Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The moon hung low in the sky, casting a cold but familiar light over the waters below. Beneath the waves, schools of jellyfish floated by, their pale skins glowing in the moonlight from above. Beautiful fish, squid, crabs, eels, and other creatures swam about the ocean floor, and amongst it all there was a ship.

This ship was no ordinary seacraft, just as the man who stood upon it was no ordinary man. Standing 7’2’’ tall, long wild golden locks flared out from his face, save for the two strands of his fringe that framed his skeletal, yet still handsome complexion. His entire form was emaciated, his angular and gangly features accented more by his fitted pinstripe suit. With meticulous movements, he took out an ornate glass pipette and began his daily ritual with the ocean, a practice largely unknown and mysterious in nature to nearly all but he. For he is Toshinori, Guardian of the World’s Seas.

Using the pipette, he issued drops of potion, allowing them to fall through the bubble that surrounded himself and his submarine. The concoction sent rich swirls of color through the seawater, and the hum of the ocean’s life floated around him. Despite his state of near constant exhaustion, these moments soothed him, and he smiled as he paused to marvel at the beauty of the seas.

After a moment, he set down the vase he was holding, using a cork to stop it up, before peering at his other canisters. While he was distracted with this task, he had no way of knowing that nearby, at the back of his homemade turtle-like marine vessel, a fish was poking its head through one of the ship’s many portholes.

This little fish was small enough to fit comfortably in the hand of someone Toshinori’s size, had a head of soft, dark green curls, and a freckled human face. Cautious, he slid out of the porthole, keeping a wary eye pointed in the direction of where Toshinori was working inside his bubble at the ship’s bow. The little fish, who went by the name Izuku, blinked his wide green eyes and looked around, fascinated by the open waters that lay before him and swam out a bit farther.

Izuku stopped suddenly when he felt something pushing behind him and looked back to see his adoptive siblings trying to swim after him. Izuku shooks his little round head and pushed them back, earning squeaks of protest from the others.

“We wanna go too!” cried Denki.

“Yeah, 'Zuku,” Mina whined. “How come you get all the fun?”

Izuku shook his head and kept pushing them back. “Quiet! Daddy’ll hear you!”

This he said just a little too loudly and Toshinori’s ear pricked up at the sound. The tall man set down his things and peered around the edge of the seacraft to look for the source. However, he saw nothing out of the ordinary and gave a hum of dismissal before returning to his work.

Izuku poked his head out again, relieved that he’d avoided being caught. Once again his little siblings tried to follow but he murmured for them to stay put, as they were too small to brave the ocean. This and the promise that he would return and tell them stories of his journey seemed to calm them and the group began waving goodbye, with little Tsuyu swimming up to press a kiss to his nose. Content, and sure that he wouldn’t be caught, Izuku turned and swam off with the squeaking farewells of his brothers and sisters behind him.

As he swam, Izuku looked back over his shoulder once or twice at where his father was working. A little ball of guilt formed low in his stomach and Izuku found himself frowning. Truly, he didn’t want to disappoint Daddy or run away from him, but he was tired of being fussed over and stuck in a bubble. There was a great big world out there and he wanted to see it for himself!

So here he was, ducking under a jellyfish and using its parachute-like body as a disguise to help him slip away. He reached a second jellyfish soon after and rested on top of it. The jellyfish rose higher in the water, catching the moonlight as they neared the surface. Izuku smiled and laid back on the jelly’s surface, content to ride as far as the creature would take him. His adventure had only just begun.

Dawn shone out over Yuuei bay, gently bathing the waves and cliffs in warm sunlight. Ships sliced smoothly through the water, setting out to deliver goods and valuable resources.

Amongst them, just below the water’s surface, floated a lone little jellyfish with an even smaller fish resting atop it. As the jellyfish continued toward the shore, sunlight fell across the little fish’s eyes and Izuku slowly awoke to look at his new surroundings. As his living makeshift boat broke the surface, an abrupt wave sent him ‘overboard’. Try as he might, Izuku’s fight against the waves and currents was a futile one, and only landed him trapped inside a discarded glass jar amongst a large pile of pollution. He was trapped!

“Shouto! Come right back up, okay?” a female voice shouted.

“Okay,” Shouto called over his shoulder to his sister as he descended the dirt path that had been carved into the hillside, his favorite toy boat tucked under his arm. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to play with Natsuo, but his older brother was a bit noisy, and sometimes Shouto just needed some time to play by himself. That was where the water came in – playing here in the bay amongst the calm, rippling waves was the perfect way to soothe himself. He’d started coming here a lot lately, ever since his mother had been sent down the hill to psychiatric ward.

The little boy brushed off the sad thought, and instead tried to focus on the fun he would soon be having. Clutching his toy, he traipsed, barefoot, toward the water’s edge. As he neared, he suddenly spotted...something.

Trash? No, trash would have simply bobbed in the waves, while this seemed to be moving. Setting his boat down, he waded in and saw that the thing was a glass jar that had a fish partially trapped inside it. Shouto bent over and dipped his arm into the tide to grasp the jar, before pulling it from the water. The boy gasped softly when he saw the jar’s contents.

“A fish?” he murmured.

At least, the strangest fish he’d ever seen. It had a face! A face that was currently being squished within the confines of the jar.

Shouto turned the jar over in his hands and inspected the little fish, wondering how he could free it. He tried pulling on the fish’s tail or shaking it out, but it seemed to be wedged inside.

“Can’t get it out,” he muttered. Then, before he could make another attempt, a wave suddenly rose up and started coming toward him, sending the little boy dashing back to the shore, jar in hand.

Shouto rushed to grab his toy boat and headed back toward the rocks, he happened to glance back at the wave. It was strange...the way it almost seemed to chase him. And were those eyes?

“Weird…” he mumbled, focusing back on his trapped companion.

Tugging and shaking hadn’t worked, so… Shouto looked around and found a rock. He lifted it up and then used to tap the jar as gently as he could manage – and was successful! The glass cracked and fell around the fish. However, the fish remained motionless. As Shouto carefully picked up the small sea creature, removing the stray glass shards (accidentally cutting his thumb in the process), he sadly pondered if the fish was dead.

Then, much to his surprise, a tiny tongue darted out and lapped at the drop of blood seeping from his cut finger.

“It licked me! It’s alive!” Shouto giggled happily.

“Shouto! We’ll be late!” Fuyumi called out from the top of the hill.

“’Yumi!” Shouto shouted back as he hopped to his feet. “It’s a fish!”

“Come on, Shouto!” shouted his brother, Natsuo.

As he trekked his way back up to his hillside home, unbeknownst to the boy, the waves with eyes gave chase to him. They crashed high against the path, just out of reach of the bicolor-haired child, giving mournful moans as they found themselves unable to proceed. All the while, the wind billowed about in strong gusts.

“I’m starting the car now!” Fuyumi stated, barely keeping her footing against the gales. “Be careful against this wind, Shouto!”

“Yeah, this is crazy!” Natsuo shouted in agreement before chasing after their sister.

Just then, down in the bay, a bubble arose from the depths, encased around the head of the Sea Guardian aboard his ship. His long fingers cupped his chin in worry and concentration, and as he surfaced the bubble popped and he looked to his assistants for news.

“Well? Have you found my son!?” Toshinori demanded to the animate waters, desperation heavy in his tone. The moment he noticed his sole biological child was missing, Toshinori’s protective paternal instincts kicked into overdrive, commanding everyone, from the seas’ inhabitants to the seas themselves, to mobilize in a search for his lost son.

The waves approached him and shook their hydrous heads, moaning their sea songs to him.

“What?” Toshinori cried as he heard their response. His hands tore and pulled at his golden locks. “He was captured by a human?!”

The blonde looked up at the cliff and caught sight of a little head bobbing up the rocky path toward a little home set upon the hillside.

“A boy,” he muttered and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t good!”

At a wave of his hand, the waves dispersed, and Toshinori sank beneath the water, bobbing off once more.

Up on the hillside, Shouto dashed to one of the two garden faucets, tossing his toy aside and reaching for a little red bucket that sat nearby. Fumbling, he managed to turn on the salt water tap, the one he and his siblings used to wash their feet and toys when they didn’t want to waste their fresh water supply. Once it was on, he placed the bucket beneath the stream and watched as it began to fill, nervously glancing between the rising water level and the unmoving fish in his hands.

When there seemed to be enough water, he used one hand to switch the tap off and the other to gently place the fish inside the bucket. The little boy gripped the bucket’s plastic edges and looked inside. The fish was bobbing on the surface, still.

“Please don’t be dead.” Shouto pleaded quietly. There had already been enough tragedy in his family life, and he couldn’t bare it if he played a part in the small green fish’s demise. To his surprise, however, after prodding the fish a few more times, the fish sprayed him with a small stream of water, making the human boy giggle softly.

“Thank goodness!” he sighed with relief, wiping his face.

The fish opened its wide eyes and blinked up at him before circling in the bucket. The way it dipped and swirled around almost made it seem like it was swimming happily.

“Wow…”

Shouto’s marveling of the fish was suddenly interrupted by the harsh honking of a car horn.

“Shouto!” Fuyumi shouted. “I have a job you know! And you boys have school!”

To everyone’s surprise, a very peculiar sight derailed their attention. As Shouto was stumbling down the front steps toward the car, bucket in hand, a rather tall man was cresting the hill. He wore some sort of pack with a hose attached, and a crank that he was repeatedly pumping. As he pumped, liquid poured forth from the hose’s nozzle, wetting the ground around and in front of him in gentle spumes.

Fuyumi narrowed her eyes and frowned at the sight. Once Natsuo had helped Shouto into the car, she leaned her head out the driver’s side window to call, “I don’t know who you are, but we don’t use weed killer around here."

Toshinori, startled, gave a look as if he had just been insulted. “‘Weed killer’? This is the purest ocean water there is! Not pesticide! Plus it keeps me from drying out on land!”

“Whatever,” Fuyumi snapped, displeased with his tone. “As long as it’s not weed killer. Now, if you’ll excuse us!”

“If you would just wait a moment–”

Before he could finish his sentence, the young lady pulled her head back in the car and slammed her foot on the gas, nearly running Toshinori over as she sped off down the road. Once he recovered from the shock of nearly being flattened, Toshinori turned to watch them go and felt his stress levels rising.

“Oh no,” he hissed, remembering to continue pumping the streams of sea water around where he stood before backtracking his way towards his underwater ship. “This is bad. This is very bad!”

In the car, Natsuo and Fuyumi were chattering to each other in the front seats while Shouto sat in the back, attention focused solely on his fish.

“Man, that guy was a freakshow,” Natsuo said.

“Hey,” Fuyumi admonished, “don’t call people ‘freakshow’. He was a little odd, I’ll admit, but we don’t judge people by their looks. Got it?”

Natsuo rolled his eyes but sighed, “Got it.”

“Got that, Shouto?”

Fuyumi looked in the rearview mirror and spied her youngest brother staring into his little bucket, not paying much mind to the other passengers.

“Is that something for school?” she asked, trying to keep him engaged. Since their mother’s admittance to the psych ward, Shouto had developed a tendency to either grow quiet or to wander off by himself. It worried her to see how different he acted these days compared to the happy child she’d once known. The grizzly scar over the left side of the heterochromatic boy’s face was a cruel reminder of that.

So it was to her delight that she heard him softly reply, “Yeah. I think I’ll bring him for show and tell.”

“Him?”

Natsuo leaned around in his seat to look back and beamed when he saw what was swimming in the bucket.

“Whoa, cool fish!” He then snickered and said, “Looks good enough to eat!”

“NO!” Shouto cried, clutching the bucket to his chest, which sent his brother into peals of laughter.

“Knock it off, Natsu,” Fuyumi said, shoving his shoulder. “Though speaking of eating, you boys need to eat something before school; Natsu, give Shouto some of his lunch to have for now, just to tide him over.”

“Alright, alright…”

Natsuo pried open one of the lunch boxes and pulled out a piece of pork, handing it back to his little brother. Shouto took it and nibbled on an edge before looking back down at his fishy friend. He glanced at the food in his hand, and in doing so happened to notice that his thumb was no longer bleeding from the cut he’d gotten at the beach. It had already healed over!

“Huh?” he murmured as he looked at his hand. He turned his gaze to the bucket and stared at the fish, who blinked back at him with curious green eyes. “Did you do that?”

The fish did not offer a reply, only blinked again, before turning its attention to the food in Shouto’s hand.

“Oh...You want some?” he asked. The fish, of course, didn’t say anything, but its eyes seemed to widen with interest, so Shouto lowered the pork toward him.

Izuku sniffed the strange meat, which smelled unlike anything they had in the ocean. But, though strange, it smelled delicious, and he didn’t hesitate to open his mouth and bite down on the meat.

“Whoa!” Shouto cried as the pork was tugged from his fingers. “He really likes katsudon!”

“What does he think he is?” Natsuo asked as he chewed on his own food. “Human?”

Meanwhile, as their car followed the road that edged the seaside, Toshinori was doing what he could to pursue them, riding atop his multi-finned ship, his bubbled head popping up occasionally as he sped along. As well as occasionally being smacked in the face by a myriad of flotsam, jetsam, and other items that have absolutely no place being in the ocean, much to his growing annoyance.

“Ugh,” he grunted as yet another soda bottle collided with his forehead. “Humans are disgusting!”

He ducked below the surface to avoid an oncoming ship, only to be forced to slow his pursuit when a second ship blocked his path, in the process of docking. His own vessel flapped as it tried to stop, stirring up dirt and grime from the seafloor.

“All this waste! And filth! Have they no care for the ocean!?” he grumbled bitterly. They relied on the water to transport their supplies and to provide their fish, but did they ever think to give back? No!

Back on land, the Todorokis finally reached their destination. Fuyumi pulled into park and bid the boys goodbye before grabbing her purse and racing off to her part-time job at the cove’s little hospital. Lucky for them, it was right next door to the school the brothers attended. Natsuo shouldered his backpack and raced off, while Shouto followed slowly, eyes focused on the bucket as he walked.

“Hey, Shouto!” came a call from nearby. Tensei Iida and a few other patients sat outside in the hospital’s garden, and were waving at the boy. “Aren’t you gonna say ‘Hi’?”

“Sorry, Tensei-san, but I’m in a hurry today!” Shouto called back. “I’ll be by later and we’ll talk then!”

Shouto heedfully made his way through the gap in the bamboo fence to school grounds, ever watchful not to spill a drop of water from the contents of the bucket or jostle its precious cargo. Before reaching the door though, doubt overtook his thoughts. What if his teacher didn’t allow him to keep the fish? Or worse, what if the teacher made him return the fish to the ocean? He couldn’t lose his new friend!

The boy glanced around the yard before spotting a clump of bushes nearby that looked like a perfect hiding spot.

“You’ll be safe here, my friend,” Shouto said as he set the bucket down in between two of the bushes, just far enough in to be shaded. The bucket’s bright color made it stand out a bit, so he pulled some stray branches over to help shield it. He set a large leaf over the top of the bucket in case any stray cats happened to come by – it wasn’t the best defense, but it was better than leaving his tiny friend exposed.

“That should do it,” he muttered, before peering through the leaf’s edges to give the fish a smile. “Stay put. I’ll be right back!”

As he couldn’t leave the confines of the bucket, Izuku obeyed the boy’s request, but found himself pushing against the leaf to watch him go. He liked the boy already, and watching him leave made him feel sad. He was used to being surrounded by dozens of his siblings, not to mention his father, and, when she had time to visit, his mother. Sitting by himself in a tiny bucket was not fun, and he could only hope that this Shouto would be back soon.

Shouto scrambled to the front door, weaving through the crowd of parents who were dropping off their children, calling goodbyes or talking to the teacher. He spotted his sensei and called a greeting but found himself too nervous to ask about the fish right away. Folding his hands, he stood by the door carefully planning how to ask his question. Talking made him a bit nervous, and he always found it easier if he thought things out first.

“Hey, Todoroki,” a voice called, and Shouto glanced back to see Katsuki Bakugou approaching him, a wicked grin stretching across his face. Shouto winced slightly before turning to greet him.

“Hey, Bakugou,” he muttered before turning back to wait for the teacher. Katsuki however didn’t take the hint and instead kept pestering him.

“You like my shirt?” he asked, tugging on the hem. It was black with a fiery explosion drawn across the front. “Real cool, huh? I bet you don’t have anything this cool!”

“Nope,” Shouto replied, not in the mood to get into it.

“Hey, Shouto,” said Hitoshi Shinsou as he wandered over to join the pair. “Let’s go play.”

“I can’t now,” the boy said, concentrating on the task at hand. “I’m busy.”

“You’re not busy,” Katsuki spat. “You’re five!”

“I am too,” Shouto insisted. “I have a job!”

“You’re weird.”

Shouto sighed solemnly as his two classmates walked off, or in Bakugou’s case, stormed off. It wasn’t anything new, unfortunately. He wasn't exactly the outcast among his peers, but at the end of the day he was not popular, and had no real riends to speak of. That is, until today when he rescued a certain green fish. After making sure no one was watching him, Shouto sneaked his way back towards the bushes to check on the fish.

To his shock, the fish wasn’t moving.

“Hey, hey!!” Shouto prompted, worry in his voice. Despairingly but carefully, he poked at the small sea creature, who yawned in response. Shouto couldn’t bring himself to care how weird it was to see a fish yawn or that tears were picking his eyes; his tiny friend was okay!

“What are you doing, Half-n-Half!?”

“It’s none of your business, Bakugou.” Shouto said calmly. Sadly, this only annoyed the other boy further.

