Chapter Text
Once, the ten realms were divided, broken and enslaved. The birth of the first High Priestess was foretold by an entity shrouded in the cape of stitched from Dying and Demise for mortals called it Death.
You will serve mortals.
You will protect them.
Lest there come a time you cannot do either, you shall return to me.
Izuku is a child of the forest, one who is raised and cherished in the lap of nature and the woods. The trees bear him fruits like a mother. Bleeding branches stitch themselves to warm a blanket for the child abandoned by a musician and a Godling.
And if he travelled too far, he could see the mortal villages, the people there were always happy, always content with what they had. Much like Izuku himself. But when he sees the giant temples they build, he looks at the Gods sitting in the golden statues and wonders why they look so cold.
Even as a child, Izuku feels strange about them.
The mortals, those who look like he does, worship the Gods on a pedestal but when it comes for Izuku, for him to worship his pick, Izuku— Izuku can't, he draws away as if his tongue tasted like blood and bile in his mouth.
He tells himself that perhaps the Gods are kind too but for all his convincing, Izuku never visits the mortal villages or its temples then and returns to his sweet woods.
Without knowing, in a world that he saw as black and white, Izuku unwittingly chooses a side.
Eventually, like a seed thriving into the forbidden fruit, he soon comes of age, the Earth of the forest whispers to him, amidst a chirp of a staring, three-eyed crow:
Half-god, darling boy, my dear child,
sweetheart, you're your father's lie,
go east, the Sun awaits for you to rise.
So Izuku leaves East fairly as it is the only thing left to do.
The Palace of Forges is a palace of teaching for newly ordained Gods but they are different from Izuku for he cannot hear the beating of their hearts nor the breathing of their lungs. He notes, with novel enthusiasm, how strange this world is to the woods he knows.
Izuku's presence is an anomaly. His birth is a sin for Gods do not go after mortals unless fleetingly and this boy is neither a God nor a mortal. He must be a sin, they think. The Lord of the Palace, Aizawa Shouto, a God who never knew rest like he would know a student unfitting for his teachings saw exactly that when he meets Izuku.
He has eyes of the forest, the music of the woods and its darkness too with the will of the Gods.
"You shall become my students on the condition you defeat the son of the God that rules East, and if you don't," Aizawa says, hoping it would scare the child in him away, "you will be forced to jumping into the Valley of bane and bones."
Izuku accepts.
He is regarded as a fool for his acceptance. But it is not a surprise that Izuku knows when he meets Bakugou Katsuki. He would have known him blind, he would have felt his presence even if the world conspired to keep it hidden. That this God, domineering and tall, guarded with the dignity of a celestial, is Izuku's Sun.
He stares at Izuku as if he cannot be trusted.
Izuku frowns when he's given a sword, it feels unfamiliarly innate in his hand. He can defend himself in the first few swings but there's something ghastly in the young God before him. It's then that Izuku realises why he cannot hear their hearts.
Oh, it's because they do not possess one.
Amongst young Gods and their mortal servants, Izuku is only half of both. There's certain cruelty he sees, massacres of mortals just for the great only because they could be crushed so easily.
If I have to stay here, do I have to be heartless as well?
In a moment, turning a downward gaze, Izuku peers at the face that belonged to the son of the God of East. Katsuki is majestic, he is glory, he is power. Even if he is the Sun of the Heavens that awaits Izuku, he is much worse than the beasts that Izuku has seen.
For only a brush, Izuku's fingers graze along the neck of the young God.
Green eyes see different sights, they see what Katsuki is entitled to; glittering Halls of the Heaven, the Chief God of all Ten Realms, lavish feasts for aeons to pass in starry skies, a powerful army and a divine command more powerful than any light. There is a price because the wine that King Katsuki drinks from his silver chalice mirrors the river of mortals sacrificed to demons and their greed.
Above all, he sees a wickedness that the God himself doesn't recognise and Izuku's mortal heart delivered by his musician of a mother, cries out at the sight.
He takes three sharp steps away from Katsuki.
"You," he says, pointing his sword to him, "Are all the Gods like you?"
Katsuki narrows his eyes, pushing a swing of his sword forward to shove the Half-God to the soils, "I am the greatest of them all."
What Izuku hears is, I am the worst you shall ever meet, and dread makes his feet stumble back a little more. Cowering, he whispers to the soils that are the same, an apology that he cannot listen to one fragment of his soul and ignore another.
Standing up, Izuku drops his sword.
"Then, I do not seek to be a God."
And Izuku Midoriya turns his back on his fate, breaks his ties from all the things meant for him and chooses the path away from the glittering Halls.
Izuku falls from the Palace of Forges into the Valley of bane and bones. Vines of dead trees come alive to catch their boy, coddling his fall into a gentle cradle, slowly laying him on the soils that have been robbed of their souls, and when he touches the grounds, they are dead again.
Nothing grows in the Valley, it is miserable as the stars, the only thing living is Izuku. Naturally, all things, that do not reign a right to live, try to catch a glance of this strange being who has come down to their realm.
Night and Day become blurry. They mix into each other and Izuku no longer knows where he goes. His mortal body asks for grains but his immortal soul is unaffected by hunger. Soon, he stumbles across a dark cave, or a cage, both seemed to be the word to describe.
Izuku sees threads, tattered and torn, threads that are dying, the stitches come undone and those aren't the only things that come undone.
There is a presence he feels, it tells him not to be afraid, and Izuku bends his head to the side.
"You are Death."
"A lonely misery indeed, but death has no guests," the entity replies, fond and amused, "yet, here you are."
"Should I leave?" he inquires.
"Do you want to?" it asks, reaching a hand out for the Half-God to consider, Izuku looks at it. The flesh of it is made of something different, something cooler, something more painful.
Izuku thinks he will be hungry for many months then.
So he stays with the company of Death.
"How are Gods born?"
Death takes a moment, "they aren't."
"Is there a God of Death?"
"No, Gods are not mortals to truly know and fathom death. What Gods do not know, Gods cannot touch or see."
Izuku looks at the barely enough light that falls into the valley, "Since they aren't born, nor is there a God of Death, will they never know the pain that a mortal goes through?"
