed the earth. At some point, he walked on water in the desert and found himself practising his skills at making a religion.

There is something peaceful about simply exploring with no expectation of return.

For a moment, he considers calling Izuku. Then he decides against it. They're fighting and Shouto can't remember what it was over. Probably something as silly as a million lives. He should probably forgive Izuku given that Fumikage keeps giving him disappointed looks when they bump into each other. The last time they met up, it had been in some strange iteration of the universe, one where computational power reigned supreme and advanced races inevitably simulated the universe, only to discover they themselves were a simulation.

They had made a game out of giving the various lifeforms in each layer of the simulation a way to rise. The challenges had been difficult, few races managing to win. Statistically speaking, humanity hadn't been anything special.

That had been fun for a bit before Shouto got bored. Artificial life hadn't been something Fumikage had experimented with, so Shouto left him to it and continued his travels.

Now, he finds himself on the moon, feeling sparks of darkness and godflame. There is a ring around the moon, just like Saturn's ring. It takes Shouto a long time to realise he had done this. Why, though? To impress someone, perhaps? Izuku, maybe?

"Next year I'll say hi," he decides, for the twelfth decade running.

The moon has grown greatly since his youth. Where once there were only a few habitation domes, now there are bustling cities and gleaming towers, a bustling population of millions struggling towards a brighter future.

He walks across the capital city, observing how humanity has changed. His hair is shaved close to the scalp so no one can recognise him easily, his beard gone as well.

Someone bumps into him. He feels a hand brush by where most people would keep their credit chits before pulling back.

"Sorry, sir."

He turns to face her, his hood falling aside.

The girl is young, no older than twenty-five. He's got a good few centuries on her. She has a general bipedal morphology though her arms are covered in long spurs, and when he looks at them, he can tell they're designed to hold extra heat and warmth in Luna's colder climates.

Her grey eyes widen as she sees him. "You're… you're one of them. A purebred."

She isn't the only mutant. Most of the people Shouto sees on the walkway have extensive mutations brought about by space. The quirk factor had accelerated human evolution, turning a million-year process into something that can occur two or three times in a single lifetime. The last time Shouto saw Fumikage's brood, there had been hundreds of mutations, some drastic enough between parent and child it would be impossible to identify them.

The mutations of his youth had been tame affairs in comparison to the variety seen here.

"I suppose so."

In his hand, he flash-forges a credit token. Enough to pay for rent in a good area for a month or so. He flicks it to her. She catches it easily in her long fingers. He notices that her smallest finger is as articulated as the average human thumb.

"Thanks?" she asks warily.

"If you're going to steal, then don't be so obvious."

She bolts, bounding down a railing and jumping onto a mag-lev trolley. They're the best way to get through many of the developed areas of the Moon. He tracks her journey through his future sight, before letting go and journeying through the moon.

As he walks, he realises that he isn't as far into the future as he thought. This is likely no more than a century since they decided the future so long ago. This city, whilst large and bustling, shows classic signs of growing pains—massive class differences, income inequality, gang warfare, and police brutality.

The frontier towns are more interesting. They are a lawless region where the strong thrive and the weak eke out a meagre existence.

He meets the girl again a few days later, bumping into her deliberately. She turns on the spot, a knife flashing. Shouto grabs her wrist before she stabs him.

"It's you," she says coldly.

"Me. Do you stab everyone you meet for the second time?"

Her smirk is rugged, strained. She's struggling against his hold. "Just arrogant purebreds. You probably believe your own hype."

"I am the hype."

He lets go and dodges her punch. He bats aside her kick and hops back, putting some distance between them.

"You can't stab people for walking around."

There is violence in her grin. "Just watch me."

Shouto matches her grin before retreating. No point in pushing her any further. He understands this kind of courtship very well. Violence and threat and strength, none of those bumbling romantic gestures.

He goes about his business as well, not seeing her for a while. He visits the local chapter of the religion founded to worship the three kings. Ever since he left the diplomatic corps in the hands of his protégé, he's technically High Priest. It's not his favourite responsibility, and he only sometimes shows up.

Today, though, he shows up and performs a few miracles of healing. It will drum up support amongst the lower classes and hopefully stymie the underground rebellion from gaining more support. He sends special orders for the other colonies to send more supplies, all marked with his symbol of a dark star and gleaming snowflake.