“It is my business if you’re breaking school rules, Icy-Hot!” Katsuki spat back. “We’re not allowed to bring things to school that aren’t school supplies!”

“I’m aware.” Shouto replied icily, hiding the bucket deeper into the brush. “These bushes are part of the hospital grounds, not the school’s.”

“That’s a lame excuse and you know it! What are you hiding!?” Katsuki demanded, pushing against the other boy to try and see. “Lemme look!”

Shouto struggled against him, but Katsuki managed to tiptoe and look over his shoulder and get a peek at what was in the bucket. At the sight, he scoffed. “A fish?”

“He’s my friend,” Shouto mumbled.

“You’re friends with a fish? That’s lame. Well?! Lemme look at it already!”

Shouto sighed. “Okay, but don’t tell anybody he’s here. And don’t touch him!”

Still apprehensive but wanting to avoid coming to blows, Shouto turned and held the bucket out for Katsuki to get a better view. At the sight of the boy’s face, though, the fish became startled and turned around to swim to Shouto’s side of the bucket. At this, Katsuki seemed to feel slighted and let out a snort.

“Tch, it’s nothing special. Just a worthless deku fish!”

Shouto let out a growl of anger, but before he could lash out at his rude classmate, his friend beat him to the punch. Bakugou was met with a face full of water sprayed at him by the fish in righteous indignation.

The cotton-topped boy blinked in surprise before looking down to see that his new shirt was now completely soaked. He let out a cry of rage and screamed nonsensically at Shouto.

“FUCK YOU AND YOUR STUPID DEKU FISH, HALF-N-HALF!!” Katsuki roared before kicking dirt at the two of them and running off.

Shouto made his way back through the fence and into the hospital gardens. He didn’t want to be around when Katsuki came back. Finding a place to rest, he sat down and held the bucket in his lap.

“That was all his fault. He shouldn’t judge you based on your looks alone.” Shouto told his fishy friend.

Izuku appreciated Shouto’s words and sprayed a little stream of water at his nose, eliciting delighted giggles from the boy.

“Is that Shouto I hear?” asked a voice from nearby.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Iida,” a second voice murmured. “You know our boy should be in school right now.”

“Ah. It must just be in my head then.”

“Nope, I’m right here, Tensei-san!” Shouto said, approaching the two so that he was visible in their line of sight.

“Oh good, I’m not hearing voices! That’s not a good thing for the doctors to hear about!” Tensei joked.

Shouto smiled and held out his bucket. “You ready to see my surprise?”

“What is it?” asked Sir Nighteye, as he leaned slightly forward in his chair and adjusted his glasses.

“Guess!” Shouto said, a rare mischievous grin on his face.

“Hm,” hummed Nighteye. “Well, you have it in a bucket.”

“And it looks heavy,” Tensei said, smiling as he played along.

“And,” Nighteye commented as he shifted his glasses once more, “I think I see a pair of eyes peeking out to look at us.”

“Huh?” Shouto looked down to find that his little fish was resting using his little flippers to hold onto the bucket’s edge and peer at the patients. “Aw, he ruined the surprise!”

The two men chuckled before waving Shouto over. The boy stepped forward and held the bucket up so that they could both take a look.

“Ahh,” they said in unison as they spied the little green fish.

“I found him this morning,” Shouto explained. “He was stuck in a jar and I broke him out. Then when I got a cut on my finger, he licked it – and now it’s all better! I think he’s magic!”

“Well then,” said Nighteye with a wry grin, “why not let him use some of that magic on me?”

“I’d let a fish lick me if it’d get me out of this wheelchair,” Tensei concurred.

Shouto giggled again and attracted the attention of another patient who came hobbling over to join them, leaning heavily on his gnarled cane.

“Now what’s all this fuss about?” Sorahiko grumbled. “Lemme get a look in that pail.”

The boy was quick to oblige, and tilted the pail in Sorahiko’s direction, only for the man to gape in shock and fear at the sight of the little fish inside.

“Good gracious! What are you doing with that, young man!? Return that fish to the ocean this instant! Do you want to cause a tsunami?!” he demanded.

“Oh, it’s always tsunamis with you,” Nighteye groaned.

“Don’t you see?” Sorahiko thrust his cane in the direction of the pail, startling both the fish and Shouto. “That thing has a real face! Fish with human faces cause tsunamis, that’s what they always say!”

Izuku didn’t know what ‘they’ said, or even who ‘they’ were for that matter, but he did not like being pointed at, and replied by squirting water at the loud man. But rather than quiet him, this only seemed to make the matter worse.

At the touch of the water, the man began shouting, “Tsunami! Tsunami!” and waved his cane about. Shouto stumbled back, frightened by the display.

“Shouto!” the man said desperately, “go put that thing back in the ocean before we all drown!”

At the commotion, Shouto heard footsteps and spotted his oldest brother, Touya, coming from around the corner, and quickly dashed off in the direction of the stairway leading to the shore side.

“Hey there, Sorahiko,” Touya murmured as he approached the elderly man. “What’s got you riled up?”

“Me?” Sorahiko grumbled. “Well, will you look at me? I’m all wet! And it’s because of that brother of yours!”

Touya blinked. “My brother?”

Shouto scrambled over rocks, moving as carefully as he could manage with the bucket balanced in his hands, panting as he went, doing what he could to ignore Touya calling after him.

“Shouto! Shouto, come back here and apologize!”

“Don’t worry,” he whispered to the little green fish as they at least reached the water’s edge. He set the pail down and looked down at his friend before gently murmuring, “I’ll protect you.”

At those words, Izuku felt his little heart swell with affection. He’d been anxious when starting his adventure, but the fact that it had lead him to this boy meant that it was worth all of the trouble. He liked him. He liked him a lot! He liked–

“Shouto!”

The human boy whipped his head around to the source of the sound, thoroughly shocked when his grey and blue eyes landed on his fishy companion. There was no way...was there?

“Shouto!” Izuku cried again, loving the way the name sounded in his mouth.

“You...You talk…?” Shouto felt a smile break across his face at the realization, and the little fish’s head nodded.

“Izuku!”

“Izuku?” Shouto blinked, considering the word...no, the name. “Izuku? Is that your name?”

The green fish let out a squeal of delight and did a backflip in his bucket, splashing Shouto in the process, and Shouto laughed aloud.

“Izuku,” he said, pointing at the fish. He turned his finger around to point at himself, and said, “Shouto!”

Izuku nodded again, lips wide in an open-mouthed smile, and then took a deep breath to give his reply.

“Izuku! Loves! SHOUTO!”

Shouto broke into a blush at Izuku’s words and watched as Izuku did more delighted backflips.

“I...I will love you too,” Shouto said, quite seriously. He knew the importance of those words and wasn’t going to misuse them. He meant it.

Izuku was elated by the reply and cried once more, “Izuku loves Shouto!”

The two giggled and Shouto leaned down to rub his nose against the fish’s tiny face, ridiculously happy that he’d chosen to go visit the shore this morning.

Their revelry was regrettably short-lived. For nearby, Toshinori once again surfaced from the ocean. Once he reached a reasonable distance from the shore and locked his eyes on the pair, he arose above the waves to about his waist level, holding a handful of water. With his magic, the water sprung quite literally to life and multiplied into the animate waves he commanded earlier.

Shouto was taken by surprise as the waves surrounded and splashed him from all sides, swelling up and over him. Try as the boy might, the strength of the surging waters rescinding back towards the ocean pulled and yanked, until they at last wrenched the bucket from his grasp. His son procured, Toshinori slipped back beneath the depths, the waves following him loyally with Izuku in tow.

“Izuku? Izuku!” Shouto screamed. He dashed into the water, grabbing the red bucket as he went, wading farther and farther until the waves were high enough that they came crashing over his head. He slipped on some mossy rocks and fell under the waves, struggling to come back up again.

“Shouto?” Touya called again as he came upon the water’s edge. After a second of searching, he spied a little head bobbing in the waves, before it disappeared. The dutiful older brother gasped at the sight and went running into the surf, eyes never leaving that spot.

Shouto felt strong arms grab him by the torso and lift him from the water. A familiar voice was asking if he was okay, but he could do nothing but press his face to Touya’s shoulder and sob pathetically at the loss of his beloved friend.

Chapter Text

The rest of Shouto's day was a blur.

Once he finally calmed down enough to explain to Touya what happened, his older brother did his best to comfort him. In an attempt to take his youngest brother’s mind off the loss, Touya took Shouto with him to get groceries for tonight’s dinner and got him an ice cream cone just for him. Shouto appeared soothed by the gesture, but remained largely despondent.

“Hey, Shouto, maybe it’s for the best.” Fuyumi attempted to console once she learned what happened when the two met up with her and Natsuo. “Izuku's a fish; he wasn’t meant to live in a bucket. The ocean is his home.”

Shouto gave no reply, and remained silent in the backseat as they drove home. Fuyumi let out a small sigh and rubbed her forehead, which ached with fatigue. After a moment she glanced at her older brother in the driver’s seat.

“No more night shifts for a while, please,” she practically begged him, using hushed tones in the hope that the two boys in the back wouldn’t hear them. “I know you’re just trying to pick up some extra money for us, but...”

“No, I hear you,” he said gently, his voice betrayed his own exhaustion. “You’ve been kind of shouldering things at home by yourself, and that’s not fair to you.”

“Well, it’s not just that,” she interjected. “We also just really miss having you at home.”

“Yeah!” Natsuo called from the back, and Touya chuckled.

“Is that true guys? Shouto, did you miss your big bro?”

Shouto didn’t say anything, but he did give a small grunt that seemed to agree with the sentiment. Touya gave a lopsided grin as he looked at him in the rearview mirror.

“Well, in that case, I guess I have to spend more time at home, huh?”

“Yay!” Natsuo cried, leaning forward in his seat to hug Touya about the neck. Touya laughed and pretended to choke, which got Fuyumi and Natsuo giggling. Shouto still didn’t feel very happy, but between the ice cream and his siblings’ cheeriness, he felt his upset calming down somewhat.

Then it was ruined.

“So,” Fuyumi asked, hesitance in her voice. “How’s Mom doing with the new medication?”

She posed the question just a bit too loudly, and the boys in the backseat both pricked their ears up at the sound of the familiar name. Touya noticed this and chose his next words very carefully.

“Pretty well, from what the doctors told me,” he said. “Her sleep’s been better and she seems a lot calmer.”

By now Fuyumi had realized her mistake and swallowed thickly. “That’s good, then.”

Both older siblings hoped that would be the end of the subject matter. Sadly, this was not the case.

“If she’s doing better,” Natsuo piped up, “then does that mean she can come home soon?”

Both Touya and Fuyumi winced at the question, and Touya nearly repeated the motion when he glanced in the mirror again and saw that Shouto was leaning forward in his seat, eyes wide and hopeful. The elder brother gave a sigh as he slowed the car to stop at a red light, and turned in his seat.

“Not yet,” he said, and then quickly added, “but! We’re getting closer! Mom’s not going to be in the hospital forever. It’s just until they’re really sure that she’s ready to come home safely. I know we all love her and know that she wouldn’t hurt us on purpose, but…”

He trailed off when he caught sight of Shouto’s scar, and a knot twisted in the redhead’s stomach.

“But...not everybody knows her as well as we do.”

Both boys looked crestfallen now, and Natsuo was quick to channel his disappointment into anger. As the light turned green and they pulled from the intersection, he gave the back of his brother’s seat a vicious kick.

“This sucks! Why can’t you just make them let her out? You’re supposed to be in charge now!”

“Natsu!” Fuyumi snapped, turning in her seat to glare at him. “Stop that! It is not Touya’s fault! We have to obey the hospital’s orders. Part of this is a legal matter, and part of it is trying to make sure that she’s really ready to go home.”

“Why wouldn’t she be ready?” Natsuo yelled back, kicking Touya’s seat again. Fuyumi smacked at his legs and he howled. “This is stupid! This whole thing is stupid! What, do they think she’s gonna do better sleeping in some hospital bed than her own bed at home? Do they think those doctors and nurses and people care about her more than we do? What do they know?!”

“Natsu,” Touya barked, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. “Stop it! Okay? Whining isn’t going to help anything right now. We’re all just as upset as you are.”

“Then why don’t you act like it?”

He kicked the seat a third time, and this time when Fuyumi went to smack him, he hit her in return. The two started grappling with each other, while Touya yelled for them both to calm down, and all the while no one noticed the little boy sitting in the backseat whose ice cream had long melted by now. At least, they didn’t notice him until they suddenly picked up the sound of muffled sobbing.

All three of them calmed down and looked at Shouto, finally noticing the way he was shaking, tears and a bit of snot running down his face while he kept his lips pressed shut, trying to quiet himself. Natsuo’s eyes widened a bit in concern, and he reached to rest a hand on his little brother’s shoulder.

“Sho?” he murmured. “You okay?”

Shouto shook his head weakly and opened his lips to let out a croaking wail.

“I miss Mommy! And...And I miss Izuku! Why does everybody have to leave!?”

The other three siblings sat in stunned silence, each of them feeling petty and small for worrying so much about their own problems while their smallest had been quietly struggling on his own. Natsuo leaned across the backseat and pulled Shouto into a hug, letting the smaller boy press his face into his t-shirt. Fuyumi reached a hand back and rested it on Shouto’s head. Touya couldn’t do much as he had to drive, so he gave a simple sigh as he rounded the seaside bend leading up to their hilltop home.

“I’m really sorry, Shouto,” he murmured. “Let’s do our best, all of us together, okay?”

The rest of the car ride was mercifully spent in silence. As Touya pulled into the driveway, the four siblings unhooked their seatbelts and shuffled out of the car without saying a word. Touya and Natsuo walked to the car’s trunk to unload the groceries, while Fuyumi went to unlock the door before assisting her brothers. Shouto merely held his red bucket and moved towards the ocean path.

“No more ocean today, Shouto.” Fuyumi reminded him softly.

Shouto sighed, but didn’t protest. He wanted nothing more than to go out and look for Izuku again, but he didn’t want to upset his family again either.

“If I leave the bucket out, Izuku will know where to find us when he comes back.” Shouto said, placing the red pail on the fence post.

“I think that’s a lovely thing to do for Izuku.” Fuyumi replied warmly. “Come on inside. I hear Touya’s going to be making your favorite for dinner tonight.”

“Soba?” Shouto asked, perking up just a bit.

“Oooh!” Natsuo licked his lips and rubbed his belly. “Sounds good! And we can have a slurping contest! Hey, I bet I’ll beat you, Sho!”

“I don’t know, Natsu,” Fuyumi teased. “Shouto really loves his soba. Don’t you, buddy?”

Shouto nodded and gave a tiny smile as he went to hug his sister’s legs. Natsuo continued to boast his slurping abilities as they went inside to help Touya with dinner. For the first time in a while, all four of them gathered in the kitchen to cook together, Touya handling the stove top, Fuyumi cutting, Natsu peeling, and Shouto running around gathering things for the others.

The night seemed to take a turn for the better. Working together lifted everyone’s spirits, and the meal itself came out perfectly. They were in the midst of an intense slurping battle, with Shouto in the lead, and Natsuo stubbornly trying to keep up. Things felt warm and comfortable, and while their situation wasn’t perfect, it felt nice.

Up until the phone rang, that is.

Touya groaned as he sat up in his chair to answer it, thinking it was the hospital calling to ask him about his and Fuyumi’s next shifts.

If only.

“Hello?” he grumbled into the phone, expecting to hear Dr. Shuzenji’s voice come over the line. Instead the reply that came was deep, rough, unpleasantly familiar and wholly unwanted.

“Touya. I’m calling to inform you that I’m going out again tonight. I’m going to be passing by the house, so use the signal to talk–”

“GOOD! No one wants you here! And no, we don’t want to speak with you in any shape or form!”

“Don’t you disrespect me–”

“FUCK OFF!!”

Touya slammed the receiver down before stomping back to the table. The others stared at him, shocked, as he plunked back into his seat and practically attacked his food.

“I’m...guessing that wasn’t the hospital?”

Touya didn’t reply to his sister’s question, instead choosing to seethe as he slurped his noodles. Natsuo watched him and a roguish grin stretched across his face as he understood.

“That was Him, wasn’t it?” he asked, a giggle in his voice.

Touya grunted around his mouthful of food and Fuyumi rolled her eyes when she realized who they meant. “Ugh,” she sighed. “Why can’t he just...go away?”

“He is,” Touya muttered once he’d swallowed. “Called to tell us he’s going out again with the crew. Here’s hoping they hit an iceberg.”

“I’ll toast to that!” Natsuo snickered, raising his glass. Touya wore a grin of his own, clinking his drink against his younger brother’s. Fuyumi sighed, thinking the gesture a little morbid, but couldn’t hide a small smile, which turned into a laugh as Shouto tried to clink his glass as well, having to use both hands to keep his juice from spilling.

That evening, the group waited upstairs in the younger boys’ room to watch as the ships set out on their nightly voyage. When they spotted their father’s freighter going by, Natsuo used the binoculars to see what he was signaling.

“S-T-O-P I-G-N-O-R… He wants us to stop ignoring him, Touya!”

Touya pushed the little boys to the side and took hold of their signal. Natsuo passed the binoculars to Shouto and watched as his older brother slapped out a series of aggressively made ‘FUCK OFF’s. Fuyumi admonished him, and pulled a hysterically laughing Natsuo away from the balcony.

“You’d think the divorce would be enough to get him to leave us be,” Touya snapped as he shut the signal off and stomped back in the room, ignoring whatever messaged Captain Enji Todoroki was flashing at them. Shouto could tell their father’s reply was not very nice. Letting the binoculars hang around his neck, he wandered back inside to where Touya had thrown himself upon one of their beds. He patted his brother’s red hair and murmured his own youthful insight.