"Listen here, young Midoriya, and listen well," says the entity in the cave, the rocks are darker and there's something morbid that scents these walls, "fortune will always be greater for a mortal than a God."
Izuku, having seen the rivers of blood that run from slaughters merciless enough to take his heart and drive nails into it, chuckles.
"I thought Death does not lie."
But he cannot stay for long, his wrists are growing thin, and he hasn't been fed rice or sap of fruits. It has been quiet in the cave, quiet in his mind, he misses his green, the changing seasons, the folly of mortals and even the vengeance of Gods.
Izuku comes to miss the world he had been in but that is not why he leaves.
There is only so much his mortal body can take.
"I should leave," he tells to the cave.
"Then, you must."
"Will I see you again?"
The eye of death sewn with shadows of souls and glories of time, smiles at him. "In a long time, but if your fates are kinder, in a much shorter interval."
A pause.
"I will come to you."
Bowing to his company, Izuku leaves, feet chapped by the rocks and soon, he travels and travels far. He knows when he leaves the valley. For his sights are more lively, grass and trees, bamboo trees, large and with a lovely scent attached, sprouting up into vision, birds chirping to welcome his return.
Izuku blesses the forest and prays for its wellbeing, not to a God, only to nature.
He thinks he can keep them separate.
He isn't the only one in the forest, Izuku seems to have a fortune for running into grand people.
The person before him is Yagi Toshinori. He is presently Chief God of all the Ten Realms, the highest authority there is for a God. His blond hair reminds him of another but his wiseness beyond the years makes Izuku forget the recollection.
"You are an odd one, you should have not been born," he tells Izuku and it's the first time that someone has.
"Yet, I am here," Izuku replies, bowing to excuse himself out of another God's presence.
"You, perhaps, you can have it," he says and Izuku doesn't feel too good of the mystery that surrounds this. Tentatively, Yagi brings out a small, golden wheel, a peculiar, mortal thing to possess for a God. He gives it to Izuku.
"What is this?"
"A gift, a wheel of life."
"Why shall I take it?"
"Because it is for you."
Izuku frowns, taking the small, golden trinket, it dissolves into his chest. Though he doesn't understand what has happened, it is something significant. He turns back to the God but he has disappeared.
Hesitant, Izuku leaves the bamboo forest, travels further West, it feels safe to travel West. The Sun can't catch him for it dies there, Izuku doesn't know why he feels the need to run but he would like to put as much distance as he can.
Foolish thought, he thinks, there's nothing a God cannot do if they truly wanted to.
He ends up at the Temple of a Priestess who senses his mortal body being a vessel for the greater, immortal soul it harbours. The magic of his soul can be harnessed for whatever he will, and Izuku wonders if he can save mortals.
It turns out he can.
But there is a catch, he must choose a God to worship, a temple where he would reside and pray to them. And Izuku who doesn't wish to do either seeks if there is a special case for him who serves the mortals without listening to the Gods. The Priestess smiles and says, there may be. All the other Priestesses are mortals, they look at him with a strange gaze for his choice but do not question it.
Izuku is ordained a Priestess under the name of no God, witnessed by no Heaven.
Yet, he becomes powerful in his cultivation of magic, harnessing it for the betterment of humans. He climbs up the ranks, not truly what he wished for but it is a part and parcel of the deal. He doesn't complain, the number of mortals he saves only grows from a tribe to an entire village. His mind is freer, his heart thrives and soil around him nourishes itself in honour of his joy.
But the war between the Gods of the upper four realms and the Demons of the lower six realms goes on. For one life that Izuku saves, a hundred replace it as fodder in the thousand other battlefields that they fight on. He knows this, but he strains as much as his mortal body allows.
When a fragile, infinitesimal, golden petal of the sun dries up too quickly in Izuku's hands because the Sun's glare is powerful and unforgiving, Izuku tries to heal it.
Some would think that one who had to spend this long with Death would know the restrains of mortal life.
Despite it, he tries.
Sometimes, the ranks of a Priestess are decided in a certain manner. A manner that Izuku is unaware of until it is staring at him in the eye.
"—so we have selected you due to your talents, Izuku, will that be fair for your end?" His teacher, a truly sensible and responsible person had somehow forgotten to inform Izuku that his next quest would be for an assignment for the Gods.
The young Gods of the Palace of Forges had been much different to Izuku are further different now. Among them is the one he avoided the most. He feels his gaze and his mortal heart quiver in his chest, and Izuku smiles, patient to withdraw the teacher aside.
Apparently, in the South of their temple is a village dipped in monsters. But the village is equally gifted with a good number of mortals as well, so they had summoned the help of Priestesses.
Izuku who is Half-God doubts the compassion of the Gods as much as the innocent doubts the beast. The deaths of mortals would be too great to be accounted to the Gods, they need someone who can share the blame. Someone make-believe as if it had been simply a cruel turn of Fate.
"Isn't it wonderful to serve the Gods? Kind as they are, they help every worthy mortal who proves themselves. "
Izuku wants to scream but the screams are forgotten in some column of his throat. His teacher goes on, led with a blindfold with a blind belief, it's heartbreaking to watch. It is torture to hear the pity of the Gods being disguised as kind intentions.
Would it be kind of a wolf to let a rabbit escape now only to devour it to the bone later?
"Even in these trying times, with monsters in their worst brutality," his teacher goes on and Izuku has to contain himself, he has to, even under the eyes of those that can crush him, "the Gods have done nothing but good."
Izuku can't, he can't keep quiet, he blames it on the mortal side when he says, "Strange the way you say it, Teacher," he smiles at her, "for if one has to do good, one has to be good, can all of the Gods claim so?"
His teacher's smile lessens its curves, "what do you mean, Priestess Izuku?"
"That perhaps," Izuku hints, a glance loathing showing in his eyes, just a glance, barely recognisable, "the Gods cannot contain themselves."
A silence shadows into the Hall, it walks on broken legs on murmurs and whispers to his statement and his teacher, though embarrassed smiles through to continue her litany of praise. Izuku is going to reject this opportunity and no one could convince him otherwise.
