Chapter Text
For the record, Shouta had only pulled out the “adoption papers look” as Hizashi called it once since Hitoshi. Eri had been confiscated like an object from her previous guardian, Overhaul, the god of painful death. She had been scared, confused, and in need of a friend. It was only logical, therefore, that Shouta should provide that, since he easily could. He maintained that two children in as many human lifetimes was a reasonable pace. Hizashi maintained that the floodgates had opened and more children would follow.
In Shouta’s opinion, Hizashi is as bad as he is. It was his idea to turn some of the unused back rooms into spare bedrooms.
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Shouta was aware that his choosing Hitoshi had spawned a Lineage. That was what happened when a god chose a mortal. He stiffly put up with the teasing from the other gods, who knew his general opinion on Lineages.
None of them, however, had ever said anything within Hitoshi’s or Eri’s hearing. This was good, because if they had a misunderstanding due to one of the others, the pantheon would lose a god.
Shouta was forced to admit that Hitoshi’s reaction to the realization that he now headed a Lineage had been funny, though. Hizashi had solemnly patted Hitoshi’s back while the boy panicked about something stupid like not being responsible enough. Both of them had steadfastly avoided the other’s gaze. It would probably have offended Hitoshi if they had started laughing.
It wasn’t like Hitoshi had to actually run anything, anyway. It wasn’t even much of a Lineage. Eraserhead wasn’t a particularly important god, and that was how he liked it. The family had loosely followed Hitoshi’s Lineage for a while, but Hitoshi still didn’t really like it, so they had let it fall by the wayside.
Shouta had ensured he would hear about any misuse of power in the Lineage, and then had practically forgotten about it. It wasn’t like he had any intention of taking another chosen. Hitoshi and Eri were more than enough.
He sincerely regretted this decision.
Shouta had been vaguely aware for some time that the date of his yearly sacrifice was approaching. Every year, the High Priest, as the head of the Lineage Academy, presented a sacrifice to him in his capacity as the patron of teachers. Eri and Hitoshi had been looking forward to it because Shouta usually brought it home and let the kids pick over it first. Last year, it had been a nice display of unusually fancy pastries and savory pies.
The day they brought Izuku home, he had felt the tingle that meant someone had entered one of his shrines. He nudged at the feeling a bit and determined that it was the one nearest to the capital.
It was a bit early for the yearly sacrifice, he noted absently. He didn’t think too much about it. It was probably just something that had to be eaten quickly before it went bad. He mentioned it to Hizashi as they got ready.
They were preparing to head down to eat a late lunch at a lake Hizashi had found tucked away in the mountains. Eri had been practically bouncing off the walls all day, and Hitoshi was excited too, although he hid it much better than Eri. Hizashi had been enabling her, and Shouta could still hear her chattering away to Hitoshi as the two packed their lunch in a bag along with a picnic blanket and whatever else caught their fancy.
“That’s nice! We can head down to pick it up when we get back.” Hizashi tossed a shirt at Shouta. “Alright. We shouldn’t leave it for tomorrow, though, since we don’t know what it is.”
Surprisingly, it was Hizashi who remembered to pack up at a reasonable time. He reminded the kids of the sacrifice waiting in the temple, effectively cutting off any complaints. It was getting rather late anyways, Shouta mused. He had severed the connection between him and the temple after getting to the lake and realizing that the priests weren’t going to leave the temple anytime soon. He wondered what they had been doing. Normally, the rituals only took about half an hour.
He reconnected to the temple as he packed up the remnants of lunch. Then he paused. There was still someone in the temple. It had been a couple hours, why would any of the priests still be there? Was someone trying to steal the offering? No one in their right mind would steal from a god’s temple.
Shouta closed his eyes and groaned. He thought he had made himself clear last time. “Sho?” Hizashi cocked his head at him.
“I think there’s a live sacrifice this year.” Shouta fought the urge to just go home and roll himself up in his blankets. He hated live sacrifices. The lamb or calf or whatever it was this time was always understandably terrified and sometimes injured. Injured, terrified animals weren’t fun to deal with.