“There’s still hope he’ll hit that iceberg.”

Shouto then found himself swallowed in a big sibling group hug/dog pile, the others laughing and ruffling his hair as they all held each other close. Things were still incredibly hard for all of them, but they would certainly do their best together.

For a moment, the small family, if broken, could pretend everything was okay.

Aboard his father’s ship, Izuku struggled against the bubble that contained him. He struggled all the way back to his home under the sea. Eventually, the young fish wore himself out, floating all but motionlessly in his bubble as his Daddy started lecturing him.

“This is all my fault. I exposed you to magic when you were too young to understand. It’s my duty to keep the seas in balance; it’s a great responsibility. I cannot jeopardize that, and neither can you by swimming off like that. You must promise me something: you will never go back to the surface, understood?” Toshinori spoke solemnly. As he prodded a small pick with food at the end within Izuku’s bubble, his son refused to respond. “Come now, Izuku, you must eat.”

“I want katsudon!” Izuku whined.

Toshinori blinked rapidly in surprise. First, at Izuku’s sudden break of the silent treatment, and secondly at his child’s disturbing words.

“Katsudon? You ate their food?! What else did you do!?” Toshinori prompted, already dreading the answer. “You didn’t taste blood, did you?!”

“Izuku loves Shouto! I want to be a human too!”

Toshinori’s expression grew taut with a scowl. “Human? What do you know about humans, Izuku? They spoil the sea!! They treat our home like their empty black souls. And to think I was once a human so long ago…a life I left to serve the Earth.”

“I want...I want hands! I want feet! I don’t want these flippers anymore! I want hands and feet like Shouto!” Izuku cried.

Nearby, Izuku’s little siblings crowded in their own bubble to observe the argument, squeaking their own opinions and questions.

“Yeah, let him change!” cried Eijirou.

“Yeah,” Hanta agreed. “Humans sound cool!”

“What’s katsudon?” asked Rikidou.

“I wanna try!” Mina yelled.

“Me too! I wanna be human too!” Momo shouted, and soon they were all clamoring and asking to be changed. Toshinori tugged at this hair as he went over to calm them down.

“No, no, no!” he urged them all. “No one will be turning human, you hear me? None of you! Their world is dangerous and disgusting! Their hearts are dark! They use things up and then throw them away, like it’s nothing. They’ll even do it to other humans.”

“Shouto wouldn’t!” Izuku shouted from behind him, catching Toshinori’s attention once more. “He loves me!”

Toshinori blinked in surprise. “Loves you?”

Izuku bobbed his head. “He said so!”

The blonde man sighed as he strode back to where his son rested in his little bubble. He stroked the bubble’s surface and murmured, “Izuku, he might have said that. He might have even thought that he meant it...but he’s just a little boy. Little human boys don’t know how they feel, and they often change their minds.”

Toshinori crouched to make eye contact with his little one as he continued. “You can’t rely on those words. Doing that could lead you to be seriously hurt. The last thing in the world I want is for you to be harmed. So please understand — you can’t ever go back.”

Izuku had pressed his face against the bubble’s wall to rub against his father’s large hand; despite his current frustration, he’d missed Daddy and it felt good to nuzzle against him. But at these words, his eyes snapped open and he reeled back.

“Never?” he cried. “B-But–!”

“No arguing,” Toshinori interrupted sternly. “This is for your own good.”

Izuku’s lip quivered and he curled in on himself, scrunching his eyes shut and covering his face with his flippers. Toshinori felt his heart tug at the sight of his little son being so upset.

“Now there, Izuku, I know you’re sad, but you mustn’t cry! I promise, in no time you’ll forget all about–”

“Nnnnn!”

Toshinori paused his speech when he heard a grunting sound coming from within Izuku’s bubble. Upon closer inspection, his son wasn’t trembling with sorrow, but instead seemed to be shaking from exertion and concentration. His father raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Izuku, what are you–”

Before he could finish his question, Izuku managed to spawn four crude appendages from his little body! His siblings let out excited squeals as they looked on and Toshinori balked at the sight.

“I made hands! I made feet too!” the child chirped happily.

“What’s this? No no no, you have tasted human blood!” Toshinori uttered, horrified.

“Cooooool!”

“How’d you do that, Izu?”

“Yeah, 'Zuku! Teach us how you did it!”

“I’m going to Shouto!” Izuku declared.

“No! You’re making a grave mistake! Stop changing this instant!” Toshinori commanded, placing his hands around the bubble. “Revert! Revert! Revert! Stop this, Izuku!”

Try as Toshinori might, his young son put up a strong resistance to his efforts.

“I need more power.” Toshinori mumbled. He released his hold on Izuku’s bubble, ignoring the child’s protests to be let out, to drink from his magic vials. After doing so, he returned to the bubble to cast his spell to reverse Izuku’s transformation. “You can’t be both magic and human at the same time, my son.”

The spell worked, much to Toshinori’s relief, and Izuku once more was a fish. His little green body floated aimlessly in the bubble, eyes squeezed shut in sorrow. The sight made the Sea Guardian sigh. “Already so powerful, just like your mother. If only you could stay pure and innocent forever, my boy.”

With a sad huff, Toshinori took Izuku’s bubble and merged it with the larger one to reunite him amongst his siblings. Already, several of Toshinori’s adoptive children gathered around their brother, in vain attempting to rouse Izuku.

“Awww, why’d you change him back?” Mina pouted, the pink pufferfish puffing out in discontent.

“He was doing a cool trick!” Denki chimed in.

“It’s not a good thing that Izuku transformed, my children.” Toshinori chided. “He consumed human blood and now treads a dangerous line between  magic and human! It’s an upset to the balance of nature! I’m not powerful enough to fully reverse the effects…” He raised his head and looked off in the distance as he made a solemn decision. “I’ll need to get your mother’s help to remove the parasitic human side that’s forming within your brother.”

At that the children let out happy cries, yelling about how excited they were to see their Mommy. Toshinori couldn’t blame them a bit — despite the serious nature of the moment, he too felt a bit giddy at the thought. His temporary joy was interrupted however when he felt something crawl across his foot and looked down to see crabs, lobsters, and other such crustaceans flooding into his chambers.

“Now what?” the Sea Guardian grumbled. He watched as the horde scuttled about and began clambering over to his potions, much to his displeasure. He growled and began kicking them off. “Argh! They’re going for my elixirs! Shoo! Shoo! I can’t take this much stress…” he grumbled as he grabbed the scattered vials and tried to organize. “The balance must not be upset anymore than it already has, lest the world fall into chaos! So much to do...and at the thought of seeing her again, my heart won’t stop pounding!”

Toshinori did his best to suppress the myriad of thoughts by focusing on his work. He shut off the light to let his little ones have their rest before rushing downstairs to attend to his brewing concoctions.

As he rushed deeper into the lower levels of the underwater household, Toshinori finally came to a stop at a small, isolated chamber. This was the other most important room in the home (other than the quarters containing his children), but also the most dangerous. It was here where he devised his otherworldly potions for his rituals.

“It’s nearly ready.” Toshinori smiled, adding the contents of a vial into the brew. “Once this well is full, the next batch of marine life to rival the Cambrian Age shall be cast loose to the ocean. Hopefully this time, those humans won’t destroy it the moment it’s unleashed. They ruin enough things as it is!”

After cursing the stubborn door to the sanctum as he closed it, Toshinori set off in his finned submarine to carry out his duties for the day.

Back in the children’s quarters, all was silent as the young boys and girls slept. Even Izuku, though his sleep was riddled with unease. Slowly but surely, the other children began to rouse.

Little Tsuyu then braved to approach Izuku’s bubble again, prodding it constantly. The others watched their tadpole sister, and quickly caught on to her plan.

“Good idea, Tsu!” Eijirou called. “Let’s all free Izu from the bubble!”

Everyone gathered around to help. Eijirou gnawed at the bubble’s skin with his sharp teeth, and Mashirao, a dogfish pup, joined in by slapping his strong tail against the surface. Mezou swam to join them, the little lionfish rubbing his spines while Mina carefully spat globs of acid from her mouth. Kyouka prodded with her antennae, Momo rubbed with her frill, Yuuga brushed his shiny scales, Fumikage pecked with his dark beak, and even Kouji, the gentle giant of a baby whale shark, joined in by butting his head against the bubble. Tooru, a tiny blue-ringed octopus who was normally a bit shy and remained camouflaged near the rocks, crawled out to stretch her tentacles around the bubble and squeeze. Everyone helped, except for poor little Ochako, who got caught in a current and floated to the top of their bubble home, but still shouted down encouragement to her siblings.

Before long, the bubble’s integrity gave open with a resounding ‘pop’! The children all rejoiced at their accomplishment, yet Izuku still slept on. Or so they thought.

“Izu?” Denki darted forward to give his brother a small zap in the hopes it would help wake him. Just as he was about to nudge him though, Izuku’s little green body quaked and Izuku surprised his siblings by once again sprouting cloddish extremities vaguely resembling hands and feet. The others marveled at the sight, oohing and ahhing. Izuku then used his new hands to pull everyone into a group hug.

“Thanks, you guys!” he exclaimed, flashing his newly formed human teeth. “Let’s go find Shouto!”

His adoptive brothers and sisters had no idea who this ‘Shouto’ was, but he was important to their brother and they’d do everything in their power to help him so he’d be happy.

“How do we get to him?” Ochako asked, circling the roof of the bubble. The others hummed in thought, and Izuku looked around their little sanctuary, an idea suddenly forming.

“Hold on, guys!” he urged the others, before walking over to the wall. Their bubble had been especially crafted by their father to ensure that nothing could come in or out except by his own hands in order to keep his children safe. Then again, Toshinori had mentioned that Izuku was growing more powerful.

Baring his teeth in a smile, Izuku reached forward with his crudely formed hands and pressed against the bubble’s wall. Not a second later he managed to puncture it, springing a leak and allowing water to flow out onto the floor around them. He pushed harder and soon both he and his siblings were pouring out in a wave onto the floor.

The children giggled with excitement over their newly found freedom as they splashed in the waves, washing over their father’s treasured potions and books.

“Hey, I know!” Little Momo swam toward the stairwell and waved a fin to the others. “Daddy’s potions!”

The others shouted in agreement at this splendid idea and Izuku swa– no, ran over, lifting Momo and a few of the others as he swept them all in a wave down the steps, through their father’s study, to where they reached the inner sanctum.

“Hang on, everybody,” Izuku burbled in the water as he tugged at the sticky door. “Be careful! When I open this it’s gonna be really–”

Before he could finish, the door swung open and the wave swept the lot of them in, with Izuku being washed into the well of elixirs. The others watched in wonder as the well swelled with golden light, a high pitched squealing rising up until at last there was an explosion of sound and color and Izuku came rocketing up out of the well and swept them along to burst forth from their watery home.

Izuku whooped in euphoria as he felt the surge of magic flood in and around him as they all shot toward the surface, using his new fingers to tug at his cheeks, his hair, and pinch his button nose. His siblings swarmed around him and he giggled, reaching out to brush the magic against them, allowing them to grow larger and larger and join with with the waves until they were a school of massive watery fish paddling toward the sky above.

Not far away, Captain Enji Todoroki stood at the helm of his freighter, frowning as he watched the horizon.

“Uh, Captain?” called Hawks from where he steered the ship. “I’m picking up some strange activity!”

“Keep forward,” Enji grumbled, ignoring his concern.

“Are you sure? I really think we should–”

Before the helmsman could complete his thought, he was proved correct. The ocean’s rippled surface suddenly exploded as great fish, more massive than the freighters that traversed the waters, breached and flooded the sky. The men who stood below watched, eyes wide and mouths agape as the behemoths came crashing down, rocking their ships from side to side. The captain cried out as he was flung against the railing, clinging for his life. Hawks clung to his chair and struggled to stand, looking around in horror.

“Waterspout!” someone shouted.

“Tsunami!” cried another.

Enji received a face full of saltwater and seaweed as slid across the deck. Nearby, Hawks peered out the window at the massive waves, awed by the chaos that surrounded them. How could this have come so suddenly? How...

Was…that a child he just saw? Running on the waves of the tsunami? The shaggy haired blonde rubbed at his eyes, blinked a few times, and looked again. No, he wasn’t crazy – there was in fact a child there!

“Captain! Look!”

“What?” Enji screamed as he slipped and hit the deck once more, unable to follow Hawks’ line of sight.

“There’s a kid,” Hawks yelled. “He’s– He’s running on water!”

“Have you lost your mind?!”

“He’s there!” Hawks insisted. “He looks young! Don’t you have a son about that age?”

“Will you stop yammering and steer?!” The captain finally managed to stumble back toward the wheel, just as Hawks watched the little boy and his fleet of mammoth fish disappear from sight.

Much like most of yesterday, Shouto’s school day went by in a haze.

He kept mostly to himself as per usual, if a bit quieter than usual. Despite the happy times he spent with his siblings the night before, Izuku’s loss still weighed heavily on him. The few times he found himself daydreaming in class, he imagined what Izuku was up to in the sea. Was he lost? Was he hurt? Was he trying to return to him?

When the day finally ended, Shouto bid goodbye to his teacher, and left quickly. Both the wind and rains of an upcoming storm were picking up, so Shouto wasted no time making his way to the hospital to meet up with his brothers and sister.

“Let’s go, kids,” Fuyumi called as she waved to Shouto and Natsuo as they ran across the parking lot. “It’s starting to flood!”

Once were they were in the warm safety of the car, Natsuo was quick to ask, “Is it gonna be okay? What if the hospital floods?”

“Will Mom drown?” Shouto asked, voice tinged with worry.

“No one’s gonna drown,” Touya assured them as he started the car. “It’s just a little flash flood, nothing we haven’t seen before. But we wanna get home before the roads get washed out, so go ahead and buckle up.”

As the small family drove down the road, the car was hit with heavy rainfall and spindrift. It was a miracle in and of itself that the vehicle wasn’t immediately swept away with how strong the storm was getting. Wind battered against the doors and pushed the car to the side of the road, forcing Touya to get more aggressive with his driving. Shouto bit his nails and watched out the window, fearful of the incoming storm. Then, as they reached the road that edge the shoreline, he caught sight of a massive eye creeping up over the wall.

“A fish,” he gasped. Shouto leaned back and poked Natsuo to get his attention. “Natsu, I saw a fish!”

“Huh?” Natsuo leaned across the backseat to get a better look, which had Fuyumi anxiously reminding him to keep his seatbelt on.

As they neared the harbor, Touya slowed at the sight of two men in yellow slickers waving to them with orange batons. The red head grumbled at the sight, already sensing what they were going to tell him. He pulled to a stop and rolled down his window, and the two men approached.

“Touya,” one of the men shouted over the howling of the wind, “you kids need to turn around and go back! This side of the island is flooding!”

“It’s not mandatory,” Touya said in return, looking ahead to the dip that was currently flooded with seawater. “And we need to get home!”

“Listen kid, I know you’re trying to be the big adult, but you need to think of your family!” the other man yelled as ran came pelting in from the side, the air thick with the smell of sea brine. “Go back!”

“I am thinking of my family,” Touya snapped. “And what we need is to go home!”

With that he hit the gas and edged forward, to the displeasure of the slickered men. But after a moment the height of the incoming waves had them running for shelter, leaving the car full of Todorokis be.

“Touya, what are you doing?!” Fuyumi demanded.

“I’ve got this!” Touya shot back. “Everyone hang on!”

“Touya!”

But the eldest brother ignored her, intent on taking his position as temporary head of the family seriously, and hit the gas. The car lurched forward and he gripped the steering wheel tight, knuckles white, bound and determined to get them to the warm, familiar safety of their home.

Shouto and Natsuo gripped their seats and nearly screamed as their brother gunned it and their car hit the water. Touya had the pedal to the floor, an iron grip on the wheel as he forced the car to go forward. “Come on,” he muttered through gritted teeth, blue eyes darting to look at the approaching wall of water. “Come on…”

“I can’t believe you,” Fuyumi nearly cried as she gripped the safety handle above her head. “We could have just gone back!”

“Not the time, 'Yumi!” Touya snapped, just as their car reached the other side and skidded up onto the road, narrowly escaping as the waves crashed down behind. The car fishtailed before hydroplaning across the road, skidding about. Without thinking, the two younger boys reached out and clasped hands, unconsciously digging their nails into each other’s skin out of fear.

In the shotgun seat, Fuyumi let out part of a terrified breath, before looking over her shoulder. Outside, the waves were continuing to follow them as they sped up the road.

“It’s like it’s chasing us,” she whispered, panting in fright.

Shouto silently agreed as he looked out the window again. He’d seen the ocean do many strange things, especially in the past day or two, but this was unique. As he watched from behind the safety of the glass, he saw more eyes chasing after them. Unlike the eyes that had stolen Izuku, these seemed to belong to an armada of fish, just like the one he’d seen back at the bend.

“The fish are chasing us,” he informed his sister.

“What?”

Before Shouto could explain himself, his voice was stolen. Releasing Natsuo’s hand, he gripped the edge of the door as he realized there was something, nay, someone, riding atop the slew of fish.

Shouto gaped at the sight. Running on the water, was a young boy roughly his age. A beautiful boy with pearly skin, unruly green curls for hair with matching viridian eyes, and the most adorable freckles dotting his nose and cheeks. He wore a mere green shirt and fitted white shorts which somehow managed to look elegant despite the simplicity, as well as the biggest smile Shouto had ever seen.

A smile that seemed directed at him.

Shouto gasped.