The distribution has just begun when he's forced to tilt his head away from a throwing knife. The girl is back.

"We need to stop meeting like this."

"Maybe it's fate," he suggests.

It is fate when they keep bumping into each other. Shouto can see her future and knows where she'll be. It makes it easy to engineer these situations.

His smile comes unbidden. "Are you busy?"

"Not really."

"Well, I think I need a tour guide. I haven't been here in a long time."

"You're buying lunch."

He isn't proud to admit that she looks like Rei, but neither is he ashamed. Yes, he's fucked up and has problems. But so what? Who gets to choose who they love?

They walk through the city. She points a few places of interest, none of the big tourist traps, but smaller areas only a local would know. The storm drain tunnels have a massive market going on during the dry season and they pass through it. She forces him to buy her data lattices and phase glass, designer fruits and godflame sparks, cheap reverse-entropy generators and a meal of some herd animal that lives on the moon. They wind their way down the underground city and to the slums where she makes deals with shady characters, using his appearance to her advantage.

"Why do you always wear a hood?"

"Convenience." He dodges her knife thrust. "Wearing a hood isn't weird. People don't know how to deal with me when they see me."

She nods, taking him further through the city. She points out the best spots to buy drugs in the same breath that she tells him of the nicest libraries.

"I'm taking a break between my studies," she tells him whilst they're in a crater filled with bright ultraviolet flowers swaying in the wind.

The day is cool and the sun distant, but he manipulates things subtly so she is warmer by sending currents of warm air along the spurs on her arms. They sit on a thick blanket he bought in the underground markets, sharing a meal he can't even name.

"Too boring for you?"

She shakes her head, silver hair splaying over her shoulders.

"Yeah, designing post-Carnot reactionless drives got a bit tedious. I thought I'd take some time and walk the frontier."

It's not the most exciting field, generating more energy than you spend. A lot of technology has already been pioneered and patented. It can be steady work for more specialised applications, but the real money is in abyssal engines and bioreactors.

"Why haven't you?"

"Money."

"I have a home in the Frontier if you'd care to visit."

He doesn't, but he also happens to be Shouto Todoroki. Money is not a concern.

She glares at him, searching for any hint of deception. "If you try anything—"

"You'll stab me and chop off my dick?"

"Right in one." She yawns. "I don't even know your name."

"Touya," he says easily, stealing his brother's name. "Touya Enji."

She cocks her head. "That's… the Capital language?"

She doesn't speak Japanese or English or any Earth language. She speaks the southern lunar pidgin, an odd mix of Tagalog and Afrikaans, with a sprinkling of Jamaican Patois. There are so many languages across the colonies that they can only communicate with universal translators.

"Japanese, yes."

They board a train the next morning. She's got a single bag whilst he carries nothing. She is surprised as they enter their cabin, first-class and larger than some people's apartments.

"Fucking rich people," she says, staring at the bed. "No luggage?"

"I'll buy whatever we need."

They talk little during their trip. The train floats on magnetic rails and gets them to the dark side of the moon within a few hours. They disembark at a smaller city where someone meets them. They are driven to another smaller settlement, one that is remarkably rural. He can see people manually tilling their field, growing whatever designer crops are popular in this region.

The house isn't much by his standards, having lived in the Todoroki Manor as a child and then living in palaces. She stares in wonder at everything, hiding her disgust at flagrant displays of wealth. Eventually, she settles down.

The next morning, they go to the town market and Shouto buys general supplies, ordering everything else for express delivery by courier. He loses sight of her for a while before she comes back, a stack of physical books in her hands.

He raises a brow at that. Who still reads physical books?

She mistakes his look, her expression shutting off. "You said I could buy something I wanted. They're not that expensive."

Shouto rolls his eyes. "Buy however many books you like, but I don't have a bookshelf."

That doesn't stop her at all. Soon enough, he finds books on every flat surface and even in the pantry. He cooks food from his childhood once his shipment arrives. She frowns, hiding her distaste. After that, he's never allowed to cook again.

Weeks pass like this, their lives simple. He comes to know her and he shares stories of the places he has visited.

"I can't stand those cultists," she tells him one evening. "They should just leave us alone. The moon belongs to us, not them."