Hizashi made a face. “If so, we’ve left the poor thing there for a while. You should probably go ahead of us. I’ll catch up.” Shouta acknowledged this reluctantly - the only thing he hated more than live sacrifices was having to deal with them alone. Hizashi was roughly ten times better than him at soothing riled-up animals, much less getting them to let him warp them to the nearest herd of their own kind.
Ruffling Hitoshi’s hair as he passed, Shouta handed Hizashi the picnic basket and warped himself to the temple.
He lands, as he usually does, a little to the side of the temple, hidden by the brush. He can tell if there is someone in the temple, yes, but it never hurts to be cautious. There is nothing in the temple except a lump of white laying on the offering table. The lump is squirming around. Shouta can see chains.
He takes a deep breath and pushes down the anger. A second later, pushing his way through the brush, all the anger and not a little horror comes rushing back because that is a person. On his offering table.
There is an entire human being laid out as a sacrifice to him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, that is a child. Someone has sacrificed a human child to him.
Shouta is going to kill someone today. He is going to enjoy it.
This couldn’t actually be his yearly sacrifice, could it? Has the High Priest gone insane? Shouta hopes so, because if the man had actually done this in his right mind, High Priest or not, he will end him with prejudice. He thinks Hizashi would probably back him up.
He approaches the altar. All Might, that actually is a kid. Green hair and pale skin, not squirming now but very still, listening to Shouta approach. Shouta doesn’t want to touch the kid, that would probably freak him out more. Instead, breathing out through his nose sharply rather than yelling like he wants to do, he snaps his fingers.
The chains unlock themselves from the kid’s wrists and ankles. Neither of them moves for a second. Shouta isn’t going to make the first move. Better to let the kid do it on their own terms. Finally, the kid sits up. It’s a boy, blinking at Shouta with obvious relief, though still wary. His eyes are just as green as his hair, Shouta notices absently. He’s more focused on the actual fucking muzzle strapped to the kid’s face.
He really is going to ruin someone’s life for this.
Slowly, the kid tries to stand up. He’s probably been laying down for a while. He wobbles dangerously as he puts weight on his feet. Shouta instinctively moves to steady him. A mistake. The boy startles like a rabbit and darts away up the other path with surprising speed.
Shouta doesn’t follow him immediately. He learned something from Hitoshi, thank you. Instead, he concentrates and sends a pulse of magic to poke at Hizashi’s magical signature. A second later, Hizashi blinks into existence next to him, looking worried.
Before he does anything else, Shouta buries his face in his husband’s shoulder and breathes. He needs to calm down before he scares the wits out of the kid while trying to help. Hizashi just rubs his back and waits.
One muffled explanation later, Hizashi is breathing through his own anger. Shouta takes his turn to sooth his husband. Hizashi, despite everyone’s first impressions to the contrary, can level a country with the force of his anger once stirred up. They can let loose later. Right now, they have more important things to worry about.
They head up the path the kid had taken. Shouta knows for a fact that that path ends in a dead-end, and there isn’t another way down unless the kid wanted to practically jump off a cliff. He’s only half paying attention to what Hizashi is saying, replying absently as he focuses on scanning the bushes.
The kid was wearing white, he couldn’t hide very effectively in the darkness. Sure enough, Hizashi pauses ahead of him on the path, then plops himself down a respectable distance away from the tangle of undergrowth. Shouta moves slowly up to stand behind him as Hizashi chatters softly to the kid that Shouta can now see curled up as far into the shrubbery as possible.
Hizashi let his facial scars show, he noticed, making a mental note to check on him after everything was said and done. Seeing a child with a muzzle can’t have had a great effect. He tunes back in to realize that his incredible husband has coaxed the kid to slowly squirm his way out from the tangle of branches. When the boy emerges onto the path, he pauses, eyes scanning them cautiously. Shouta watched his eyes follow the curve of Hizashi’s hair and saw the moment that it clicked.