“There’s a little boy out there!”

At this, Touya slammed down on the brakes.

“A boy? Where?”

Fuyumi stuck her head out the window, and Touya unbuckled to step one foot outside the car and look around. Unfortunately, they happened to look just as the little boy lost his footing and tumbled down into the waves, his arms and legs reverting to chicken-like stumps.

After a second their sister called, “I don’t see a boy! Touya, we need to keep going!”

“But he’s there!” Shouto cried.

“Yeah!” Natsuo yelled. “I thought I saw him too!”

Touya grunted as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. “Sorry guys,” he said as he shifted back into gear, “but real family comes before maybe-real kids. We need to get home now.”

Shouto unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to lean over the back of his seat and out the rear windshield, desperately looking for his the boy he’d seen. Fuyumi called for him to sit down and buckle up, but he ignored his sister. Fuyumi finally gave up and ordered Natsuo to at least hang onto Shouto and make sure he didn’t fall as the car continued on its path, careening uphill toward their home.

As they pulled into the driveway, Shouto jumped from his brother’s grasp and crawled out to stand in the middle of the road and watch as the waves continued to swell and rise toward them. He caught sight of his little red pail, which had been caught in the wind, flying off to crash into the tides. Behind him, he heard Fuyumi calling for him to come to the house, but once again, he paid her no mind.

Then, just as Touya was hopping out of the car to reprimand his little brother, he stopped in his tracks. Their other two siblings mirrored this action as they all spotted the same thing: a tiny person stumbling up the road, drenched in seawater and holding a little red bucket.

“There is a boy,” Fuyumi cried, before racing down the road, arms outstretched toward the child. “Come here, we’ll help you!”

Izuku peered at the pail in his hands. Then he blinked and looked up to see that Shouto’s sister (Fuyumi?) was running at him. She seemed nice enough, but the newly formed little boy was not interested in her at the moment. As he moved his eyes around, he finally glimpsed the person he really wanted to see, and his little heart soared as he raced past Fuyumi, bare feet slapping against the asphalt as he ran to the boy he’d been seeking.

Izuku came running at Shouto, red pail in hand, his human form fleshing out once more as he went. He didn’t stop running until he reached the other boy, jumping and wrapping him in a big hug that almost sent both of them toppling to the ground.

Fuyumi, who’d been just a bit miffed when the boy ran past her, came jogging back to stand next to Touya and watch as this little stranger embraced their youngest. The elder siblings shared a look of confusion, before turning back to the pair.

“Shouto,” Touya said, as the green-haired boy loosened his grip enough to sink to the ground. “Do you know this boy?”

Shouto said nothing. Instead, he looked long and hard at the green boy staring back at him. Still nuzzling his face with his own as part of their embrace. After a moment, though, it clicked.

“I-Izuku?”

“Mhmm!” Izuku nodded, a beam spreading across his face. He knew Shouto would remember him! “It’s me! Izuku!”

“I-It is you!” Shouto laughed, eliciting excited giggles from Izuku. “Touya! ‘Yumi! Natsu! Izuku came back! And he’s a boy now!”

Izuku jumped up and down, squawking and laughing with joy, before leaping back into hug the boy again.

“I found you!” he yelled, and the waves that surrounded the cliff seemed to swell with excitement at the shout. Izuku laughed again as his siblings emerged from their magical encasings to leap up and call with squeals of joy for him.

Izuku tilted his head back and yelled to the heavens and seas alike as happiness flooded his heart: “I FOUND SHOUTO!!!”

Chapter Text

While the two little boys were busy happily embracing each other, Touya and Fuyumi could do little except to shrug at one another.

“Well, whoever you are,” Fuyumi said as she stepped forward and lifted Izuku into her arms, “we need to get you inside and dry you off. Come on, guys.”

Touya nodded in agreement and grabbed his brothers’ hands, pulling them along toward the house. Once inside, they found that the power was out, and as a result the home’s interior was a bit chilly. Fuyumi set Izuku down and left to get towels while Touya dug around for a flashlight. Izuku and Shouto paid little mind to the fretting however, as they were a bit too focused on each other.

“How are you back?” Shouto asked, voice still tinged with disbelief. “I’m happy you’re here, but...how?”

Izuku giggled and gave no reply at first, and by the time he opened his mouth, Fuyumi was plunking a towel down on his head to try and rub him dry.

“Look at those pretty green curls of yours,” she cooed, making him smile with delight. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with this shade.”

“I think there’s one in here somewhere,” Touya muttered as he rummaged through the junk drawer, still searching for a light.

“Once you find it we need to start the generator outside,” Fuyumi called to him.

“Okay, is no one gonna say how weird this is?” Natsuo interjected. “You know, that Shouto’s fish friend is actually a human? Or turned into a human?”

“We don’t know that he turned into anything,” Fuyumi commented as she patted at the boy’s cheeks. “Just because they have the same name, doesn’t mean they’re...huh. That’s weird. Izuku, you’re not wet at all.”

Izuku beamed at the attention, snuggling deeper into the towel.

“It’s because he used to be a fish,” Shouto reasoned. He stood close to Izuku’s side, not wanting to stray very far. “Water can’t make him wet.”

The freckled boy bobbed his head to affirm the statement and Natsuo pointed at him, saying, “See! He is that fish! Or he was. Or something!”

Fuyumi glanced back at her older brother. Touya, having finally found a flashlight, switched it on and shone it around the room before settling it on the little group. At the look from his sister, he cocked his head to the side and gave a hefty shrug.

“Look guys,” he said as he crossed to them and crouched down so that they were all huddled together. “Unfortunately, I don’t have all of the answers here. Maybe Izuku used to be a fish and now he’s human. I don’t really know.”

“I am!” Izuku shouted, tugged at the ends of the towel. “I'm a human now!”

“Well, then, that’s good. I guess. Look,” Touya grunted, pushing his bangs back, “life is strange, and amazing, and beautiful and I guess maybe sometimes crazy things like this can happen. But we can examine all the ins and outs of it later – for right now, let’s get calm and organized, alright?”

“Alright,” the others chorused. Izuku glanced at them and then came in a bit late, shouting a loud ‘ALRIGHT’ of his own.

“How about a warm drink to calm us down?” Fuyumi suggested, hopping up from where she knelt on the floor. “Hot chocolate sound good?”

“YES!” shouted Natsuo and Shouto. Izuku blinked in confusion.

“What is it?” he asked as Shouto held his hand and lead him to sit at the table.

“It’s a hot drink made of chocolate,” Shouto replied.

“That’s kind of the dummy’s answer, Sho,” said Natsuo. “Don’t worry though, new kid, you’ll like it.”

“I’m Izuku,” the boy said, thinking Natsuo might have forgotten his name. “And I have hands – see?!”

Izuku held up his hands and wiggled his little fleshy digits. Shouto smiled and wiggled his own fingers at him and Izuku grasped his hand. The two pulled their hands back and forth between them, fingers entwined, causing Izuku to giggle once more. He was laughing an awful lot, but he just couldn’t help it. After worrying that he might never see Shouto again, the joy that filled him over their being reunited was indescribable.

The giggling got harder and extended to both Shouto and Natsuo when he raised his foot and started using it grasp at things, quickly getting into a foot war with the other little boy. “Your feet are just like hands,” Shouto laughed.

Their fun was interrupted when Touya and Fuyumi came to the table, each carrying a few steaming cups of hot chocolate.

“Alright, squirts,” Touya said as he doled out the cups, “drink up.”

“Be careful, though. It’s hot,” Fuyumi reminded them as she sat to join them. Natsuo ignored the warning and went straight in for a sip, only to reel back, and stick his tongue out, moaning in pain. Touya rolled his eyes and gave a slight snicker as he hopped up to fetch some ice for him.

Shouto tapped Izuku on the shoulder and once he had the freckled boy’s attention, he demonstrated to him how to properly blow on his drink to cool it. Izuku mimicked the action with gusto, nearly blowing some of the hot chocolate out of his cup, before finally pulling the mug close and taking a sip. The sweetness that washed over his tongue was unlike anything he’d ever tasted. He expressed his glee by pressing his lips together, letting out a high-pitched hum, and rapidly kicking his feet under the table, nearly making his whole body bounce in the chair.

Touya had come back by then and handed Natsuo a piece of ice, plunking a few more cubes into his brother’s cup to help cool it fast. At the adorable sight of the strange little boy apparently enjoying hot chocolate for the first time, he felt himself smiling and relaxing for the first time since they’d reached home.

“Looks like hot chocolate was the right choice, ’Yumi,” he complimented his sister as he went to drink from his own cup.

“I thought it would hit the spot,” she agreed.

Touya hummed as he guzzled his hot chocolate, and for a moment there was a warm, peaceful silence about the table as everyone drank up. The siblings collectively set their cups down, gulped their drinks, and respired, bellies warm and hearts content. 

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Fuyumi reminded her older brother. “You still need to go get the generator started.”

Touya gave a grunt of acknowledgement, not ready to get up yet. Natsuo, ever the comedian, snickered and said, “Hey, maybe you should leave it off.”

“No way, Natsu.” Fuyumi shook her head. “I know this seems fun, but you won’t like it when it gets cold later tonight.”

“No, I know,” Natsuo replied, “But! As long as we don’t have power, we can’t get calls from Him.”

“Oooh!” Touya raised his eyebrows with interest. “’Yumi, the young one has a point!”

“Who’s ‘Him’?” Izuku asked, curious as he observed the knowing looks passing between the others.

“He’s our dad,” Shouto explained. “He’s at sea right now. When the power’s on he can talk to us on the radio.”

Izuku’s eyes widened with interest. “Is your dad an evil sorcerer?”

Natsuo laughed. “Minus the magic, yeah!”

“Natsu!” Fuyumi chastised. “What’s your dad like then, Izuku?”

Izuku stretched his arms above his head. “Tall! He hates humans too. And he kept me in a bubble. That’s why I swam away from home,” Izuku clamored, before calming long enough to consider how he felt about his father. “But besides that, Daddy’s great! He’s smart and gives the best hugs!”

Fuyumi blinked at this display. “Okay then…”

“Sounds better than ours at least,” Touya muttered.

“Anything’s better than ours,” Natsuo chimed in agreement.

Fuyumi waved them off, wanting to steer the conversation in a more positive direction. She turned back to Izuku and asked, “Well, what’s your mom like then?”

Izuku’s eyes lit up at the question and his heart swelled at the thought of Mommy. “Big and BEAUTIFUL!” he exclaimed. “But she’s also scary when she’s mad!”

“Oh,” Natsuo cried, “just like Fuyumi!”

Everyone broke into laughter at that comment. Once the generator was up and running, and the house was flooded with light, the group set about cooking dinner (Izuku had shrieked for katsudon when Touya had asked for suggestions, and the others didn’t bother to dispute it). Izuku didn’t make for a much of a helper as he kept getting distracted by the things the others handed him, and at one point spent at least five minutes marveling at a spoon. The others managed though and were soon sitting around the table once more, happily filling their bellies.

“I love katsudon!” Izuku exclaimed as he gobbled down his food.

“I think you’d like soba too,” Shouto commented. “We’ll have to have it again soon so you can try it.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Izuku turned to him, emerald eyes wide and sparkling. “I want to try everything and do everything and see everything! And I want to do all with you!!!”

Izuku abandoned his chopsticks and leaned over to grip Shouto in a hug, which the other boy readily returned. Between the warm food and the even warmer contact, the two found themselves letting out long yawns and snuggling against each other in their fatigue.

Fuyumi smiled gently at the sight.

“Looks like it’s bedtime for you two,” she said as she helped the two up from their chairs and lead them to the bedroom, leaving her other brothers behind to clear the table. On the trip up the stairs, Izuku practically fell asleep on his feet and Fuyumi carried him the rest of the way and laid him to rest in Shouto’s bed.

“Okay,” she whispered as she stood up, adjusting her shirt. “Sho, did you want to take Natsu’s bed or–?”

She turned to look at her little brother, only to find he wasn’t there, and when she looked back Fuyumi saw Shouto was already crawling into his own bed to curl up next to Izuku. Fuyumi pressed a hand to her lips to hide how much this pleased her, seeing her little brother being so close to someone else, and set about tucking both of them in. Before long the pair were fast asleep, unconsciously holding on another’s hands while their heads lay just close enough to one another that Izuku’s thick curls were playing amongst Shouto’s red and white strands.

Fuyumi smiled and carefully shut the door behind so as not to wake them, before going back downstairs to find Touya on his cellphone, a finger jammed in his uncovered ear to try and help him hear better. She started to ask him who it was, but Natsuo waved at her and pressed a finger to his lips. The elder sister crossed to where Natsuo sat on the couch and whispered, “Is it the hospital?”

The white-haired boy nodded. “I’m pretty sure. And I think it’s about Mom.”

“Okay,” Touya said into the phone. “Okay, I’ll come right over. No, no, don’t worry about it; from what I can see the water’s calmed down enough that it should be fine. Yeah, see you soon, Doc. Thanks.”

He hung up and pocketed his phone before meeting his sister’s expectant gaze and saying, “Okay so, yeah, that was the hospital. The storm got Mom really shaken up, and now she’s asking to see us, to know if we’re okay, and they’re having a hard time calming her down. Shuzenji called just now to ask if one of us could come by to help, so I’m going.”

Fuyumi’s hazel eyes widened at this new information and stood in shock for a moment, until she realized that Touya was already heading for the door, and she rushed after him. “Hey, no! You can’t just run off! Why don’t you let me go for once?”

“Look, just let me handle this for once, okay?”

“You’re always the one just handling it. I know you’re the oldest–”

“And the only legal adult.”

“BUT,” she said, not in the mood to be interrupted, “I can handle these things just as well as you can. And...And she’s my mom too!”

This last statement took the redhead by surprise and he paused halfway as he reached for his keys. After a moment, he let out a soft breath, before turning back to her, a softer look in his eyes.

“You’re right,” he murmured. “I need to include you. Do you want to go instead?”

She was glad to see him recognizing her side, and bit her lip in thought. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Natsuo nearby and got a tentative idea.

“Tell you what,” she announced. “Why don’t we both go? And we can leave Natsuo in charge.”

Both brothers blinked in surprise, before Natsuo hopped up and started to cheer at the prospect. Touya motioned for him to quiet down, before asking, “You sure he can handle it, ’Yumi?”

“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I know it’s a big responsibility, but the other boys are asleep already, and he’s a smart kid. Even if he doesn’t act like it.”

She punctuated this last statement by reaching to ruffle his white hair. Natsuo grabbed her hand and met his sister with matching hazel eyes.

“I can do it,” he said, his tone unusually serious. “No worries!

Fuyumi gave him a grin, before looking to Touya who, after a moment, threw up his hands and said, “Alright then. I’ll trust your judgement on this. Natsu, you know all the rules, and to call us if you need anything, right?”

“Right!” Natsuo said, giving his older siblings an earnest salute.

“Well then, I guess we’re off.”

With the matter settled, Fuyumi pressed a kiss to her younger brother’s forehead, which the boy pretended to wipe off, but his smile said otherwise. He stood in the doorway and watched as the two of them got in the car and drove off down the hill and past the trees to the shoreline. Once they were out of sight, he shut the door, turned off the lights and ran upstairs to the bedroom, flashlight in hand. He quickly checked to make sure the little ones were still fast asleep. Seeing they were, he picked up his Captain’s hat from where it rested on his bedpost, put it on and took up a guard position on his bed, bound and determined to do his best while they were away.

Captain Enji Todoroki was a proud man.

But because of that pride, he didn’t like to admit to a lot of things that involved him being in the wrong.

Much like his divorce, or current family estrangement…or the fact he and his crew were hopelessly lost in the ocean from the earlier freak storm.

With the engine burnt out on top of it all.

The Captain found himself punching the wall in frustration, leaving a sizable dent behind.

“What’s happened now?!” he demanded the nearest person he found upon emerging from the cockpit.

“I don’t know, sir! Something just gave out and here we are!” one of the crew mates answered.

“Then find the problem and fix it!!” the Captain commanded.

The member saluted and rushed off. Enji merely pinched the bridge of his nose. Around him, he vaguely overheard his other crew members blathering about odd delusions they had seen during the storm: ridiculous things about the waves being fish, and a little boy running on water.

Utter nonsense, he thought to himself.

Suddenly, the ship, the Endeavor, was splashed by a rogue wave.

Not even Enji could deny there was something unnatural about the wave this time. It was the dead of night, and there was no conceivable way the intense golden light source was coming from the ships in the distance as far away as they were. Nor could the hardened sea captain come up with any good explanation for why the visage of a large, green-haired woman adorned in jewels and awash with a heavenly glow, appeared in the wave, or why the Endeavor and the other ships the woman’s wave sailed over suddenly sprang back to life.

“I think I just saw the Goddess of Mercy!” cried someone, who then proceeded to bow their head and murmur prayers. Many others followed suit.

Captain Enji Todoroki just stared blankly at what he still tried to convince himself was a mirage of a the giant green-haired woman swimming further away in a glowing wave.

Just what in the world was going on?

Toshinori was fuming.

Not only did Izuku escape again, but he took out the brew Toshinori had painstakingly been concocting since the late nineteenth century. Now the moon was too close to the Earth, the ships were stranded in the water, storms spurring on and off like a switch…everything was a disaster! The very balance of nature was disrupted!

An exasperated sigh escaped his lips. The fault was his for not teaching the boy about his magic, or better yet, teaching him about his magic when he was still too young to use it properly. Toshinori chased such thoughts away. He could lament his failings as a father later after Izuku was returned home, safe and sound, where he belonged.