"Pray tell," A young God, one Izuku has never seen, but he seems to be a guardian of the mind that bends mortal will, "What God does Priestess Izuku serve?"
Izuku glances up to a question from one God but accidentally catches the eye of another. It has been some time since he has seen the Sun of the Heavens, and Izuku doesn't break his gaze as he answers:
"None."
Izuku had to go through an extreme to convince that he isn't appropriate to help the Gods. He has to break a leg. Literally. He convinces his teacher he cannot be of any help with a broken leg and is escorted back to the temple in less than a night.
Izuku sighs at the lie he has made when he takes out the bandages and stretches his legs out.
He may have escaped them now but for every little thing that Izuku loses, he gains another.
This time, it is their attention.
"Don't you find him strange, that half-breed?"
Katsuki ceases drinking the wine of Gods as he spares a glance at the table. The turn of conversation had attracted his alert as he continues to drown the wine.
"I think he fears us."
"Not true," Shinsou says, "I think he despises us."
"He looks like the sort that can't be fooled," Kirishima, the God of Mountains declares, "but tell me, Katsuki, didn't he spar with you once?"
"...for becoming a God," Katsuki answers, taking another sip, the wine isn't as tasteful as it had been once, at the beginning of Earth, "didn't know what he wanted."
"But he is half-God, isn't he?" Mina intervenes, "a pretty one at that, wouldn't you want to keep him, Katsuki? He probably would be a fitting servant for the next Chief of ten Realms, and he is also clever."
"Clever enough to pretend his leg is broken, it was laughable how soon he left," Kaminari rolls his eyes, thunder eliciting from the tips of his fingers, "he does not seem like the one to be tamed, but surely, he is tender and frail for he is mortal."
He gives a glance to Katsuki, "would be a shame if a Demon took him away before a God."
Katsuki meets the eye of his fellow God, "why would I care for a shame?"
"You shouldn't but truly," Kaminari shrugs, the wine makes their judgement blunt to what they feel, and Gods feel stranger, unwarranted thoughts, "it isn't every day that one comes across Half-God and Half-mortal."
Kaminari is right, is what Shinsou thinks but it's the way he has brought this up is what troubles him. Shinsou likes to linger and bend people's minds, the minds of Gods is an entirely different ordeal.
He smells war when he sees Katsuki's eyes shift, tendrils of dust and blood, repetitive chaos where it became a necessity. They are Gods, they are at war, little are times in history when they haven't been but there's a different sort of concern taking roots in the Sun's head.
"Katsuki," his Gods seek, and Shinsou knows the twist of a frown that takes place on their future Dehrain's face.
"Do not," Katsuki warns, reluctant, "not a word about it."
"You may say that but," Shinsou intervenes, "but you will have to have to consider it soon, it's an opinion most Gods share," he says and the Gods silently exchange a look.
Katsuki observes and says nothing.
When he first hears of the existence of a half-god and half-mortal, Katsuki expects a certain sort of traits.
Someone hideous, a freak of nature, someone that is on the brink of extinction by the virtue of being the first and only. What he doesn't expect is a mortal body that makes Katsuki have doubts. What they fail to provide is how the half-breed is so savagely similar yet, so devastatingly different.
The half-breed has other things, his mortal self has many things a God has no need for. They were worried when he first came, he could see it in Lord Aizawa's face, fear of this new being, fear of its power and how it changes things.
What if the being was capable of obliterating a God? Since he is the crack in the pattern, what are they to do when the crack grows bigger?
That had never happened before but neither has a halfbreed ever occurred. From there, events flow rapid, more unpredictable, this isn't war, this isn't fighting demons who are as deathless as the Gods. This is wrong, it's too erratic for Katsuki to take account of how something new may change the balance.
During their fight, Katsuki finds himself leaning in for a touch.
A touch into the mortal body, swaying his fingers past its familiar, immortal soul.
Katsuki sees, a warm embrace of trees, the spill of a river, the call of a three-eyed rave, brimming with eccentric mortal habits. Such as longing. Such as conviction. Such as love. The last one, Katsuki cannot feel it, no God can, mortals do and Katsuki sees the immortal God in the mortal body dance and sing for it.
There's knowledge of something else, something darker, something that Katsuki has never seen and he feels he will never know either. It is perverse how something unknown lures interests.
'Then, I do not seek to be a God.'
Petrifying how foolish that notion is. Who wouldn't wish to be a God? Mortals sigh all the while, praying for a kingdom of jewels, praying for Halls that float on clouds, the glitters of their gold and greed, their running wines and the listless powers that bore no fruits.
It insults Katsuki and all he stands for. The survival of the mortal from the fall is expected, but from the Valley is not. Years later, as the same mortal stands, interestingly enough, as a Priestess. It's then that Katsuki realises quaintly. Right in those viridian flares. The half-breed is more mortal than God, cares for those souls more than the honours of a God.
Katsuki's hold on the chalice tightens.
The taste of wine is suddenly debased. He has never felt this way before, forgets that the being he is, rarely does feel things. Katsuki has never seen a limit to a God's power, always regarded the things he can't feel as inferior but the limit, that boundary, the other side where the half-mortal thrives.
Where his hands cannot reach, he feels like something he never had, taunts him in the corner of his eyes.
But Katsuki is the Sun, he should not have a border.
Glancing down from the Heavens, to a lonely shack in the innermost of a splendid castle, Katsuki decides.
And so I shall not.
Ancient scrolls tumble out of his arms no matter how Izuku tries to keep those parchments from falling. Tired in his revision of the maps and plans for the next few missions under the newly ordained Priestesses, he rolls his shoulders and stretches. The number of the mortals he saves every season is steadily increasing, extinction of mortal kind should be prevented by centuries now.
It had come as a surprise.
But mortals had not been made by Gods, they had simply come to be as an influence of nature. Izuku isn't sure where the blind faith started, where the devoted following had become this misled. They only worshipped the Gods because they were more powerful.
It is the only reason for in truth, some mortals would even worship Demons and their witchcraft. Izuko could try eradicating the blind faith but that would take time. With the direct interference of the Gods, Izuku isn't sure he can hold people back from resorting to the help of Gods when things go wrong.