It belongs to me, he thinks but doesn't say, listening as she rants about his acolytes and students.

On another evening, she says, "I can't believe you've never seen the knife fighting circuits," before dragging him to the core cities to witness some beautifully violent fights.

He points at a star in the sky one evening. They're in the garden he's been tending to. Working in the fields brings him some measure of peace. He may not have a green thumb, but he comes to appreciate coaxing life from seeds and saplings. She occasionally helps but playing in the dirt doesn't interest her as much as dismantling increasingly expensive engines.

"Venus. I loved being there."

It isn't a lie. He and Fumikage had terraformed the planet together. It had been a fun few years. Perhaps the best years.

He runs his fingers along her spurs, feeling the quirk factor within them. She shivers at his touch which makes Shouto smile.

"I still can't believe you went to all those places."

He tells her of Mars and Mercury, of the floating cities in Jupiter and the budding colonies on Saturn's moons. He speaks of the space stations dotting the solar system and generations of people who have only known life on a spaceship. It gets hard to remember what has happened and what will happen in the future, but she only smiles when he tells her something odd.

"You're weird."

"I love you," he says unbidden.

Her eyes widen. Then she pulls him down and kisses him. The kiss burns, a microcosm of life and its peculiarities. It is the seating heat of love, the undeniable spark of life that always accompanies every act of adoration.

Love and life are two halves of the same whole, inexorably twined by the red string of fate, bound by it, but also creating it. Where there is love, there must be life. And where life unfolds, then love must bloom.

Life tends towards complexity, towards higher and higher planes of evolution. Quirks are the apotheosis of that. Everything about her exists to survive the harshness of the moon, the cold environment and the radiation from the ships landing and taking off, their abyssal drives emitting exotic particles. Her eyes see ultraviolet and infrared, and sometimes, he thinks she can see bits and pieces of the future.

It shouldn't have happened.

Why should something as complex and fragile as a human have existed when single-celled organisms are robust and multiply quickly? No answer can be found in evolution because science could never encapsulate divinity.

Long ago, Fumikage asked them why life exists. Izuku had given the simple answer of love. Shouto had known it was more complicated.

What if the Creation wished to be observed and thus life arose? Not only did it rise, but it also continued and created bodies that would suit Shouto and Izuku and Fumikage, each one-third part of the vast breadth of Creation.

When Shouto said love was the most powerful force in the universe, he didn't know what it would do to mankind. Now, seeing them physically change to survive, seeing how much life will adapt out of self-love, is breath-taking. Humanity will continuously change forms to thrive in any environment, be it the asteroid cities around Ceres or the heavy atmosphere of Jupiter's floating throne worlds or even simply the cold of the Moon.

They explore the boundaries of their different forms, taking the time to understand what feels good and what is just strange. She's evolved enough that her ears aren't sensitive and she is genuinely surprised when he shivers at her exploration of his neck.

They make it work. With all the time in the universe, under the cool air and bright sky, they learn how to love each other despite the differences in their forms.

"You're not terrible for a purebred," she says when they are both spent.

He struggles to keep his eyes open. It's been a long time since he last had this much fun. "And you're a terrible knife fighter."

She barks out a laugh. "Better than you."

They live together for years, falling in love like foolish children. She takes time away to finish her studies and gain her certifications. Shouto spends their time apart quelling the rebellion. It happens to be bloody and fills the Luna capital, Endeavour, with violence for a few weeks. By the time it is done, the streets are wet with blood and the rebellion is no more.

When she returns, she finds him working in the garden, ploughing the fields with a hoe. He's shirtless, a fine sheen of sweat on his skin. He plans on planting a hundred peach trees in honour of Momo. Of course, each one will be unique, but he can worry about that later. For now, he must prepare the land.

He hears her approach and only narrowly dodges her knife swipe. He always keeps his abilities at peak human, never exceeding that. It wouldn't be fair otherwise.

Shouto dances around her flurry of blows, bobbing between each swing. Soon enough, she gets tired and puts her spurred hands on her hips.

"Teach me."

"Sure."

That's what begins the next two years of her life. He teaches her how to wield a knife after spending a few decades in the past learning from the best. He shows her Fumikage's white blade that he's kept all this time. When they aren't sparring, she works on the town's engines.