As he commanded the sea surfs to raise him up to the land upon the hillside, he was met with a striking snag in his path.

“What’s this? How was he able to cast such a powerful warding spell??” Toshinori balked, bouts of energy surging through him as he attempted to touch the fence posts on the Todoroki household property.

No matter.

If Toshinori was anything, it was resourcefully innovative when it came to overcoming such obstacles standing between him and one of his children.

While he lacked the power at the moment to do anything about his son’s warding spell, he could at least peer in through the windows to check on his boy and gain insight on his captors. Once he was able to gain visuals, however, the sight shocked him to the bone.

Izuku was in the upper level of the human dwelling, lying asleep in bed. From his vantage point, the guardian could observe hands and feet with little fingers and toes poking out from the blanket he was wrapped in, and his precious face had morphed, growing a nose and ears!

“No no no! Izuku’s turned into a human!” he exclaimed vociferously.

The Sea Guardian then began to hyperventilate, viciously running his spindly digits through his wild blonde hair. This was already so much worse than he thought. Not only had his child transformed, but the fact that he was also lying in bed with that little boy who’d originally captured him (with a second boy wearing a captain's hat asleep nearby) only heightened the panic he felt. And to add further insult to injury, there was nothing he could do at the present moment to rectify the situation!

Then just for good measure, the water tower he stood upon started teetering off kilter.

“What the– hold still!” he hissed, attempting to right himself as the animate sea surfs began to falter.

“Come on, guys!” Hanta called from his place at the base of the tower, rallying his siblings. “Let’s knock him down!”

The others cheered and moved into rub and nibble against the base of the tower, essentially tickling the living waves.

“Children! What are you doing!?” Toshinori called out, struggling to maintain his balance. “Stop this!”

“Sorry, Daddy!” Tsuyu shouted up to him. “But you’re being bad right now!”

“Yeah,” Denki shouted in agreement. “You need your discipline!”

“Discipline?!” Toshinori shouted as he continued to wobble. “I’ll come down there and discipline you all if you don’t – AAAhhhh! – stop it! Respect your father!!”

Mina reeled back and yelled, “Harder guys, we’ve almost got him!”

“I know!” Momo announced. “Let Kouji do it!”

The others squealed in consensus and moved back to allow the youngest but strongest of them room to move. Little Kouji swam below the surface a ways, nervous as always but growing in confidence as his siblings cheered his name in encouragement.

“Kouji! Kouji! Kouji!”

“Kouji!” Toshinori yelled down to him, just loud enough to be heard beneath the water. “Son, please! I’m doing this for his own good!”

Eijirou shouted then, over the others’ chanting, “Yeah, well we’re doing this because it’s what he wants! It’s for Izuku!”

“'Zuku!” Kouji yelled, before shooting up to breach and crash through the center of the water tower, destroying the tower’s integrity and sending their father down with it in a splash. When Toshinori surfaced, his features were twisted in a furious snarl.

“This is a serious matter!” Toshinori bellowed, uncharacteristically angry. “I’m trying to save your brother’s life!!”

That sobered the younglings up instantly.

Fumikage was the first of the bunch to break the silence. “…What?”

“'Zuzu’s in danger!?”

“But…Izu’s gonna be okay, right? Right!?”

“What do you mean?” Mezou asked. “What’s gonna happen?”

The man sighed, eyelids drooping from a combination of fatigue, stress, and rising sorrow as the situation seemed to become more futile with each passing second. He look about his beloved little ones, fearing that soon their missing member might be lost to them for good. But they at least deserved an explanation, so he took a deep breath.

“What I mean is–” Toshinori began.

However, before he could continue, young Ochako shouted, “Wait, look! You see that!”

Everyone turned to see a heavenly incandescence cresting the horizon. The light was gorgeous and even more wonderful, it was familiar, and at the sight each one of them felt a spark of jubilation light up in their hearts.

“Is that Mommy?” gasped Eijirou.

“Mommy’s back!” squealed Mina.

The rest of the little ones likewise joined the mirth, swimming gleefully towards their mother, the somber mien forgotten.

Even Toshinori, mad and sullen as he was, felt his mood uplift somewhat by the approaching sight of the one he loved so dearly.

“At last, she’s here!” the Sea Guardian beamed.

Toshinori quickly made his way back to his ship, hoisting himself aboard onto the front deck. He watched with nostalgic yet still marveling eyes as the ocean goddess inundated beneath his vessel, swiveling around the flooded outskirts of the Todoroki home before settling to a stop underneath the ship. The goddess’ divine countenance breaching the surface before him was a glorious and welcomed sight.

“Toshinori.”

The Sea Guardian welcomed the familiar chills that washed over his skin as his beloved uttered his name in that ethereal way of hers.

“It’s been too long, my love.” Toshinori greeted, caressing her large face with both his hands.

The goddess, who had many names but to her loved ones was known as Inko, hummed and closed her lovely emerald eyes for just a moment, enjoying his touch. Upon opening them again, she turned her head slightly to look out over the bay.

“Look at our ocean...”

Her voice echoed on the water and into his heart as she leaned back from his touch to lie in the water, face to the sky. She moved her hand close in a cupped motion, allowing their children to swim and rest upon her mighty palm.

“Something has changed,” she murmured. “The seas are awash with magic and power…”

“As much as your return warms my heart, I regret to tell you I have upsetting news, my dear. Izuku got into my elixirs and tasted human blood!” Toshinori informed.

Inko hummed once more as she slowly righted herself in the water, coming to rest before him once more. She turned a benign smile upon the little ones in her hand and bent her head to nuzzle each of them before releasing them back into the water, where they circled around her, chirping with excitement. The goddess watched them, serene.

“Our eldest has always been rather dauntless, hasn’t he, my love?”

The man could do little but nod in reply as he rested upon his knees.

“It’s all my fault.” Toshinori added dejectedly. “He’s grown so powerful, he’s torn a hole in the fabric of reality! He’s too young to understand, and refuses to listen to me on the matter! He’s now a little boy, who loves another human boy, and the whole world is out of balance.”

The Guardian looked down at his hands, his palms facing the sky in entreatment. He turned his gaze upon her lovely face once more and begged, “Please, please remove the human in him, or the planet will be no more!”

At once, what appeared to be shooting stars shot across the heavens. Toshinori gasped in horror. “Already! The Earth’s gravity is pulling the satellites from the skies! And the moon pulls the sea closer–”

The Sea Guardian was cut off by Inko cupping his gangly form within one of her large hands. A gesture which had an immediate calming effect on Toshinori.

“Shhhh. Be calm, my dear,” she hushed him, her voice soothing his ragged nerves. “No matter how much magic you are imbued with, there will always be a part of you that remains human, Toshinori. And that part is what causes you to worry so.”

Weak, he gradually let himself go slack, and he turned to press his body to her palm, wrapping his arms about her hand. Inko closed her eyes and used her magic to send the feeling of calm, rocking seas into her husband, easing his heart and mind. That was the nature of life, the tides, the moon and the earth: dark and light, ebb and flow, give and take. She gave the tranquility of the sea they shared and drew out the worries he carried.

After a moment, once he had relaxed, she opened her eyes. “Shouto,” she breathed, having heard the name in his thoughts. “That is the boy's name.”

Toshinori nodded against her grip and his eyes slid open to gaze at her. Inko gave him a gentle smile and looked at their other children who were still splashing about, eager to hear what was to be done about the matter.

“The children love their brother very much, and we all want Izuku to be happy.” Inko then shrank in size to meet her husband on the boat, clasping his hands within hers. Toshinori's heart leapt into his throat at the contact and he froze as she continued, “Why not let Izuku become fully human? Of course, we must first test the human boy, Shouto. If his love is true, Izuku will be fully transformed and the balance of nature will be restored.”

“And if his love is not true, Izuku will turn to sea foam! The human boy is young! Too innocent! He cannot make such a decision this early in life! The risk is too much! I can’t... I cannot lose my child!” Toshinori spoke in a hitched voice, tears falling from his hollowed blue eyes.

The mere thought of losing him, his firstborn and only blood child, of losing of any of his little ones...

He hung his head in despair, loosening his grip from her and letting his hands them fall to his lap. Before his hands could cool from the loss of her touch, she had returned to him, hoisting herself to sit beside him on the boat. At another time, he might have found their position comical – his wife had shrunk so that it was one of those extremely rare moments where he was actually taller than her.

“I feel your concern,” she whispered as she pressed against his side, wrapping her soft arms around his torso and pressing her face to his chest. “My love for you is only matched by my love for our young.”

“You mean us?”

Inko giggled and turned to chuck young Denki under his chin. “Yes, you, my darling. All of you, including your brother. My heart breaks at the thought of any of you being harmed. However...we can't keep you trapped in bubbles forever. Part of life is risk and danger – that's how you find beauty and happiness. You need both, and the price is risk.”

She turned her gaze to her husband and gave him a mischievous grin. “After all, I seem to remember a young man willing to risk everything just to sail the seas and meet a goddess.”

Toshinori turned his face away as his children giggled, recalling the tale of how he'd fought the tides and braved the water in pursuit of her brilliant light, desperate to meet its source. His efforts had been rewarded in the end of course, by some blessed chance of fate when he’d awoken one morning to a pair of splendid green eyes and a sweet smile looking down upon him.

“I'll still never understand why you chose me.”

Inko only smiled brighter. “And that, my darling, is the other part of you that remains human. You worry. You doubt. And you love with your entire being – something Izuku seems to have inherited.”

She surprised him by kissing his cheek before adding, “And that's what I love. And if you could go so far and love so deeply, even as a human, then shouldn’t we allow this child a chance to do the same, Toshi?”

Toshinori blushed despite himself at the nickname. “But are you certain–”

Inko cut him off with a deep and passionate kiss on his lips. Toshinori found himself so lost in it that he hardly noticed the children’s giggles and cries of disgust.

“Let them sleep,” she murmured when they parted. “They’ll need their rest for tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Natsuo awoke the next morning to the sound of Izuku shouting.

“Shouto!”

Blearily opening his eyes, he caught sight of Izuku perched on the headrest of the bed, leaning over the still-sleeping Shouto.

Izuku yelled Shouto’s name once more, and Natsuo watched with utter delight as his baby brother woke up– sitting up abruptly and bonking his head against Izuku’s.

“Ow!”

“Ah! Izuku, are you okay!” Shouto cried out as Izuku fell over next him, holding his hand with one hand.

Though clutching his head, Izuku smiled at him. “Good morning, Shouto!”

Natsuo only laughed to himself at the silly display.

Once fully awake, the three boys looked through the sliding door windows at the outside. There was nothing but ocean as far as the eye could see, save for the tops of some of the trees, and the water came right up to the doorstep.

It was then Izuku noticed something was missing.

“Where’d your other brother and sister go?”

“Oh, Touya and Fuyumi left to check on our mom at the hospital,” Natsuo explained.

“What’s that?” Izuku questioned innocently. “And why’s your mom not home yet? Does she travel a bunch like my Mommy does?”

“Not exactly,” Natsuo muttered as he set down on the step to dip his feet in the water. Shouto watched him solemnly before turning to Izuku.

“Our mom is in the hospital.”

Izuku cocked his head to the side, curious. “What is it? What’s a ‘hospital’?”

“It’s where you go when you’re sick,” Shouto said, wandering back into the house, Izuku trailing close behind. “There, the doctors and nurses can give you medicine to make you well.”

“Speaking of,” Natsuo called from the porch, “we should probably see if we can get over there.” The boy stood up, adjusting his captain’s hat as he squinted over the horizon. “The ocean’s so high...I bet they’re probably stuck over there. Too bad we don’t have a boat.”

Izuku looked around until his green eyes spotted Shouto’s toy boat on the living room table.

“There’s a boat! Right there!” he pointed out.

“It’s a little small...” Shouto trailed off.

“Not to mention it’s a toy,” Natsuo added. “There’s no way we’d fit in that!”

“Nuh uh!” Izuku disagreed. “Watch!”

Izuku approached the toy, looking determined. He spread his hand and arms out wide with a yell, briefly turning back into a footed, fish-like being; at once, the toy boat grew in size! Big enough to comfortably fit the three boys.

“Wow! That’s amazing, Izuku! You’re amazing!” Shouto beamed.

Natsuo gaped at the enlarged toy boat. “You really are a magic fish! We were right!”

“You even made the candle bigger!” Shouto noted, inspecting the boat more closely. “This is fantastic!”

“Fantastic!” Izuku repeated.

“You two grab that side, and I’ll get this one.” Natsuo instructed. “We’ll all be able to carry it to the water together.”

“Okay!” Izuku and Shouto said at the same time. On the count of three, the three lifted the boat up. However, Izuku, proving to be deceptively stronger than he looked, broke into a run and dragged Shouto and Natsuo along for the ride. The boat made it out the door and into the water, with all three boys crashing in with it.

“Well,” Natsu spluttered, wiping away the water that had splashed on his face. “That works!”

Once the boat was set and ready to go, Natsuo hustled the younger two inside to pack for their voyage. The two received a small pack each to carry snacks, including sandwiches and a few bentos, with katsudon for Izuku and soba for Shouto. Natsuo grabbed a larger backpack to carry extra snacks and water bottles, as well as a few additional supplies such as a few first-aid kits and a pack of safety matches.

“I’m gonna light the match and get the candle going,” Natsuo said once they were loaded up. “You guys look around and see if there’s anything else we need.”

The boys wagged their heads and ran back inside to look around. Izuku spotted the little red pail he’d once been carried in and immediately grabbed it. He didn’t know what it would be used for, but it seemed much too important to leave behind.

“Okay, Shouto,” he sang. “I got everything I need!”

Izuku turned to ask if his companion needed anything else and saw that Shouto was staring at something. The green-haired boy skipped to him and looked over the other boy’s shoulder to find that he was staring at a framed picture of a family. Upon closer inspection, Izuku recognized a younger Natsuo, Fuyumi, and Touya, along with two adults he didn’t recognize, and a tiny baby with bi-colored hair who could only have been Shouto.

“Hey, it’s you!”

Shouto nodded a little. “Uh huh. They took this right after I was born.”

Izuku examined the picture again and saw that one of the adults seemed to be a woman with white hair, who was holding baby Shouto in her arms, a gentle smile on her face.

“Oh,” he said, realization clear in his voice before pointing a chubby finger at the woman. “Is that your mommy?”

Shouto gave another nod before turning and tucking the picture into his backpack. “I’m ready,” he murmured. “You?”

Izuku held up the pail and gave a sharp nod. “Uh huh!”

The other boy’s smile came back as he said, “Then let’s go!”

The two ran outside to find that Natsuo had gotten the boat up and running and was just waiting for the two to climb aboard. Once they did, the ‘Captain’ began to dole out instructions.

“I’ll do the steering while you guys be the lookouts, okay?” Natsuo asked, as he took a seat in the back of the boat in order to man the rudder.

“You hear that, Izuku? We’re lookouts together!”

“Lookouts together with Shouto!” Izuku chirped, hugging the heterochromatic boy. Shouto laughed and returned the affection, simultaneously steadying them so they wouldn’t fall overboard. Izuku then hopped atop the awning above the helm with Shouto standing and holding onto the frame in order to keep them steady. And with everyone ready, they pushed off.

They floated off into the new sea, all a little nervous but also terribly excited to see what lay ahead. As they sailed, Izuku and Shouto looked about for signs of life, and while they didn’t see any humans for a while, the former fish was happy to point out the various species of marine life swimming in the crystal clear depths below.

“There’s a megalodon,” he said, pointing at a massive shark-like creature. “And there’s some swordfish. And there’s a whale shark, like my little brother Kouji!

“Your brother’s a whale?” Natsuo asked, skeptical.

“Whale shark,” Izuku corrected him. “He’s adopted like all my brothers and sisters. We’re all different creatures, but we all love each other lots and lots!”

The boy quieted for a moment and looked down at his hands. “I kind of miss them,” he mumbled. Shouto gave an understanding nod and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“I know what you mean. I miss Touya and Fuyumi already, but we’re gonna see them again.”

“You think?” Izuku asked, hope sparking in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Shouto assured him, smiling. “I know it!”

Izuku smiled wide, before biting his lip and scrunching his eyebrows, a questioning look on his face. “And what about your mommy? Are you gonna see her again?”

Shouto looked away, considering how he should answer the question that he himself had asked many times recently, lying awake at night wondering if he would ever see her again. Before he could muster a reply, Natsuo took charge of the conversation and cleared his throat to get their attention.

“Hey, lookouts,” he barked, “I see some people ahead.”

Izuku and Shouto followed the direction the older boy’s index finger was pointing and saw a canoe with several people bobbing nearby. The other humans soon spotted them as well and raised their hands to wave at the children and call greetings.

“Ahoy, there!”

“Ahoy!” Shouto shouted back, waving in return.

Izuku liked the sound of that word they were yelling and sucked in a deep breath before shouting, “AHOY!!!”

His shout rang out over the water, and had the newcomers laughing.

“Get ready to stop, you two!” Natsuo announced as neared the other vessel, only for Izuku to lean over and blow out the candle, causing him to cough as smoke wafted in his face.

Their boat slowed to a halt at the other family’s large and, surprisingly, cat-shaped canoe. And, perhaps appropriately so, it was also filled with cats!

“Is that Natsuo?” asked one of the passengers, a blonde woman with a scar over her eye. “And Shouto! Hey there, kids!”

“Hi Pixie,” Shouto said, giving the blonde a cheerful wave. He waved to the others and greeted each of them: “Hi Tiger, hi Manadaly, hi Ragdoll, hi cats!”

“Hi!” Izuku greeted them cheerfully. “I don’t know who you are!”