Besides, just how long is his own life? How fatal is Death for his body? Where would his immortal soul return if his body can sustain no longer? Izuku had questions, questions that could fill the castle and he knew the answer to none.
His assistant brings in another stack of scrolls, complaining.
"For goodness' sake, Priestess Midoriya, you are simply too cruel to yourself," she says, huffing as she places the scrolls, "all work and no play makes for a very dull living."
"Now, Maiden Tokage, it isn't pleasant to say that," he chides, "I get plenty of play," he pauses, "in my work."
"This is the pith of the problem, isn't it?" the maiden goes on, her long emerald hair is braided as she sits down, robes properly ironed, "you think you have the power of a God in healing this world, don't you?"
"Well, you aren't truly wrong," he says, since he is half-god. Not that any of them knew.
"Priestess Midoriya, refrain from indulging in blasphemy," she says, blunt in her form.
Flipping a lone strand away from her hair, she stares at him, "Heavens know, the other Priestesses keep looking for reasons to remove you from the Hierarchy, we do not need to give meat to hungry dogs."
"Hungry dogs huh," Izuku repeats, tonally chiding for her fearless categorisation.
"I still do not understand why you would not worship the Gods for the sort that your essence is," Setsuna confesses, Izuku anticipates her treading to something he doesn't like the talk of.
"If you were to worship, say, the Sun God, the chant of his mere name would be enough—"
"Setsuna, what have I said about this?" he reprimands, his voice is a gentle blanket of snow in comparison to his words
"Chanting a God's name sure does give you power but it also gives the Gods power over you."
"And what is so troubling about that?" Setsuna returns, faithfully inquisitive.
"Aren't we supposed to revere the Gods anyhow? Why would you cast away the thought of it?"
Izuku doesn't answer, they would not understand nor would they try and Setsuna is merely too curious for her own good.
"Say, Maiden Tokage," Izuku says, pausing, and changing, "is there any scroll about the Wheel of Life?"
Setsuna doesn't forgive the transition of their conversation but continues: "That is a child's tale, a myth passed down from the tongue," she shrugs as it doesn't make sense, "what sort of scroll would ever be devoted to it when they can only write few words about it?"
"So, little is known about this wheel of Life?"
"To put it simply, I think the common saying describes it as an order of the world," Setsuna pulls out of her memory, it had been a while someone made a mention of it, "think of it as a snake eating its tail, a thing of endlessness and eternities, as the poets say."
Izuku takes a neat scroll and summarises the war before gesturing to Setsuna to move near. Gods are not born so they do not die, Gods are formed after years as little elements that infuse over the years, the Sun God was made with Gods of heat and light channelling their cores together. But they too were assembled by a hundred different gods, and the process goes back in time.
On the other hand, Demons— well, they are not born either so they do not die, yet, they differ from Gods in the opposite. The toughest of Demons had been born earliest. So when they are destroyed, they multiply but in weaker strengths.
This is a wheel of life, the first and only. It is a snake eating its own tail, for when the Gods reach their strongest peak and when Demons reach their lowest, the order reverses. Gods are shattered and demons are strengthened.
"But," Izuku stops, "mortals do not fit anywhere, where do mortal souls go?"
"Why should mortal souls go anywhere?" Setsuna shrugs, "we die, after all, our purpose is completed, that is what the Ten Virtues describe, mortals end when they have fulfilled the Gods. Even when they come down to have mortal families, we are only vessels."
Izuku's fists clench, knuckles showing white, he doesn't give his thoughts. Conversation dwindles with the arrival of the food and Maiden Setsuna leaves. A curious turn of events that is because Setsuna always accompanied her Priestess when he is eating and had most of her suppers with him.
The food is delectable, creams and butter melting in his mouth, the wine is the sweetest nectar his lips have ever caught. He questions Setsuna and she simply shrugs that the kitchen servants have been changed.
She doesn't try to linger on it for long.
Izuku doesn't think anything is wrong, not until he travels North. Where it is cold for mortal skins. He is delivered his scrolls and his bread alongside, even in this cold, his supper is warm and he is thankful to those that make it for him.
Though, they never meet his eye.
When he is near a lake, a few children gift him a basket of apples for saving their mother from a demon that took half their village. The red upon their skin attracts his eye, and Izuku travels to a frozen lake to eat them.
"You are not a mortal."
Izuku nearly jerks away when he sees the demon spirit lingering on the edge of the bridge, "you're one of the Ancients in the demon clan, aren't you?" he senses nearly immediately before calling out the name.
"Todoroki."
"Neither are you completely a God," the spirit entails, "so why is it that I feel I should take note of you, Priestess?"
"Please do not," Izuku says, tired, the demon isn't going to harm him, it would have tried by now, an Ancient isn't as thoughtless as the rest.
"So long as you harm none of the mortals, you can go by your day."
"And if I harm a God?"
Izuku gives him a blank stare, "they will not die, so please, keep to your doings."
The spirit takes form and appears right in front of Izuku, the skin Izuku doesn't recognise but he has seen enough of their lot to not be terrified. But it does irk him, tickles a bone or two. He isn't sure what he should do here, has no reason to harm a demon that isn't harming mortals.
"Then, are you who they fear?"
Izuku blinks, "who?"
"Gods and demons? No difference, only a lesser evil against a greater one at one point to another but," Todoroki pauses, a smile playing on his lips.
"You already knew that, didn't you? But I must say you feel more divine than mortal."
Izuku frowns, the first of what has been said to him, "why do you say that?"
"Why don't you eat that apple and tell me," Todoroki looks at the fruit as if to say something else, "if it tastes as mortal fruits do?"
Narrowing his eyes, Izuku's teeth take a bite of the apple, it tastes like ashes, it tastes mundane. "Why?" he asks more to himself than others, "why does it...."
"I suppose one should watch what they eat if they have mortal needs," Todoroki says, shrugging along and demons never do their favours for free. No matter how little. Izuku receives a jewel, pearly on one side and a ruby set on the other.
He should have questioned the food, he should have questioned it when he felt something amiss.
"It is an edict from the Heavens, my Priestess," they confess, and Setsuna is appalled at his side.