"How much money are you pumping into the town?"

"A lot," he admits.

"You've never told me where your wealth comes from. I kinda just accepted it."

"I'll tell you later."

But from her hard look, later will have to come soon. She wants the truth that he's been hiding from since they met each other. When she thinks he is sleeping, he hears her mutter her suspicions. Meals are strained and they spend more time apart.

He needs some advice and only one person in all the universe will have a good answer.

He finds Fumikage sharpening his sword in the depths of Jupiter's throne worlds, a few decades in the future. Dressed in casual clothes from Mars, he looks like any other tourist.

"Izuku has been complaining about you," Fumikage says without looking up.

"Hm?"

"He says you're a stubborn asshole who just keeps hurting everyone for no reason."

Shouto takes a seat beside Fumikage. "He just doesn't like what I have to say. He's too soft even after all this time."

Of everyone, Shouto and Fumikage have spent the longest time together. Being with Izuku is difficult on the best of days. Most days, it's like trying to start a fire with wet wood when all you have is a tiny lighter. Not impossible, but certainly getting there.

"It's easy for the two of us to be together, Shouto. Our morals were more closely aligned in our childhood. However, you've been stuck as the same person. You haven't experienced growth. Learn something new, old friend."

They sit together, watching the swirling clouds. The clouds are thick and heavy, violent maelstroms of devastating power that teem with beautiful colours and abyssal life.

"Why did you come, Shouto? The truth."

"There's this girl."

"Has lying about your identity finally failed?"

He startles. "You know?"

Fumikage tilts his head, watching Shouto intently. There is always something ferocious, something smouldering, whenever Fumikage truly looks at him. It's a gaze that pierces through Shouto's every defence.

"Did you think I wouldn't pay attention? Did you think I cared so little for you that I would not know everything you did? You seemed happy, so I left you be. I stopped Izuku from coming because you seemed at peace. I did not wish to disturb that, Touya Enji."

"Did she look?"

"Of course. As far she ever knew, Touya Enji is just an eccentric and wealthy descendant of the Todoroki family, a few lines removed. Certainly not Shouto Todoroki, High Priest of the Stars, former head the Federation's Diplomatic Corps, and egotistical God."

"I'm scared," he says, naming the churning feeling in his stomach for what it truly is.

Fear isn't something he's felt in so long he forgot it existed. Fear is for mortals, for those who can't reshape Creation on a whim. God shouldn't fear anything.

"Of?" Fumikage prods.

"What if she leaves me?"

"Then she leaves you." He says it so simply as if that is how things must be. "That is the way of things. What you have isn't true love. She loves the lie you've told, not the truth of your being."

"I don't know why I fell in love. I always knew it would end badly."

"Perhaps it won't. Perhaps it will." Fumikage lifts his hand and places it firmly against Shouto's chest. "We become so predisposed to cruelty. We easily forget why we did what we did. I think even you forgot your original reasons."

"Everything I did, I did to put Izuku on a throne. I did it for fun." He thinks of Fuyumi last they spoke, so angry and disappointed. "I did because humans mean nothing. They're our playthings."

Fumikage's hand curls, bunching Shouto's shirt. "No, dear friend. You did it because you wanted to feel again. You wanted to know love. You wanted to know hate. Now that you've found love, you're terrified you'll never find it again."

"I love you and Izuku."

"No, you need us. There is a difference. We've fallen in and out of love with each other so often. We spend more time apart than together. After this, I doubt we'll see each other for decades. It is the mortals that we love. They give us our forward momentum. Now, stop being a coward and face her."

Fumikage shoves him back. Shouto falls off the platform, falling into the churning storm of Jupiter's clouds. He sighs, accepting what must happen.

He warps towards his home on the moon. It is empty for now. She's going to be busy the rest of the day dealing with a reactor installation.

In the evening when she returns, Shouto has allowed his hair to grow out to its full length. For the first time in years, his distinctive white and red graces his scalp.

She startles when she sees him, eyes wide. "What?"

"My name is Shouto Todoroki. You might know me as Amaterasu."

He extends his arm. Black flames engulf it, casting the room in an eerie light.

"Shouto Todoroki," she whispers, horror in every line of her body. "The High Priest? You're the one leading those fanatics."