The adults laughed at that. Everyone was surprisingly cheerful despite the circumstances, but then sometimes all a person can really do is just remain calm and do the best they can. That seemed to be the case with them.

“They run the cat cafe downtown,” Natsuo explained to Izuku, reaching out to stroke the head of a nearby tabby. “’Yumi likes to take us there sometimes.”

“Oh,” Izuku said, before leaning over to coo at a nearby kitten. “I like cats. And you have hair just like my mommy!”

The green-haired Ragdoll beamed at the compliment as she held onto a cluster of kitties. “Glad to hear it! And glad to see that you boys are alright.”

“But where are your older siblings?” asked the muscular Tiger, his strong voice laden with concern. “Shouldn’t they be with you?”

“They’re lost,” Izuku said, still smiling. “We’re looking for them!”

“They went to the hospital last night to check on our mom,” Natsuo clarified. “We think they might be stuck there.”

“Well, they shouldn’t have left you alone in the first place, not with all of the rain and the storming last night,” Mandalay said, adjusting the bundle she was carrying. “I might be new to parenting, but leaving the kid by themselves is practically first on the list of ‘Things Not to Do’.”

Curious, Izuku leaned toward the brunette woman to get a closer look at what she was holding. At his movements, she gave a warm smile and turned the bundle to reveal that it was actually a baby she was holding.

“This is Kota, my nephew,” she murmured, gently bouncing the baby on her leg. “Kota, can you say hello to the boy?”

Kota said nothing, and Izuku had the impression that even if the baby human was capable of speech, he probably would have refrained nonetheless. He seemed to be frowning, his face sour, and using his magic Izuku could sense a deep discord occurring within the child.

“Is he okay?” he asked without taking his eyes off the baby.

“As okay as any of us right now,” Mandalay sighed. “Luckily we had time to grab diapers and plenty of formula for him, and enough food to keep the cats happy. Not much else, though – between you and me, I’m starving!”

At this, Natsuo and Shouto immediately reached for their backpacks and started pulling out food to offer the adults. The others tried to refuse, but their growling stomachs argued with them, and they ended up accepting a few sandwiches as well as some snacks.

“We’d offer you a spot in the canoe, but you’d probably either sit on someone or get sat on yourself,” Pixie-Bob laughed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Natsuo said with a confident tip of his cap. “I’ve got it all covered for this crew.”

Just as Tiger was about to ask if they were sure, shouting could suddenly be heard from the distance. Through the trees came a fleet of similar canoes and boats, all carry evacuees from the flood. The Pussycats and the Todoroki crew all waved at the incoming people.

“Hey there!” shouted a loud blonde man with a megaphone. “You folks need any help?”

“If you’re talking medical attention, then we’re all good, Hizashi!” Ragdoll yelled back.

“Glad to hear it,” the blonde called back. “Why don’t you nice people pick up those oars of yours and follow our little fleet to safety? We’re headed to high ground!”

“Shouto!”

The heterochromic boy searched for who was calling his name and spotted a scraggly looking man with black hair leaning over the side of one of the ships. He raised his hand and waved once more, yelling, “Hi, Sensei!”

“What are you boys doing alone?” he yelled back. “Come over here, we’ll look after you!”

“No can do, Aizawa-sensei,” Natsuo shouted through cupped hands. “I’m captain of this ship, and we’re going to look for Touya and Fuyumi!”

Before any of the adults could protest, Natsuo went for his matches and soon had the candle lit and the boat ready to go again. Aizawa and a few of the others yelled for them to come back, but the boys paid no heed to them. Shouto did take a moment to glance at one of the boat’s passengers as he went by and spotted a few of his classmates.

“Hi, Hitoshi!” he yelled to the dull-eyed boy.

“Hey,” Hitoshi muttered in return. Next to him a boy with blue hair and glasses popped up and waved aggressively at the Todoroki crew.

“Shouto!” he yelled. “If you happen to see my brother, Tensei, please let him know that we’re all okay and for him to keep himself safe!”

“Okay, Tenya!”

Just as they were about to clear through the trees, Izuku’s ears perked up at the sound of crying. He whipped his head around to see that little Kota was now wailing and squirming in Mandalay’s arms, much to his aunt’s distress.

“There, there Kota, it’s okay!” she whispered to the baby as she bounced him in her arms. “I’ve got you, it’s alright!”

The baby continued to cry though, after a moment it became too much for Izuku to bear. He leaped off the awning and began sprinting across the water, back to the canoe, shocking several of the passing humans in the process. Running took a bit of his magic, and his human form reverted a bit as went, making him look like a strange cross between a chicken and a frog. In a few seconds he was standing on the edge of the canoe, squatting in front of the still sobbing baby.

Using a bit more magic, he delved back into the child’s feelings and saw the problem – loss. He missed his warm bed, his usual food, being dry, and most of all he missed his parents who had not been home for some time. Izuku saw and felt all of this and smiled, because he knew how to ease the tangle of feelings. Before any of the Pussycats could protest, he took the baby’s chubby face in his ‘hands’ and pressed their foreheads together, rubbing them around until they turned red.

Izuku took the confusion, the anxiety, the upset and pressed in joy, happiness, and warmth. He showed the baby how lucky he was to have these nice people around, all of these cats and humans and things, and that everything would eventually be okay. And it worked! By the time he was jumping back and running to Shouto, baby Kota was sitting, a little dazed, but with a tiny smile slowly growing on his face, much to his aunt’s delight.

“Uh...thank you!” she called after him, and Izuku waved back as he hopped into their boat once more.

Natsuo blinked at Izuku as he watched him return to his human appearance and summed up the moment with a simple utterance of, “Well, that was weird.”

Shouto gave a happy giggle, knowing Izuku well enough by now to tell that the boy had likely done something amazing, which they would never fully understand. Izuku was constantly surprising him, and he more than loved it.

As they continued on their journey, they passed one last boat.

“Hey, losers!” shouted an all-too-familiar voice. The boys looked to see Katsuki leaning over the boat and yell, “Where do you think you’re going, huh, stupid Half-n-Half??”

“Fuck off, Bakugou, you piece of shit!” Natsuo yelled back, leaving the younger boy hanging over the edge of the boat, looking rather stunned.

Izuku giggled with delight as they sped off into the trees. “Good one, Natsu! I don’t like him.”

“Nobody does,” Natsuo groaned as he steered them through the treetops. “Except other jerks that are like him.”

“No,” Shouto corrected him. “He doesn’t like him – he called Katsuki a pissant.”

“What’s a ‘pissant’?” Izuku asked, fascinated by the new word.

Shouto shrugged. “I don’t really know, but I’m pretty sure it’s not very nice.

“Oh.” Izuku mulled this over before saying, “Your daddy sounds kind of mean.”

“He’s very mean. He’s the reason our mom’s in the hospital.”

Izuku’s green eyes flew wide. “He made her sick?”

“Sort of,” Natsuo muttered from his place at the rudder. “He drove her crazy is what he did. So crazy she had to go somewhere else to get help.”

Izuku didn’t really understand any of this, and it brought him concern. “So why exactly is your mommy in the hospital?”

Shouto fell silent and Natsuo suddenly looked stricken with concern. The older boy leaned forward, about to take hold of his brother and assure him that he had no obligation to answer the question. However, before he could say a word, Shouto was already giving a quiet reply: “...She poured hot water on my face, giving me this scar.”

Izuku cupped his hands over his mouth and gasped in horror. “I thought your mommy was nice!”

“She is!” Shouto insisted. “He made her do it.”

Izuku’s face pinched into a frown, fists balled so hard his knuckles turned white. “That...That’s so MEAN! That’s TERRIBLE! Why!? Why would he do that?! Daddies are supposed to love you and care for you and protect you, just like Mommies!!”

Shouto pressed his lips together and he squinted hard, doing his best not to cry or somehow else betray how those words hurt him. He was right...he knew he was right. All the same, it still hurt to hear. Luckily, Natsuo was there for support.

“Sometimes people don’t do what they’re s’posed to,” the older boy pointed out. “Sometimes people are supposed to love you or help you and they just...don’t. Maybe they’re lazy or mean or there’s some other reason, but they don’t. They hurt you. And it sucks.”

“Sucks a lot,” Shouto mumbled, resting his head on the awning. Izuku looked down at him and felt a tug at his heartstrings at the sight of how sad he looked.

“Our dad is awful,” Natsuo went on. “And our mom messed up with what she did to Sho. But the thing is, she’s trying to get better. And...I think that’s the difference. Good people will make mistakes but work to get better, while bad people just keep being bad.”

Izuku considered this and saw truth in the words. His daddy wasn’t always perfect, but he did his best, and that was why he and his mommy and his siblings loved him so much. He decided he wanted to be like that – the kind of person who could make mistakes sometimes but would work to fix it. Glancing down at where Shouto rested his head, he saw the scar that patched the skin surrounding his blue eye, and realized that he might have made a mistake speaking so suddenly.

So, it was time to start fixing.

“Shouto…does your eye hurt?” Izuku asked quietly, fumbling with the ends of his shirt.

The boy struggled a bit to reply, so instead of words, he first shrugged. “Not usually,” he mumbled. “My heart hurts more. When I think of how I miss Mom, or how our dad used to scare me...it hurts.”

The green-haired boy gave a small nod and rested a hand on his friend’s cheek. He didn’t push or pull any sort of magic, instead simply resting it there and hoping it would give some comfort. It seemed to work, as Shouto turned his face to press against his hand and rested it there, comfortable.

Izuku sat in silence as he mulled over what he had been told. He still didn’t understand a lot about humans yet, but what he could gather is that Shouto’s dad made Shouto and his family sad, and that was not okay. Shouto was amazing! He was smart, and caring, and friendly, and pretty, and just the best! He deserved to be happy!

That’s why he disobeyed his own Daddy. He hated to make Daddy upset, but Shouto needed him. He needed to be there to make Shouto smile.

At the thought of his own father, Izuku recalled what his Daddy always said to him and his siblings whenever they were sad or scared.

“You don’t have to worry anymore. You know why?” he began. Shouto opened his eyes, and with his attention on him, Izuku then thumped his thumb against his chest, sporting a wide grin. “Because I am here! And so long as I live and breathe, I will protect you!”

“But I already promised I’d be the one to protect you.” Shouto pouted, raising his head and perking up a bit once more.

Izuku clasped both his hands around Shouto’s. “We can both protect each other!”

Shouto sent him a wry smirk. “Not if I protect you first!”

“No fair! I wanna protect you too, Shouto!”

“Ugh, quit flirting so much! You’re gonna make us capsize!” Natsuo mock groaned from behind them.

“What’s ‘flirting’?”

Shouto only responded by burying his burning face into his hands.

Mercifully, he was saved from answering such an embarrassing question when the boat started slowing down.

“Uh oh, the candle’s gone out.”

Shouto stepped back from the awning and crouched down next to his brother. While the two poked at the candle’s remains, Izuku felt a yawn coming on, and he stretched out and rested across the awning. He leaned far enough over that he could spy the candle holder and the dwindling light inside it.

“Bye-Bye…” Izuku said groggily, a sleepy smile across his face as he waved a farewell to the used-up candle as the last embers went out.

“Izuku? You okay?”

Izuku heard the question from Shouto but couldn’t find the strength to give a proper answer other than, “Sleepy…”

The brothers shared a look, before Shouto hopped up to check on his friend and Natsuo went digging for their spare candle. Once he found it, he handed it forward. Shouto reached back to take it, not moving his eyes from Izuku’s sleepy face.

“Uh...Izu?” he murmured. “I know you’re tired, but our candle ran out. Do you think you can make this one big for us?”

Izuku’s eyes fluttered, but he managed to sit up and accept the candle. He wrapped his hands around it and tried to focus, to think big thoughts, but his mind was hazy. It seemed he couldn’t focus on anything at all. Everything felt so heavy, and the sun shining overhead and bouncing off the water made everything around them humid and warm. Try as he might, he could not stay awake properly, much less make the candle grow.

The Todoroki brothers exchanged another look, and this time Natsuo could see fear growing his brother's mismatching eyes. Determined to keep the situation calm, Natsuo took off his hat and shoes and hopped into the water. He paddled his feet and held onto the edge of the boat and soon they were moving again, albeit rather slowly.

Meanwhile, Shouto stood in the boat, stroking Izuku's face and talking softly to him.

“Don't worry, Izuku. You're probably just worn out from using so much magic. That's okay though! You rest, and when we find the others you'll probably feel better.”

Izuku gave a small grunt at this, acknowledging his words but not properly replying. His worry growing, Shouto looked around before digging through one of their bags to pull out Izuku's packed lunch.

“Here you go,” he said, voice laced with forced enthusiasm. “Katsudon, your favorite! Yum!”

But when he held it in front of Izuku's face, the boy hardly reacted. He sniffed at the breaded meat but made no motion or attempt to consume it.

Shouto was getting ready to panic when he felt a bump and Natsuo announced the water was now shallow enough that he could walk. This soon turned out to be a very fortunate bit of timing as their boat, without any sort of warning, began to shrink.

“Whoa!”

At his brother's outburst, Shouto looked down to see the boat's floor diminishing beneath his feet. With a cry of surprise he leaped into the water to avoid getting trapped, and then had to help his brother push the boat forward toward the nearby patch of uncovered road.

“Izuku!” Shouto tried to rouse the other boy, but he remained nearly unconscious as he lay atop the shrinking boat. Before long the boat was too small to push any farther, and the boys had to quickly switch to pulling Izuku to shore, each of them taking an arm until they at last came to rest him on the semi-dry asphalt.

“Izuku…” Shouto patted the other boy's freckled cheek, willing him to sit up and start laughing like he usually did. But the only response he got was a small groan through closed lips.

While Shouto was fretting, his brother started looking around for help, estimating that they had be close to the hospital by now. His hopes were answered when he spotted a familiar vehicle parked in the middle of the road up ahead.

“Hey! It’s the car!” Natsuo whooped as he left them to run toward the vehicle. “I’m gonna go look for Touya and ‘Yumi! You watch Izuku!”

Shouto gave a single nod as his brother took off. He then focused his attention back to Izuku. “Izuku, Izuku! Hey! You okay?”

“Shouto…” Izuku breathed.

“Please don’t turn back into a fish.” Shouto pleaded. “I’d miss you too much to lose you.”

Izuku yawned again. “...Let’s get the boat.”

That was at least a proper response, and Shouto felt encouraged as he watched the green-haired boy stand up and traipse over to lift the boat from the sea, shaking the excess water from it. He stepped forward and took his hand, happy to see a sleepy smile on his lips.

“I'm okay,” Izuku murmured, leaning forward to rest his head on Shouto's shoulder. Shouto hugged him in return, pressing his head into the thick curls. This close he could pick up the sent of salt and spices of far off places and it struck the little boy just how remarkable it was that they were able to be standing here with each other. It meant so much that they were together and he didn't want to lose him. He wouldn't lose him.

He would protect Izuku.

No matter what.

Beneath the depths of the flooded island, the hospital lay shrouded by a large air bubble. More specifically, an air pocket imbued with magic which had a healing effect on the hospital’s patients. The doctors and nurses watched in wonder as many of their patients ran about the courtyard or lively chatted amongst one another, the most at ease and joyous they’d ever seen them.

Tensei Iida was especially thrilled to be cured of his paraplegic state. Arguably, he was the most energetic and lively of the group as a result, though his friend Sir Nighteye was certainly not far behind him, glad to be rid of his abdominal troubles.

“Just try and catch me, you geezer!” Tensei laughed as he raced across the grass.

“‘Geezer’?” Nighteye nearly tripped but managed to right himself and keep chasing the other man. “I’m only seven years older than you, whippersnapper!”

Fuyumi laughed as she watched the patients she’d been helping to treat for some time now run about the underwater enclosure, free as could be. When they’d first been brought here, she’d been more than a little frightened by the whole ordeal, but by now things had calmed enough that she felt a bit better. Being able to pet a baby seahorse certainly helped her mood.

“So wait, how many siblings do you have?” she asked the little one in her hands.

Hanta hummed, the leafy sea dragon tilting his head back in thought. “I don’t know! Lemme count. One..two...three…”

“There’s sixteen of us,” Momo interrupted, the red and white betta fish swimming up toward Fuyumi’s face. “Including Izuku, of course.”

“Nerd!” Denki called as he swam past them to rub against Touya who stood nearby. “Hey, Red Hair! Where’s those brothers of yours? They’re taking forever!”

“I don’t know, little dude,” Touya chuckled. If you’d told him yesterday that he would be readily petting a baby electric eel, he wouldn’t have believed it, but here he was. Not to mention the cute little lionfish resting on his foot – Mezou had taken a fast liking to him for whatever reason. “But if I know them, it shouldn’t be too long.”

“I certainly hope so,” Toshinori snapped from where he stood atop his flippered ship. “We’ve been waiting long enough now. And in case the lot of you haven’t noticed, the moon is only growing closer as we speak!”

“What happens when the moon gets closer?” Eijirou asked.

“Everything’ll be underwater!” Ochako cried, the baby manta ray gliding past. “We can swim wherever we want!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Rikidou asked, the titan triggerfish cocking his head to the side. “Sounds like a good deal to me!”

“It’s not good for the humans,” Toshinori pointed out to his children. “If the world is underwater, the whole lot of their species will drown.”

“A world of darkness,” Fumikage muttered, the knifenose chimera startling Touya in the process by looming over his shoulder.

“I thought you didn’t like humans.” Tsuyu chimed in, swimming up to look her daddy in the eye.