"Is this why you asked me to refrain from eating along the side of the Priestess?"
"We did not mean to mislead but surely—"
Angered, he wonders what in the world is happening here? Has he attracted someone's attention? Has he left himself out in the open?
"Leave," he commands.
"Forgive me," Setsuna says earnestly days later, the maiden's eyes are red and swollen. Mortal or Immortal, Izuku knows sincerity when he hears one.
"I would have never allowed deception had I known, my dear Priestess."
Izuku no longer eats anything apart from the fruits he picks, he feels his senses returning. It is when the apple in his hand is half-bitten do the leaves blossom, the winds feel lighter and flowers all over bloom earlier as a different warmth encircles the forest.
Noticing the change, Izuku thinks how unfortunate it is that he had planned to fish in the river for his supper.
Seems like that isn't going to happen.
"What is it," A voice in a rather short distance, "about Gods that you despise enough to not worship one?"
"Your Highness," Izuku greets, turning to the sight of golden and deep crimson robes, there's a halo around him, it's dazzling for any mortal but Izuku bears it with relative ease, "it is a pleasure to hold your company."
Red eyes narrow down to thin red at the facsimile sentiments.
"Is it now?"
The Sun God is an addition to his life, Izuku doesn't like it but there isn't much he can do about it apart from tolerating them. Another day, the Sun God sits in Izuku's room, watches him fuss and worry over the number of mortals, the length of their lives.
Even Katsuki hasn't thought that much.
Izuku ponders if the Sun God notices. The darkness of this room is only removed with the light coming from the lamps. The Sun in itself has never touched it, there's only a shadow of it in the other corner.
"The Sun God will be missed in the bounds of Heavens if he spends all of his time here."
Izuku hopes that will usher him away.
He must have not known Katsuki then.
"There isn't a battle they can't handle," he rolls his eyes before they behold Izuku entirely instead of the eastern skies, something that makes Izuku swallow his breath. "Tell me, fairly and true, if you despise me well enough not to touched by the sun, then why do you worry over things that exist only for a blink of an eye?"
"Mortals are not things," and Izuku pauses, "not to me, they are not."
"Why? What is it that rings different enough to earn your attention," Katsuki asks, genuinely curious, genuinely offended, "about mortals who simply appear but not me who has been in your presence for three days?"
Izuku looks at Katsuki, he is cautious of the God for reasons he doesn't know himself, and it's not because of his divinity.
"I didn't wish to question Your Highness' intentions."
"Why?"
Izuku averts his gaze, "I am below him aren't I?"
Katsuki's jaw tightens, the halfling might say that but in no way does he mean it.
"It is a sin to lie to Gods."
Izuku meets his eye, unafraid of the wrath behind them.
"I am sin."
The world moves on as the Sun God spends most of his days, lounging over at Izuku's room, "do you wonder what I would do to you if I were the Chief God?"
"It depends," Izuku replies from his studies, yet another day buried in the articles that have been sent for mortal accommodations.
"On what?"
"Whether I have committed a crime and whether you are only using the Chief God as a farce."
Katsuki makes a face and Izuku only regards him with discretion.
"As a farce huh?"
Izuku looks up, viridian turns into the green depths of a bottomless lake. Everything you would touch there is a work of a heathen.
"If you truly wished to harm me, Sun God Katsuki," and never has a name slept on his tongue like a curse, "then, I trust that nothing in this world could have the power to protect me," he stills for a moment, "I was raised by nature to be many things, a fool was never one among them."
And if that means to say that Katsuki can't act freely, Izuku realises another thing.
He looks curiously at the Sun, "So there is a limit to you?" it sounds odd but important if it is the truth.
Katsuki stares, his face gives away nothing, but that too is an answer in itself. For the first time in a long time, Izuku smiles, "I see," he passes by him only to have his wrist grabbed and locked in a grip before being pulled down, nearly into the lap of the Sun God as an arm stabilizes his fall.
It's the only time Katsuki has seen Izuku regard him with anything but caution or nonchalance.
And Katsuki had always been quick to understand disrespect when given.
"You were offered Godship, but you rejected it," Katsuki says, his voice is soft but soft is not good, "you fear it, don't you? For some strange cause," his grip tightens, "it is only your worse nightmare, isn't it?" and Izuku doesn't understand what the words point to until the purpose falls out of Katsuki's mouth:
"So what if I turn this mortal body of yours into one that befits your soul?"
That's—, Izuku screeches in his head before he looks at Katsuki, awe and deeply-strung fear combined.
"You threaten to turn me into a God?"
"I can try," Katsuki says, "even now," he looks at the fear Izuku has and that little heart, it beats desperately in his chest, "I could do it if I fed you grains and food of the immortals. Then, you would turn into a God, a weak one albeit."
Izuku finds his sense, tries to move and fails against his strength, "Sun God, restrain yourself!—"
"Or perhaps, there's another way," Katsuki says because Izuku had such a drought of a reaction to him, it felt imperative that Katsuki had to be worse to break the guard Izuku had erected so carefully.
"You would rather be my first attendant."
The confusion comes to Izuku who does not understand its meaning. Almost in mockery, Katsuki remembers:
"Of course, mortals use different words, so let me rephrase," his hand reaches out to brush a stray from the side of Izuku's temples.
"Maybe, I should make you my courtesan."
Izuku's breath hitches at the word, understanding its intention and in his mind, he cools down. He needs to cut this thread before it wraps around him, "why do you not leave me alone?"
"You do not worship me."
"Do you want me to?" Izuku seeks, honest in his tone.
"Even if you did, it would not be true."
Izuku takes his wrist away, escaping his grip as he stares at the God, "then, do not chase what is not meant for you. Perhaps," Izuku lets his feet fall, turning his back as the words resound even after he leaves.
"Even the Sun has places it cannot reach."
Izuku calls for a period of respite, a vacation for priestesses, he can no longer deny the Sun God if he is right there. The Hierarchy of Priestesses happily grants him one, Izuku taps on the pearly red jewel, and a chuckle resounds in it.
"Now, I would not have thought I would hear from you, dear Priestess," the voice welcomes, it is darkly charming as all things in the greater evil are, "what do I owe this pleasure to?"