"I suppose I am."

"You lied to me."

He shakes his head. "I never lied once. I just… I guess I never told you the full truth."

"You purged the underground. You started that fire that killed half of them. The capital was on fire." Each word is filled with horror and accusation.

"I needed to cleanse the Federation of rebellion. Why do you care so much about rebels?"

At that moment, he realises he's said the wrong thing. Rage blooms across her features. She slaps him.

"I hate you. You killed my friends!"

He shrugs, hiding the hurt. "You were fun for a few years."

This is what always happens with humans. They leave him hurt and broken. It's why he's stopped trying to care about them. He journeys aimlessly through time, alone and upset. The pain in his chest is overwhelming.

When the pain fades slightly, he visits the one place he's hidden from. It is a land untouched by the expansion of the city, a protected ground of brilliant flowers. It is here that Shouto experienced mankind's first kiss under the moon's atmosphere.

Momo's grave holds a special place in his heart. Just as Izuku and Fumikage have monuments to their failings, so too does Shouto. Her gravestone is simple, plain and unadorned. It isn't worthy of Momo, but it had been what she wanted.

Momo Yaoyorozu

Human

He finds it ironic now more than ever. She could have been a Goddess by his side, but one day she had looked at him, and whatever she saw had dissuaded her from that path. She had left him, moving on and loving another human, one whom she outlived.

Shouto had watched her, observed from a distance as she navigated her grief for years. She'd learnt to live with herself and her loneliness, somehow becoming stronger for it.

In the twilight years of her life, Shouto had worked up the courage to send her a letter. He still has each letter they sent, stored away in a black hole at the end of time.

More than that, he remembers each line of her face in her final days. He remembers the feel of her hand and the texture of her tears. In a million years, he won't forget a single second of her last day alive, sitting together and discussing nothing at all, the stars bright and the air chilly.

"Hey, Momo."

The dead do not speak. Her soul is long gone. Momo Yaoyorozu will never speak to him again and he loves her too much to travel back in time or to another reality. The Momo of his memories is the only Momo worthy of his attention.

"Did you love me by the end?" He shakes his head. "No, that's not fair. I hope you were happy with whoever you found. I loved you more than I knew. You were so beautiful at the end. I miss you."

She doesn't answer. Her absence is poignant, obtrusive. He keeps her image fresh in his mind even after all the time he's spent apart from her. She was his lover for a time and friend for longer, his equal in every way that mattered.

"I'm sorry I never did right by you. Or Izuku and Fumikage. I never really figured out how to love people kindly. It's taken me hundreds of years walking time and space to figure it out, Momo, and I'm still failing. Kouta sent me on the quest. I suppose it was in the hopes that I would remember how to be human."

He looks up, seeing the Earth in all its glory. Someone is waiting for him, someone who will always wait for him.

"I met this girl on the moon. She was strong and smart and everything I never knew I wanted. I think you would have liked her, Momo." Just thinking about her makes him smile. "She left me and found happiness with someone else. I didn't think it would hurt like this."

And yet, even in the crushing depths of his pain, he wouldn't want to change a single thing. Those years on the moon, secluded and quiet, were some of the best of his life. He fell in love and loved someone with all his heart. The memories remain, even if the pain will never go away. If he could do it again, Shouto wouldn't change a single thing.

He thinks of every mortal he knew. His mother who was his guiding light as a child. His sister who cared so much. His brothers, idiots who couldn't help but love Shouto. Even his father, cruel for so long, but the man Shouto respects the most. The child he trained to succeed him as a diplomat, brilliant and too smart for his own good. Kouta who served as Shouto's teacher and confidant for most of his life.

So many varied people who pushed him forward, who taught him lessons he can't forget. They are like candles, short-lived and weak flames, but even a candle can light up the dark crevices of his soul. Even a candle can start a bonfire and warm his frigid heart.

"Thank you for all the years you gave me." He looks to the Earth where Izuku is waiting. To Jupiter in the future where Fumikage waits. "I promise to do better."

Black flames consume him and he walks to a new future. It won't be easy and maybe it's impossible. But even if it is impossible, Shouto will keep on trying, lifetime after lifetime.

The past does not define us,

The present is our choice

And the future is given

To those with the strength to take

One step after another

In this endless journey.