Toshinori frowned and glanced awe as his smallest daughter met him with a pointed, knowing look. “Well,” he huffed, “I can hate them without wishing for their deaths, of course…”

Tsuyu giggled and gave her father a peck on the cheek. “Daddy’s a softie!” she announced.

The blonde man gave another huff and rolled his eyes, but didn’t hesitate to affectionately rub the little tadpole’s cheek with one of his large fingers. After this, he promptly clapped his hands and called to the others, trying to get everyone organized.

“Everyone! Gather around, please!”

“Race you!” Tensei challenged before breaking into a sprint, and soon all of the hospital’s patients were sprinting toward him. Once they were gathered he called their attention once more.

“The time has come for you to bear witness to the sacred test of love.” Toshinori announced.

“There’s a name,” Tensei commented, trying to keep the mood light. “Say...‘Yagi’, is it? This whole thing isn’t going to get anyone hurt is it?”

“Yeah,” Touya spoke up. “I know your wife over there said it would all be fine, but this is my brother we’re talking about.”

Fuyumi nodded, also feeling a bit worried, and Toshinori realized that this habit really was a bit of a human thing. Secretly he couldn’t blame them, but that didn’t stop him from giving an indignant reply.

“Of course not!” Toshinori answered, before murmuring to himself, “With luck, Izuku will stay asleep through the ordeal.”

After all, there was still no guarantee yet that things would turn out for the best.

Toshinori then excused himself to board his personal vessel to collect the boys. Tensei, Nighteye and many of the other patients watched him go, but with heavy uncertainty in their guts.

“You think we can trust him?” Fuyumi asked, going to lean against her brother. Touya slung an arm around her shoulders in return and gave a small sigh.

“For now, I guess we have to. I mean you heard what he said, about his kid turning to sea foam. He’s risking just as much as we are, more maybe. And...he seems to really care about his kids.”

“Oh, trust us,” the antenna codlet, Kyouka, piped up, “he does!”

“Definitely!”

“All of us!”

The two Todorokis laughed as the school of babies encircled them, rubbing up against and tickling the two humans.

“I hope Rei’s doing okay.”

That comment from Tensei caught their attention, and the siblings paused in their laughter to look across the way to where the ethereal, green-haired woman stood speaking to their mother. Their reunion with her had been a happy one, but was soon occupied by conversation with Toshinori and his goddess wife. First there was the matter of explaining everything that had happened up to this point, and then discussing this ‘test’ they had in mind. Touya and Fuyumi had gotten a grasp of what to expect before going off to talk to Toshinori a bit more, leaving the two mothers to talk between each other.

“They’ve been talking practically non-stop since we got here last night,” Fuyumi murmured. “You think she’s okay?”

Touya nodded. “She’s seemed pretty calm ever since we got here. I think that Inko lady might be helping her.”

“Maman is certainly an excellent helper,” squeaked Yuuga in his little French accent. “Any ailment, she can assist!”

The young shiny silver lookdown fish didn’t have an exact grasp of how his mother’s abilities truly worked, but he wasn’t entirely off. It had been years since Rei had felt as calm as she did now, standing here speaking to the oceanic goddess.

“I truly appreciate you having trust in me,” Rei murmured, brushing a lock of white hair behind her ear. “After everything that’s happened...what I did to Shouto…”

The young mother pressed a hand to her face, doing what she could to hold back her tears. A hand came to rest on her shoulder and when she opened her eyes, she was met with a serene smile.

“One of the advantages of my magic is that I am able to see into the hearts and minds of others,” Inko soothed. “And I can clearly see what is in yours: a great deal of sorrow, worry, concern...and so, so very much love. Mistakes cannot always be undone, but they can be recovered from with time.”

The hand moved to Rei’s face, and the goddess shrank to her smaller form in order to calm her companion.

“Be kind to yourself, human mother,” she urged her. “You’re stronger than you know.”

The two shared a smile, Inko’s comforting, Rei’s relieved and hopeful, before they were alerted by the sound of their collective children calling to them.

“Mom!” Touya shouted from across the grass, his sister laughing and shoving him. “Mom, are you okay?!”

The two mothers laughed, and Inko gave her a nod, signalling that they’d best go to them. Rei ran ahead, going to hug her children first before turning to her friends from the hospital who bombarded her with questions about what was going on, how she felt about it, and what was to come next. Normally being surrounded like this would have been terribly stressful, but she found that she could handle it right now. It made her wonder what else she would be able to handle.

“Well,” she said, wrapping an arm around each of her present children, “whatever happens, I’m glad we’re all here for it.”

“Nooooo!”

Shouto startled from holding Izuku to see Natsuo up ahead on the road, pulling at his white hair and yelling.

“Touya!” the boy yelled into the forest, stumbling away from the empty car. “’Yumi!!” He’d expected to find at least one of them sitting in the car, only for it to be empty upon inspection. He’d been doing his best as captain of the group but the idea that they might really be gone, possibly for good, was now creeping up on him and it was scary.

“Where are you guys?!” he called desperately, eyes darting around at the surrounding trees. “Where...Where are you…?”

At his cries of distress, Izuku seemed to wake somewhat, and he and Shouto went over to find that Natsuo was wiping tears from his cheeks. Shouto leaned into his brother’s side and gave him a small hug.

“It’s okay, Natsu,” he murmured to him. “Let’s keep looking.”

Natsuo sniffed and managed to bob his head after a moment, taking a deep breath. “You’re right,” he muttered before shaking himself off and motioning for the others to follow him. “Let’s go.”

As they walked, Shouto remained close to Izuku, never letting go of his hand. With each step they took, however, Izuku seemed to drag his feet more, barely able to keep his eyes open. Why he was so lethargic and sleepy all the sudden, Shouto had no idea, but decided it couldn’t be good. He pulled Izuku closer, wrapping the green-haired boy’s arm around his shoulders to better support him. Also, was it just Shouto’s imagination, or had Izuku…shrunk a bit? Shouto figured he had a centimeter or so on Izuku, but he could’ve swore earlier he wasn’t this much taller.

“It should be just beyond this tunnel,” Natuso said.

“Don’t like it.” Izuku mumbled. “Don’t wanna.”

“I’ll be right beside you every step of the way,” Shouto replied. “Just hang on to me and don’t let go.”

Izuku’s head lolled forward in a tired nod. Neither of the Todoroki boys could say for sure he agreed, but Izuku gave no sign of protest as they moved forward.

As they walked on, Shouto felt Izuku slouch against him, as well as heard the sound of the plastic of the red bucket grind against the asphalt. When Izuku’s arm began to slip from Shouto’s shoulders and out of his hand, Shouto gasped in horror. Turning to face his friend, his eyes all but popped out of his skull at the sight of Izuku in his deformed amphibious ‘in-between’ state. Then, out of the blue, Izuku collapsed.

Shouto thanked his fast reaction time for allowing him to catch the other boy before he hit the ground and likely would’ve hurt himself more. “Izuku!”

Fueled on raw fear and pure adrenaline, Shouto gathered Izuku in his arms and broke into a run, ignoring Natsuo’s shouts for him to wait up. He didn’t stop running until he reached the end of the tunnel. Upon exiting it, Shouto nearly burst into tears seeing the vat of seawater waiting for him.

Shouto immediately placed Izuku into the salt water. Instead of receiving a response like he had hoped, Izuku remained still and quiet. Shouto repeatedly called out to him in vain, shook Izuku by his shrinking shoulders, but still nothing. Izuku slept on, even as he completely reverted back into the fish Shouto rescued from a jar the other day.

“Izuku! Izuku, wake up! Izuku!” Shouto cried. “Please, please! You have to wake up! I…please don’t leave me! I can’t lose anyone else!”

Nearby, Toshinori calmly surfaced from the water.

“Careful. You mustn’t wake him.” he instructed not unkindly.

Shouto regarded him cautiously. He recognized the stranger from yesterday, the one who sprayed the ground with seawater where he walked. The tall man loosely resembled a corpse, but didn’t come across as though he meant any harm. Or so he appeared.

“I…It’s nice to meet you proper, Young Shouto.” Toshinori continued awkwardly, internally wincing at how shady he must appear to the boy eyeing him apprehensively, all too aware how ghastly his appearance was to most others. “I don’t mean you any harm. You nor Izuku. However, I need for you both to come with me. The hospital patients, your eldest brother, your sister and your mother are waiting for you as well where we’re going.”

“...My mom? ‘Yumi and Touya too?” Shouto wondered aloud. They were okay? He wanted to believe so, but was it really true, though?

Shouto uneasily took a few steps back as Toshinori moved to approach him.

“Please, I’m not trying to take Izuku away from you,” the man assured. “But in order for you–”

“SHOUTO!!”

Toshinori startled along with Shouto, both turning to face the direction of the voice.

“You-!” Sorahiko cavilled before balking at the sight of him with the other man. “Toshinori!? That stunt with others was your doing?!”

The man, ‘Toshinori’ as he seemed to go by, looked equally surprised to see Sorahiko. If a bit fearful. “Gr-Gran Torino?”

“Huh! Haven’t gone by that name in years,” the old man grumbled. “It’s Sorahiko these days and I’ll thank you to remember it!”

Toshinori practically snorted. From sea oracle and mentor to grouchy human...what next??

“Whatever you want to call yourself,” he snapped, “we need you to come with us! We’re trying to perform a test! Or did you want the moon to crash into the planet?” The blonde pointed at the lunar satellite in question which hung lower and larger than Shouto or anyone else had ever seen it. Sorahiko, however, merely scoffed.

“Don’t care,” he spat. “You’re still not taking me anywhere!”

Shouto watched as the skeletal-like man threw his head back in frustration, wringing his fingers through his untamed golden blonde hair.

“We don’t have time! The world’s equilibrium has been unraveled! With the moon as close as it is, it only a matter of time before the whole planet’s underwater!!” Toshinori fretted. He then faced Shouto and gripped the young boy’s shoulders. “Young Shouto, please! Come with me, you’re the only one who can save Izuku and the planet!”

“Hey!” Natsuo yelled from not too far away. “Get your hands off my little brother!”

Toshinori removed one hand and summoned a bubble, promptly trapping the older boy and sending in into the depths before Natsuo could so much yelp in surprise. When he turned his attention back to Shouto, he realized his mistake.

“He is unharmed, I promise you!” Toshinori sputtered, throwing his hands up in a placating gesture. “I merely sent him to be reunited with the others! Please, Young Shouto, you must believe me! You have to–”

“I WON’T LET YOU TAKE ANYONE ELSE FROM ME!” Shouto shouted, splashing water into the man’s face before running away from him as fast as his legs could carry him as he found his way onto a partially submerged fence. He didn’t have much going regarding a plan, but even if he couldn’t get his family back, he could still protect Izuku!

“No no no! After them! I won’t lose my child like this!” Toshinori asserted, ordering his sea surfs their way.

Shouto only ran faster hearing this. By some miracle, he managed to maintain his balance dashing on the slim fence, even while running at a slant.

“Kid! What are you doing?!”

Shouto didn’t have the thought nor the time to answer that question and kept running. Sorahiko watched his approach and well, he couldn’t let the kid get hurt, so he slid down the hill and reached out his arms to try and catch the kid. Once he was close enough, he shouted to Shouto, “Jump!”

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Shouto leapt at Sorahiko and the motion propelled caused him to lose his grip on the bucket, which flew at the old man. Shouto crashed against the man’s torso at the same time that the bucket hit him in the head, with Izuku falling out to smack him in the face.

Then the waves crashed into them, surrounding them and pulling them into the depths. Toshinori sighed in relief and bubbled his head before slipping below the surface and following them toward their enclosure. On the way, his other children arrived and began squawking at him in desperation.

“Daddy!”

“Daddy! Wait up!”

“Hold on, Daddy!”

“Slow down!”

“Now what?” the Sea Guardian huffed. Did no one but him understand that time was of the essence here?!

“Bubbles! They need the air bubbles to breathe like you!”

That made Toshinori pause.

“...Right.” he uttered, more than a bit embarrassed. “You know what to do. And those of you who have attributes or appendages that are dangerous when used on others, please be careful!!”

“Yes, Daddy!” the children agreed before banding together to guide Sorahiko, Shouto and their brother to the jellyfish-shaped bubble dome. They swam in sync as a unit, dropping Shouto off in the arms of his family, and Sorahiko in the hands of the other patients.

“What the-? What’s going on?” the elder man grumbled questioningly.

“Good to see you’re still the same.” Tensei joked, and Sir Nighteye laughed as well, ruffling the old man’s grey head before setting him down in the grass.

As for Izuku, he found himself coming to rest in a pair of warm, comfortable hands, and when his eyes opened he found a pair of matching emeralds smiling down at him.

“Hello, my Izuku,” his mother whispered as she bent her head to kiss him.

“Mommy,” Izuku whispered, warmth flooding his heart as he nuzzled against his mother’s face. “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you too, my love,” Inko murmured. She pulled him back a bit and gave him a small smile as she said, “It seems you’ve been rather busy while I was away.” 

Izuku gave a small giggle at that massive understatement.

Shouto, meanwhile, opened his clenched eyes to look up into a face that he hadn’t seen in quite some time – and which he had missed very much.

“Mommy,” he whispered, voice trembling as he wrapped his arms about her neck. He felt a hand come to rest on his head, stroking his hair and holding him close, and a tear ran down his cheek. “I missed you so much…”

“I missed you too, darling,” Rei said, her voice catching in her throat as her other children crowded around to collectively hug her, with Natsuo clinging to her waist. “All of you...We’re together now. And I’m going to do better from now on, I promise.”

The little family squeezed tight into their huddle, relieved to all be together again at last, much to the awe of those watching them. Toshinori couldn’t help but feel a little warmth bloom in his chest at the sight, and his stress over the upcoming test eased somewhat. Perhaps things will work out after all… he thought.

After a moment of holding tight to him, Rei pressed a kiss to Shouto’s forehead before setting him down on the ground. The little boy held tight to his red pail and raised his gaze to see a woman he didn’t know approaching him. Izuku swam close to her, his little fish’s body resting on her shoulder, and upon noting the way the pair’s matching green hair, the boy realized who this must be.

“You must be Shouto.” Inko said as she approached.

Her voice was soft and deep and seemed to echo, and the boy found himself regarding the woman with great reverence. Shouto bowed respectfully in greeting. “Hello,” he said. He righted himself once more and asked, “Are you Izuku’s mother?”

Inko nodded, smiling at the boy. “Yes. I’m glad to see you brought my son here safely. Thank you for that.” The goddess then knelt slightly to meet the child at eye level, her face ever calm as she spoke to him.

“Shouto, Izuku opened a magic well because he wants very much to be human; to become a real boy, as you are. But in order for that to happen, he needs you to accept him and love him as he truly is.”

The goddess took her little son in hand then and held him out, so that Izuku and Shouto were able to look each other in the eye. Izuku blinked his wide eyes at Shouto, hoping that he would say the words he needed to hear.

“You know that Izuku was a fish, don’t you?” Inko asked. When Shouto gave a firm nod, she inquired, “And do you know that your drop of blood was what aided him to transform?”

Shouto gasped and held up his hand. “From my thumb – when you licked it! So that’s how you changed!”

Izuku nodded his little head, beaming, and floated around to look at his mother as she continued to question his beloved human companion.

“Shouto,” Inko murmured, “could you love him if he walked between two worlds? If he was a mix of both sea and land, made into one?”

Shouto didn’t have to think twice about his reply.

“I love Izuku!” he announced, causing the little green fish’s heart to soar. “I love Izuku as a fish and as a human! I’ll love him no matter what form he takes! Because I love all the Izukus! I know it’ll take more than just saying those words, but I promise I’ll be committed! I love Izuku, and I will love him forever!” Shouto proclaimed from the bottom of his heart.

Behind him, Shouto’s family was moved by the words of their youngest member, all of them delighted to see how happy he was. And standing nearby, Toshinori felt his own heart swell at the tender little speech. Between the boy’s eager words and the bright smile on his son’s face, he was starting to realize that he had perhaps made an error in trying to keep the two apart...

However, the test was not over just yet.

“One final question,” Inko continued. “Would you still want Izuku to be with you...even if it meant he would die?”

That question took him by surprise. Die?

Izuku watched Shouto eagerly, hoping that he would say 'yes', that he would want to be with him regardless of the circumstances. He knew that he wanted to be with him no matter what happened, and felt that surely the other boy felt the same.

Shouto was quiet for a moment before answering.

“No.”

There were some muted gasps and murmurs from the others, and Izuku’s jaw dropped. He felt an ache start to form in his chest. Shouto took a deep breath before he elaborated on his response.

“I...I wouldn’t want to be with Izuku if it’d mean he’d die. I care about him, and I want him to be happy. If he gets to live and be happy, I’ll gladly accept being separated! I won’t lie and say it won’t hurt, but I want what’s best for Izuku.” Shouto paused to look the little green fish in the eye as he said, “He deserves a long and happy life!”

Izuku sniffed, understanding what Shouto meant now, and knew he felt the same. His father brushed away a tear as he recalled when he’d been asked the same question many years ago, and had answered in a similar fashion – that despite his deep love for Inko, he could never ask her to harm herself for the sake of them being together. He’d passed the test, without even realizing it, and now this young child had done the same.

“I see you speak the truth,” said Inko as she reached to touch the boy’s cheek, brushing strands of red hair back. “Just as I can see that your love is true.”

Izuku flipped up into the air, cartwheeling and tumbling into the water, celebrating. He circled Shouto, rubbing against his cheek and making him giggle, before going to nuzzle each of the Todorokis. He’d never been so happy! Shouto loved him and he loved Shouto!