"I do not know how to put this easily," Izuku renders, hoping the nervousness is not evident in his voice but it is clear as the day, "but I require a drop of your blood."
There is racket on the other side, a hum and a scream that parallels the silence and calm in Izuku's rosewood room of dainty delights.
"It will not protect you from a God, Priestess," Shouto warns, watching havoc settling around him, he had come out to take a glance over the wars as he does once in a while. Satisfied that none of this is going to stop anytime soon, he sits back on his eleven-headed beast.
"I know."
"And yet?"
"I need to try something."
Shouto hums amused, "well, then, if you give me something to be entertained, I'll happily give you a river of it, the world is boring for an Ancient."
"I only need a drop and a drop alone."
"Why?" Shouto asks, entertaining the idea of it as the words relay his thoughts, "do you fear evil?"
"....no, not at all."
"Alright, then," the demon concedes, "in return, you shall tell me what is it that you fear if it is not evil and if it is not the Gods," Izuku can hear him smile, "it sure must be something powerful, to hold yourself to it."
"No, on contrary," Izuku says, and the demon doesn't recognise the tone he speaks in, that tone is fragile, like the last holler of a mortal heart. Misery, Shouto accounts in his mind but he isn't too sure; monsters don't feel misery as keenly as mortals.
"The thing I fear is all too helpless."
Shouto gets stuck in the riddle and an Ancient like himself realises the tongue the mortal speaks in.
"Oh," he says, "dear Priestess," he implores gently as the water beneath the ice.
"You should not live that way."
"You are taking a leave."
Izuku's lashes lift their gaze from the little butterfly on his finger.
"Is that a problem?"
"Where will you go?" Katsuki asks, interested as he sits beneath the tree, prodding an early blossoming of the five-petaled plum petal to suit the whims of the God.
"I do not wish to reveal," Izuku confesses, he needs time away, time away from the Gods, he can't run but he can prevent the inevitable until it can no longer wait. He needs time to brace himself for further associations but the suffocation tells him that it is here to stay, whether you bury or worship it.
Katsuki isn't offended, he appreciates how hard Izuku tries to keep his secret for all its futility.
"Trials for the title of Chief God are presently going on," Katsuki says, completely turning away the intents as Izuku wonders if this is relevant.
"Shouldn't you be in the quarters of Heaven then?" which really does hide Izuku's more important queries of why then are you here with me?
"I have prepared enough, and there is no contender apart from me," Katsuki reveals, "did you know Gods come down to have mortal families?" and Izuku has heard of it but he has also heard that none of them survive. They marry, have children and then, slaughter them for halflings should not exist. Izuku abhorred it for how self-mutilating it is, but trying to convince mortals could barely happen if they idolised the opportunity on a pedestal.
Amongst the mortals, it's considered a great right to be blessed with, to share personal quarters with a God and then be killed for it. Izuku is so tired of the blind faith, he doesn't indulge his thoughts concerning it.
"Have you wondered if that is how the God of petals met your mortal mother?"
Izuku stalls and then considers the thought, he had never been curious about it. Those woods had brought him up and Izuku's child heart recognised only them.
"She was a musician," Katsuki says, famed for her zither's melody sweet enough to make flowers bloom, "a musician who made melodies for the Gods so perhaps they could feel what mortals do even if they didn't have the means to."
Not that it happened, but it was a plausible attempt.
"The God of petals, your father," Katsuki goes on, "was ordained to kill your mother and you, and he didn't do either quarter as well," he watches Izuku in deep thought.
"He let you both live."
Izuku's breath hitches and the butterfly flaps its wings, vivaciously red in its colours. He sees a different green and the immortal core of a God makes him see a garden, a woman with long hair. One of her hands held a zither, the other holds a blue butterfly with a smile dancing on her lips, she welcomed a shrouded figure.
The image shatters in his mind and Izuku gasps softly, the butterfly swims away in the air.
"He was imprisoned and she was killed, at first sight. You, on the other hand," Katsuki muses, beckoning the butterfly to sit on his fingertips, "escaped."
Without speech, Izuku understands the simple meaning Katsuki talks of. In a world where history repeats itself but makes an exception for Izuku who faces each element differently. A contradiction that will never occur again. That conversation from days earlier returns where Izuku had mused of the Sun being limited, is this an answer to that conversation? If it is, then, it also conveys that after Katsuki is crowned Chief God of the Ten Realms, the same might not happen again.
"Deku," is the name the young God under the tree calls out, hands reaching out.
There are two suns in this world.
The priestess glances at the skies, the light shining ever bright, grasping over everything and even the horizon isn't spared. The one under the tree looks at him, sharp but commanding, but so golden in the way the Sun above him lacked.
And Izuku knows he can escape neither when he hears:
"Come here."
He doesn't see the Sun God for the next several weeks.
In haste, Izuku takes his own blood, half-god and half-mortal as it is, and adds the drop of demon, uncontained before drawing runes with it. A boundary talisman, it may fly or fall but it is a risk he deems worthy enough to take but the risk becomes insignificant when the Sun God doesn't come.
Not the next year, or the year after, or the years following.
Izuku counts his blessing while he can, assuming that he has lost his interest or the trials for the Chief God are as taxing as they come. Instead, he continues to finish his work, quick as he can. Once he finishes, Izuku decides to seclude himself deeply in a meditational retreat until the world outside has forgotten him.
Izuku is granted the title of the High Priestess, cherished by mortal and admired by all who have the privilege to meet him. You save our lives, High Priestess Midoriya, our ever-lasting spring. Izuku only takes the compliments with an awkward shake of his head, an unwarranted blush descending on his cheeks.
He watches mortals celebrate, their fleeting lives singing a beautiful melody in a war as cruel as the one they are involved in.
"Priestess Midoriya," Setsuna intervenes, collecting yet another bunch of scroll as he watches the night lanterns released into the skies, "I think you should let things be and smile often. I've heard Gods do not smile often and neither do demons as much, isn't it lovely that mortals can?"
It sounds foolish.