The kid practically threw himself face down before them. Shouta winced in sympathy as the boy’s muzzle made contact with the ground. That can’t have felt good.
Hizashi scrambled forward to gently try and raise the kid up before he tore up his face even more. Shouta joins him, quietly warning the kid before he reaches out to unlock the muzzle. Hizashi gently pulled the kid upright so Shouta could gingerly ease the muzzle off his face. He threw it into the bushes as soon as it was off.
Burning it would have felt better, but he didn’t have time for that. The kid had apparently recognized him now, and Hizashi had had to start over with trying to get him to sit up. The boy was apparently determined to show Shouta the proper respect, though, and he was about to chime in with Hizashi when-
“The Lineage Upholder of Eraserhead presents his greetings to his god.”
What?
Shouta only registered that he’d pulled back when Hizashi bugged his eyes out at him. The kid was still apologising. He had sat up now, and Hizashi had promptly pulled him into his lap, trying to hush the flow of unneeded apologies.
Shouta added his reassurances to the mix, awkwardly placing a hand on the kid’s back. His mind was spinning. This was his Lineage Upholder? Hitoshi’s youngest? They were the Midoriyas now, right? If he remembered correctly, this would be Midoriya Izuku. Who the hell had sacrificed his own Lineage Upholder to him? It didn’t matter either way, he decided. If the High Priest didn’t want the child now bawling into his husband’s shoulder, then he was theirs now.
He thought Hizashi agreed with him, by the look he was leveling Shouta with over the kid- Midoriya’s head. Once their kid was done crying, by mutual silent agreement, they rushed him home as fast as possible.
(and oh, was Shouta going to enjoy taking out his feelings on whoever had made his kid look like that when someone said they wanted him)
When they arrived, Hizashi split off from their little group while Shouta led Midoriya into the living room. He was going fairly slow, talking a bit more than he normally would and giving the kid time to take in his surroundings. Eri scrambles down the staircase after them. She’s probably been waiting up to see what they bring home from the sacrifice.
He hopes she’ll take a new sibling as an alright present. He didn’t think about the reactions of his other children.
He tucks the softest blanket he can find around Midoriya before going to get some water. Midoriya cried enough for about three people in the last couple hours, and he’s going to have a nasty headache unless he rehydrates soon.
When he returns, he meets Hizashi standing outside the door, listening to the story that Midoriya is pouring out to Hitoshi, who had appeared and was sitting next to Midoriya, listening quietly with wide eyes that told Shouta he had no idea what to do. He moved into the room, silently collecting pillows and setting up the first aid kit, looking busy and not intruding while also letting Hitoshi know that he’s here. Hizashi follows his lead. Shouta can see him holding back tears at the anguish in their child’s voice as he rambles about what the High Priest had done.
(Shouta really is going to kill him now. All Might and the rest of the godly Council will understand.)
When Midoriya seems to be winding down, Shouta ensures that he drinks an entire glass of water and then pulls Hitoshi aside to give him the rundown about where they had found Midoriya. He can see his son’s eyes narrow. He took after Hizashi with anger.
Shouta watches proudly as his son takes his other son’s hand while Hizashi disinfects his face, then leans against Midoriya’s side while the greenette’s cuts heal under Hizashi’s hands.
Hitoshi only leaves Midoriya’s side when Shouta practically peels him off so Midoriya can take a bath. He then resticks himself while Hizashi and Eri bring in dinner, and gently bullies Midoriya into eating everything on his plate. Shouta can already feel the headache brought on by the chaos the two are going to cause once Midoriya relaxes a little.
Eri chats about everything and nothing during dinner - she got that from Hizashi - and Shouta can visibly see Midoriya relaxing. Hitoshi shepherds him into bed that night.
Shouta wonders aloud if perhaps their kids had taken Midoriya being their sacrifice and therefore technically theirs a bit too literally.
Hizashi just laughs at him.