It is foolish but Izuku cannot help the chuckle that slips through. Wouldn't that be simply hilarious? Izuku thinks, that of all things the Gods don't have, smiling often becomes a treasure to mortals? But they are fleeting people, and because their lives are so short, they can only marvel with depth.
The splendid thing about being a mortal.
For the rest of his time, Izuku tries to enjoy his mortal self, the few that he really could until he has none a reason.
It is a wave of daunting summer when he's called to one of the villages as usual to clean and purify a household of demonic energy. The cleaning part catches him off-guard, he isn't sure what the Hierarchy means until he reaches the village that Izuku is truly stunned.
There are corpses everywhere, Izuku's boots are running across rivers of blood but the servants he has been sent with are barely surprised. This is planned, this is, his thoughts stop when he is guided to a Hall. Directly at the entrance of the Hall lies the heads of half-mortal children who were slaughtered without a second glance. His heart pains in his chest, he realises what's waiting behind those doors for Izuku would know his Sun anywhere
For quite some time after he had been told of his parents, Izuku sat to think. His father perhaps hadn't been assertive enough to be cruel, petals are fragile things, to have been a God of them, Izuku wonder if he left them out of mercy.
He would never know.
He hears the swish of the sword from outside and knows that Katsuki has killed his earthly wife, and then the fruits of their marriage. Izuku's mortal heart cracks, a tear slides down his face and his hand goes to cover his gasp, what have you done? He asks in the confines of his mind, to your wife and children? To the people who were devoted to you—
"The Sun God awaits your presence," they announce, signalling his entrance, "Priestess Midoriya."
Izuku's feet stumble backwards, fear seizes his heart and its fate. Did the woods that brought him up to know this? Why had he ever left it? Izuku could have grown to die there? He would have known a life without the worldly consequences of what lay outside.
He sniffs, truly fearful of what he will become and his voice, when it does come out, sounds akin to a suffocated scream.
"I can't."
He runs, feet swift and tears flowing as he returned to his little room within the castle for Priestesses. Setsuna draws a curtain, glances when she sees him and immediately furrows her brows when he begins connecting particular talismans to the walls of his house, adding more to the collection.
"My Priestess," she calls out desperately as she bows, "what is wrong?"
"I need time, Setsuna," he says, not taking a moment to breathe, "do not let any into my quarters."
Setsuna blinks, drawing out her sword and offering it before she kneels to him, "As you wish, my Priestess," and stands in vigilant guard at the front to throw off any mortal who came.
Izuku taps on the jewel in his room, and Shouto's voice blissfully roams in, "you've created quite the havoc, my Priestess, it has not transcended yet, but rest assured, your direct refusal is not going to be taken kindly."
"I know."
Shouto sounds unimpressed, "and so you do, I can only assume you wish for something from me, what is it?"
"Could you keep him away?"
Silence wades through.
"High Priestess, do you know what you're asking for? There may be differences between Demons and Gods," Shouto pauses, a chuckle of disbelief passing through at the suggestion, "the more you deny either, the more that will encourage them," and unfortunate as it is, what goes unsaid and unheard by Izuku is:
You are already unreachable, do you need to add glamour to it as well?
"I need time, I need to think," Izuku confesses, his mortal voice sounds tired and Shouto hesitates for a moment in consideration. Bakugou Katsuki is an inevitability no matter how you see it, he cannot shield the mortal for eternity but it's a different deal if the mortal is not asking for eternity.
"I do not know how long it will be for," Shouto concedes, "but I shall try. In return, give me a few of the talismans you keep and make them as effective as you can," because the Gods that would come for his neck is definitely a painful thought in his head and the reason he has survived so long as an Ancient is because he kept himself aloof of the War.
"Thank you."
"Do not thank me yet," Shouto says, "Time is little for you and more for me, I am merely bartering, besides," his voice wavers and Izuku's fears don't die an early death, he is still scared and he can't control it, he needs to be untouched, Izuku needs to know he can be untouched.
"He will not fare well with this."
Izuku bids Setsuna goodbye and runs again, foraging through lands as he gathered food that doesn't vanish with time. From time to time, he receives messages from Todoroki, the Heavens are in shambles. Nothing pleases the Sun God who has been proposed as the Chief of them all.
And one day, it comes, sudden and unwanted.
My dear priestess, I cannot hold him for long, the voice in the half-pearly, half-ruby jewel says, desperate and defeated, you do not understand, the armies, all of the ten realms and their power. Listen to me, you are what he cannot touch.
Izuku struggles to breathe through the message.
—And the forbidden fruit never fared a fate good enough to be told.
There is a heavy pause, a cry of a bird, a warning of desperate caution is heard in the jewel before it says:
Run, High Priestess Izuku, it is you he's coming for.
The jewel burns then before exploding into tiny fragments and Izuku Midoriya knows, it is the last shred of concern he will hear from the demon.
It isn't that he didn't know, it isn't that he couldn't fathom it would come to this, it's just that Izuku, he— he thought he had time. Izuku closes his eyes, a common viridian of forestry engulfed in clouds of grey, clouds of doom.
Death no longer resides in the same cave that Izuku had met him in.
So he takes silent shelter in it, they wouldn't think of coming here. Not for quite some time. But he knows Katsuki, and he knows the brilliance of his mind, it won't be long before this place slips away from Izuku too.
There's no light in the cave, he is thankful for it, there is no living to haunt him, and he doesn't fear the darkness so long as he is the only person there.
Comfort seeps into his skin, lulls him into sleep as he eats an apple before its rotting. The silence of the cave is haunting and brutal but Izuku has grown to have a home, he wishes he could die but doing so, would kill the mortal part of him. Even the Godly scent of Izuku's soul cannot bear the thought of being heartless.
He wants to feel the things he understands, the things he can feel, the drop of first love, the charity of humans, the greed and futility of being mortal. His immortal soul tells him he is being a fool if he thinks he can have it but Izuku is half-mortal after all, what is he if not a little foolish?
Izuku maintains himself in deep meditative bearings after there is food no longer to sustain his stubborn will. He dreams of his mother, strangely his father as well, there's a petal of the Sun that he holds, it's a gift to his mother. And even in death, she never strays her hold over the yellow petal.
There are places in his dream, the woods he loved so true, wishing he had never come out of there. And then, and then only, he dreams of Katsuki, the God whose eyes shine like Beasts worse than told in the tale of time. Izuku, then, understands that he fears another thing.
He fears this God that searches for him.
What breaks his bearings is unwittingly a prayer.
He's not a God, not even well-known to begin with but he receives one nonetheless. His name becomes an incantation and Izuku recognises the voice almost too well.
"High Priestess Midoriya," Setsuna invokes, tears staining her voice, "I hope you are safe where you are. Unbroken and unaffected by what has been happening, the war has worsened in lengths since you have left," a hiccup sounds, "it has even forced me to think, surrounded by the corpses of our Hierarchy," she sniffles, her cry stab the silence of the cave to a bloody red.
"Are the Gods truly good? I do not know," Izuku can see her now, his immortal soul aides the vision easily. Setsuna is at an altar, his room as she cleans it, the castle is destroyed but she lives somehow. The War around her is worse, no harvest yield, no trees of the green show, all that is living struggles at the dearth of food.
Why? Izuku thinks, pausing when he extends his vision to discern the darkness over the land.
"The Sun God must be angry," Setsuna reasons, and Izuku stares at it, "and we face his wrath in return, I—" her eyes grow dimmer, "I have tried to keep your garden alive, but I am no God, I cannot thrive them the way you do," she laments, playing with a dried petal, his favourite golden flower.
"You are not a God, are you? You would not be as cruel as them if you were, would you?" Setsuna asks, unknown to what purpose she provides and only aware of the blasphemy she speaks. Even then, Setsuna doesn't have the concern to spare.
"Wherever you are, my dear Priestess," she smiles, meaning her words as truth, her sentiments in its company, "live well."
When her prayer ends, the vision disappears, leaving behind on the palm of Izuku's hand a pretty flower. Pretty but it is not his darling golden nor the nectar sweet.
Where winter still bites, the soft, soothing petals of the plum blossoms in Izuku's hands. Izuku closes his eyes, a tear that meets the surface of the petal only brightens the beauty it holds. The first time that Izuku considered his mortal heart is this.
He takes the half-red jewel from the Ancient demon and crushes it to smithereens. The dust of the jewel will flow back to its master, a river in the wind. In the days that follow, Todoroki Shouto would rise from the lake when he receives it, he cannot feel sorrow.
The closest that comes is pity.
Izuku tries stoning his heart, tries to emulate what a cruel mortal would be, someone who only had a heart in name. For what he is about to do is something that requires cold nonchalance, and he had never heard of a spring imitating winter.
But there is a first for everything.
Izuku's hand touches the wall, willing the rocks to succumb and pave the way, a small hole to catch sight of the skies. He has to invoke the name of Sun thrice to have him even be counted. Izuku is sure he has the name, and the tongue to speak it as well.
Yet, the intention— the intention to surrender feels a hand choking his neck and Izuku knew he would choose death over it if he could.
Izuku maims his heart's reluctance. He doesn't know what he can do with it, defeat swells the tension in his shoulders. Izuku gathers his will in every form, summoning it to act now.
"Katsuki," is as far as his whispering voice goes.
Even then, he wishes to take the incantation back but the skies ignite, the clouds brighter in vision and light lures itself in. With thousand rays of the Sun, divinity glimmers in, wrapping around Izuku's fingers, warming the skin that has not known it in such a long while.
A chuckle sounds, it's behind him, where the light is much warmer, much brighter.
"You truly did go to the last place I'd think of, didn't you?"
"Surprised?" Izuku seeks, turning around to meet his gaze.
Katsuki doesn't answer, there's a tumble of rage on the arch of his brow but for whatever reason, he reigns it. Watching the mortal, learning the changes that he has missed.
"I've been looking for you," Katsuki tells him, "but you already knew that, didn't you? Much before than I did," he says, carefully neutral, carefully disastrous.
At that moment, Izuku wishes to have seen the insides of the God's mind because even for the multitude of emotions that mortals feel, he couldn't quite place the look on the God's face in a box.
"I have a bargain to offer."
Katsuki's red eyes brighten, beautiful in their amusements, cruel in their considerations.
"I am listening."
"I am not a fool to think this war can be put to an end," Izuku remarks, determined nonetheless, where Katsuki stands for one kind, and Izuku stands for another. This, both of them know to an extent, is how it will always be.
"I do ask for one thing," Izuku knows he's asking for something that might not be given, the God before him has no reason to help him but if played his cards well enough, they might both get something
Katsuki may be a beast but a beast with a clever head on his shoulders which only augments his power.
"Exclude mortals from the war."
"What will I get in return?" Katsuki pursues and Izuku swallows a moment or two. His open nervousness is new to Katsuki who has never quite had the chance to wrap his understandings around it.
"Well," he says, refusing to look at him any longer, his Sun is too bright, "what do you wish for?"
Katsuki, who had assumed the mortal had something heavy to offer, lets his body fall into stillness. No, this is better. Anything in this world that Katsuki so little as glimpsed at became his. It isn't surprising now that Izuku does ask from him, his answer is immediate, almost as if it had been thought of.
"You had once told me, Deku," Katsuki begins, a scathing repetition of time, a rhyme of history to sing, "that the Sun has places it cannot reach."
Izuku doesn't stiffen but the mention of it brings his gaze back to Katsuki's feet, glancing at where the words lead. Katsuki comes closer and Izuku has to nearly turn his feet to stone to not step away, to not go away from Katsuki's reach.
A hand places itself on the back of his neck, thumb brushing against the smooth end of Izuku's jaw.
"I've been chasing after you," he says, thoughtful and Izuku still doesn't look at him directly, "I suppose," he says, calmly, so calmly but Izuku can sense the rage radiating from his form. But he's at the centre of the storm so nothing hurts Izuku, not unless he makes a wrong move.
"It is befitting that for the rest of your time, you spend all of it by my side."
I want to see all of you, everything you know, I want to know them. The yearning in those sentiments is obsessive, demanding and very much like the Sun that eats everything up and Izuku never lifts his gaze from his feet, and instead bows.
"As you wish, Your Highness."