Just as he finished rubbing his face against Fuyumi’s cheek, Inko called for him to come closer to her. He obeyed, eagerly going to rest in his mother’s hand. Inko brushed a thumb along her child’s cheek, recalling the happiness she’d felt upon his birth, and marvelled at how he’d grown.

“Izuku, Shouto has promised to love you and accept you as you are.”

The little fish smiled and nodded before letting his mother continue.

“In order to become human, you must abandon magic. Can you do that?”

Izuku nodded, no question in his mind. Not having magic would certainly change a lot of things, but he was eager to see and understand the rest of the world that he still didn’t know, and with Shouto by his side he knew he had nothing to fear.

At his response, Inko gave a small nod, and Izuku knew that he too had passed his test. Before he could move to celebrate, he happened to notice Toshinori standing nearby, looking melancholy despite the small smile he wore. Izuku swam to his father and allowed the man to cup him in his hand.

“Don’t be sad, Daddy,” he said, reaching his flippers out to touch the Guardian’s chin. “I love you and I don’t want you to be sad!”

Toshinori sniffed, happy to hear those words. “I love you too,” he said before pressing a kiss to Izuku’s hairline. “I suppose I just thought I would have more time before a day like this came along. But then, we can’t really plan for this sort of thing.”

“We certainly can’t,” Inko agreed as she went to stand with her family. The other children crowded about and each took a turn nuzzling their eldest brother. They would certainly miss him, but they were happy that he’d found something and someone to love so much. Once they’d all said their goodbyes, Inko brushed a sparkling tear from her cheek before closing her hands around her son. When she opened them, he was closed in a bubble, which she then placed in Shouto’s bucket.

“When you return to land, give the bubble a kiss,” she instructed as she stood once more, leaning against her husband, who in turn wrapped his arms about her. “It will open, and Izuku will be reformed as a human.”

Shouto nodded. “I will! Thank you, Izuku’s mom!”

The adults chuckled at this, and Inko raised her arms high and called for all of them to hear: “Everyone! The balance of nature has been restored, and life can begin anew!”

The onlookers cheered at this and ran to hug Shouto and the other Todorokis alike. The fish children whooped and hollered, darting around, and their parents held each other as they watched.

“Thank goodness.” Toshinori said under his breath, finally at ease with both his son and the planet he was sworn to protect now out of danger.

“Aren’t you glad you trusted me?” Inko asked as she leaned to press a kiss to his cheek.

Toshinori’s cheeks flared red and he didn’t even attempt to hide his smile as he chuckled, “Aren’t I always?”

The celebration lasted a few more moments, until Inko finally raised her hands once more and in a flood of magic everyone found themselves being rushed to the surface, the tides receding, and before long everyone was on dry land once more.

“What a trip,” Touya said as he trudged onto the shore, Natsuo in tow. “So I guess we have fish for in-laws now.”

“Fish and a wizard,” Toshinori clarified as he stood by directing the humans onto land. “As well as the Goddess of the Oceans.”

“Well, I hope you guys like soba, because that’s Shouto’s favorite and we’ll probably end up having it at one of our family get-togethers in the future.”

Toshinori raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Get-togethers? You mean you don’t object to us visiting?”

“Of course not,” Fuyumi replied happily as she helped her mother toward the steps.

Rei nodded in agreement and reached a hand up to rest it on Toshinori’s shoulder as she said, “We’re family now. And family is always welcome!”

“Yeah!” Shouto cried in agreement as he ran over, holding his pail high with Izuku still bubbled inside. “We’re a great big family now!”

“Speaking of family,” said Tensei as he walked up the steps, “has anybody seen mine? I–”

“TENSEI!!”

The young man looked up to see Tenya, his little brother, racing toward him, going so fast it was almost as if his legs had engines in them.

“Big brother!” Tenya shouted as he ran and leapt into Tensei’s arms. “You-You can walk again! I-I-I thought the doctors said that–”

“I know, I know! But you’d be surprised what a little magic can do!” Tensei replied, catching his teary-eyed brother and spinning him around to the younger’s delight.

The other patients happily ran to their families, with Sorahiko pausing to nudge Toshinori’s hips with his elbow, almost teasingly, before continuing up the steps. Shouto and the others watched as the evacuees headed for shore in their boats and greeted each other, and noticed Aizawa assisting the Pussycats and their feline companions ashore.

“I never never knew Aizawa-sensei liked cats so much,” Rei commented as she watched the man labor under the weight of a pile of kitties. “I guess I have some catching up to do.”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Natsuo assured his mother, “we’ll help you!”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Inko said, surprising the others as she rose from the water to stand nearby. “All of you.”

Everyone, from the patients to the Todorokis to the other refugees who had come to see what the commotion was about felt happiness at these words. Katsuki Bakugou on the other hand, who had recently arrived with his parents, was just confused. He didn’t like not knowing things. It made him angry.

“What the heck? Who are all you people?? You better tell me or I'll beat you up!!” Katsuki snapped, balling his fists.

In the shallow waters, Inko and Toshinori’s school of other children were bobbing and watching this display, and little Eijirou’s eyes lit up at the sight of the fiery angry blonde. “Ooh! Daddy, I like that one!”

Toshinori responded in terror. “NO! You have to wait until you’re older!”

The rockfish pouted. “Izuku doesn’t!”

“Well first of all, Izuku is older than you, and– I am not having this conversation with you right now!”

“Darling, don’t be so harsh with him.”

“You’re not helping, dear!” Toshinori said through gritted teeth, giving a huff as she merely snickered at him. He then knelt down before Shouto, handing him his toy boat. “Erm, this is...yours, I believe.”

Shouto took it graciously and thanked him.

“Take care of my son,” Toshinori said gently, looking down at Izuku with affection in his eyes. “I know I haven’t always been the perfect father, but I truly love him.”

Shouto nodded. “I love him too and I’m gonna take good care of him! And don’t worry – I think you’re a pretty good dad!”

“We’ve definitely seen worse,” Touya concurred.

As if on cue, a familiar foghorn sounded from an all too familiar freighter.

“Oh great. It’s Him.” Natsuo snarked. 

“‘Him’?” Toshinori questioned, much like his son had before him. He didn’t have much time to receive an explanation however, as Enji Todoroki was suddenly headed for them in a life raft, having spotted his family on shore a while earlier and decided to strike out and speak to them in person. At the sight of him, Rei stumbled back and her two elder children went to hold her as Natsuo stood in front of her protectively.

“There you all are,” Enji grumbled as he walked toward them, the rest of the group eyeing him warily. “I’ve been trying to contact you by radio. What are you doing out here?” This last question he posed while pointing at Rei, who used everything she had in her not to shrink away. “You’re supposed to be in the hospital!” 

“You’re supposed to be in Hell!” Natsuo snapped, which had his Father snorting in disbelief.

“I see what an excellent job your brother has been doing raising you,” Enji scoffed, shooting a glare at Touya, who returned it in kind. Enji then spotted Shouto standing nearby, clutching his little red bucket and backing up toward Toshinori. The blonde man rested a hand on the little boy’s shoulder and peered at this newcomer.

“Excuse me, sir,” Toshinori said, careful to keep his voice neutral. “But I would appreciate it if you would calm down, and perhaps–”

“I’d appreciate it if you would get away from my kid, you freakshow,” Enji spat, stomping toward Shouto. Before he could get too close, though, a squirt of water leaped out of the red bucket and the captain spluttered as it hit him in the face.

“Wh-! What the–!” The man’s face turned red with anger and he loomed over his son, glaring down at Izuku. The little fish (soon to be human!) grinned smugly, happy to know that his bubble was permeable enough to allow him to squirt people.

At the look on the fish’s face, Enji only grew madder. “Why you little–”

He took another step closer, prompting Toshinori to take Shouto by the shoulders and back all of them up, and a second later a large splash of water hit the incorrigible man. A chorus of giggles could be heard from Izuku’s siblings as they watched Enji sputter and wipe the water from his face. The other humans nearby started to laugh as well at the sight, and this only served to incense him further.

“Listen, you!” Enji reached forward and grabbed Toshinori by his shirt collar before roaring, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I-”

A cold hand then firmly grasped the elder Todoroki’s shoulder. Enji turned to confront the person who had the audacity to dare touch him, only for his words to die on his throat. He remembered the face of the woman before him. The very same woman the men of his crew called the ocean mirage “the Goddess of Mercy”. Or perhaps not so much a mirage after all.

“You’re not disrespecting my husband, are you?” Inko bellowed in a chilling voice, her height increasing with each word. And for once in his life, Enji felt thoroughly cowed at the sight and his hand loosened, unconsciously, allowing Toshinori to step back and pull Shouto toward the others.

“I-I-I…”

The goddess had already heard more than enough. Inko raised a single hand, and in a swift motion used her magic to flick the man’s entire body away from the them. Enji cried out as he flew back, skipping across the water until he smacked bodily against the metal side of a ship. He was stunned there for just a second before he belly flopped into the water with a loud SMACK!!! Everyone watched in awe as he sank like a stone, and then began laughing and cheering while the goddess brushed off her hands and turned to smile at her husband.

“I adore you when you do that, my beloved,” Toshinori chuckled, utterly moonstruck.

“See?” Izuku squeaked from inside the bucket. “Scary!”

Shouto giggled and set the bucket on the ground. Carefully, he scooped the bubble into his hands and raised it up to his face. “Ready?” he asked, and Izuku gave him one last eager nod.

With that, everyone watched as Izuku leapt a bit inside the bubble, going up a ways in the air. He came down on the other boy’s face, where he pecked Shouto on the lips and transformed into a smiling little boy once more, landing in his arms.

“Tada!” Izuku cried out, happy as can be. Shouto beamed and hugged him in return, the two of them spinning around as they giggled and shouted with jubilation, both of them eager to spend the rest of their days together as happy as they were now.

Chapter Text

Life with a fish-turned-human turned out to be a bit more complicated than anyone could have expected. First, there was the matter of convincing Izuku that, yes, wearing shoes was necessary. The first time Rei took him to the shoe store they looked at dozens of pair until he finally settled on a pair of red sneakers with white soles.

“Like you!” he said, pointing at Shouto's hair.

Getting him to start wearing clothes other than the ones that had formed with his body wasn't easy either. He preferred t-shirts much like his original green one and once, after Fuyumi made a comment about needing more variety, he'd written on each of his shirts. ‘Polo’ on one, ‘sweater’ on another, and so on. Fuyumi had rolled her eyes, but Touya and Natsuo found this particularly hilarious.

They also had to decide on a surname in order to register Izuku on formal paperwork. After a very awkward conversation about why he could not use the Todoroki surname (yet, anyway), Shouto helped Izuku coin the surname ‘Midoriya’, combining both the Japanese word for ‘green’ with the first few letters of Izuku’s father’s old surname, ‘Yagi’. The latter detail made Toshinori’s eyes mist up when he heard the news.

Then there came the time that he had to be enrolled in school which presented its own problems. Toshinori had given them a special mirror that allowed them to contact him in case of emergency and they hadn't expected their first time using it to be to ask the wizard if he could come sign some paperwork. It turned out to be a pleasant enough visit, with Izuku bouncing on his father’s lap and talking about how excited he was to start school!

And school was fun, though it was very different from what Izuku expected. There was a lot of sitting, and even more listening, and that was hard to deal with sometimes. Aizawa-sensei soon started referring to him as ‘The Problem Child’ because he kept getting into mischief. But Izuku couldn’t help it – when he saw Katsuki pushing other kids around, he had to run in and help them!

“Stop it, Kacchan!” Izuku shouted, shoving the other boy. “You can’t treat people that way!”

“Fuck off, deku!”

“I’m not a ‘deku’, I’m Izuku! Now stop being mean!”

“Make me!”

So, Izuku did what he could to ‘make him,’ and tackled him, biting the other boy who cried out and fought back. By the time Aizawa-sensei came to break them apart they were both bruised, bleeding, and crying, and that day began a rivalry between the two that would last for many years to come. Shouto, for his part, was proud of Izuku for doing what he could to stand up for others. As someone who had been treated poorly in the past by others, it meant a great deal to him.

“It’s nice to know that I could probably trust you to be there for me.”

“Of course, I would be!” Izuku exclaimed before pressing a kiss to his cheek.

Those issues aside, once Aizawa was able to find methods of teaching that worked for him, Izuku found that he greatly enjoyed learning. As soon as he properly mastered reading, he began consuming everything in sight, adoring both fiction and non-fiction, and his artistic skills flourished with a box of crayons and a stack of colored paper. As someone who was a bit less interested in school, Shouto admired his energy.

Despite the fun they had at school, they both enjoyed being on break even more. Break was for exploring, finding, roaming the town and having miniature adventures everyday as they relearned the world together. Shouto used his allowance to buy a camera and they started taking pictures and keeping scrapbooks of their exploits.

As the years passed, Izuku’s siblings deemed they wanted to be human too, much to Toshinori’s dismay. Eijirou, of course, was the first after Izuku to do so.

Ever since laying eyes on the Katsuki Bakugou boy, the young rockfish started frequenting the surface to see more of the fiery blonde. Then one day, Katsuki came the shore bleeding from a fight, enabling Eijirou to taste his blood and kickstart his transformation.

Unfortunately for him, his path to humanity and winning the love of his chosen’s heart was not as smooth sailing as Izuku’s had been. For starters, while Toshinori had come to approve of Izuku’s relationship and began letting his children have a bit more freedom, he also became even more protective, often warning his children that his and Izuku’s cases of being successful with love were very rare. Then there was the fact that Katsuki Bakugou was the biggest tsundere this side of Yuuei.

Just when Eijirou thought he was making progress getting Katsuki to fall for him, his magic failed and he transformed back. Katsuki did not have kind words to say in the least, but luckily worded his insults correctly so Eijirou wasn’t immediately killed on the spot then and there. However, the magic rockfish fell gravely ill after this encounter, forcing Toshinori’s immediate intervention.

What surprised everyone the most about the ordeal was Katsuki’s confidence in Izuku to set things right. It took several attempts coaching the brusque boy to say the right (read “nice”) words to say, stowing away on the Endeavor, avoiding being drowned when Inko initially attacked the Endeavor, and loads of convincing Toshinori that Katsuki wouldn’t screw up and kill Eijirou when taking the test to do so, but by some miracle, they prevailed.

However, Toshinori only obliged after giving Katsuki a stern talking to about the consequences of breaking Eijirou’s heart. Izuku had never been more terrified if his father than in that moment.

As Shouto and Izuku grew older, they eventually stopped sharing a bed as they had been. Izuku wasn’t really sure why they did this, but Rei said something about ‘might not be appropriate given your relationship’ and seemed pretty firm on that point.

So they cleared out and cleaned up a large section of the attic for Izuku to sleep in. With the extra space, he now had plenty of room to stash the various trinkets and objects that he often brought home and decorate the area to his preferences. Without realizing it at first, his room soon came to resemble the cluttered room that he had once been housed in with his siblings, with books and posters and maps scattered about. At night, he had a clear view of the ocean and the stars above, and when he opened the window the sweet crashing of the ocean lulled him to sleep.

The older the two got, the more people joked and teased them about their relationship, asking if they were getting tired of each other, or when the wedding would be. Izuku didn’t understand why anyone would think they were growing tired of each other, and he didn’t exactly understand what they meant by a ‘wedding.’ Shouto, however, seemed to understand these questions, rolling his eyes at the former and growing red in the face at the latter.

When they reached high school, Izuku began to understand things a bit better. Musutafu High School was attended both by the same people they’d been in school with since kindergarten, as well as graduates from other area middle schools. With the flood of knew people came new friendships, but also new problems. Izuku had always known that Shouto was beautiful, but it seemed that age and puberty was what it took for other people to start noticing as well.

The first few incidents were harmless enough, with girls waving and winking at Shouto, who usually either gave a casual wave in return or just ignored them. Then came flirting, and overheard whispers of people calling him ‘hot.’ Then Shouto found a love letter in his locker, asking for him to meet them tomorrow after school.

“Are you going to go?” Izuku asked, biting his nails.

Shouto shrugged as he looked at the letter. “Yeah, probably. I’ll just go and tell them I’m not interested and that they should move on. No big deal.”

But to Izuku, it felt like an incredibly big deal. Such a big deal in fact that later that evening, he found himself stumbling down the cliffside stairs toward the shore and stepping into the water. It didn’t take long for a glow to appear over the horizon, and for the green hair and calm face of his mother to rise out of the water to meet him.

“Hello, my darling,” she greeted him, reaching a large finger out to brush his cheek. Izuku pressed his face into her touch and sighed, already feeling comforted.

“Hi, Mama,” he mumbled. “I guess you sensed I needed to talk?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. Her smile slipped a bit, as by now she could clearly see the problem her son was grappling with.

“Shouto is being pursued by another.” It was more of a statement than a question, and Izuku did little but give a weak nod in reply. Inko pursed her lips before asking, “Have you tried throwing waves at them? ”

Izuku gave a small laugh at that. “I don’t have magic anymore, remember?”

“Ah. That does present a problem.”

Inko wrapped her hand around her son’s body and used her thumb to stroke his cheek. Izuku sank into her embrace, shifting to sit in her palm. “I love Shouto. And I know he loves me…I just can’t help but worry, you know?”

The goddess nodded, a look of knowing nostalgia in her emerald eyes. “Yes, I do know. I remember the first time I took your father to visit the other gods of the council. They were fascinated by him – couldn’t stop touching him. Oh, I got horribly jealous. I lashed out too! But it was all for nothing; he loved me and would have never strayed.”

Inko drew her child closer to her and murmured, “Have faith, my young one. Shouto made you a promise and you must trust him to keep it.”

Izuku sighed, but nodded his head. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” she said, her smile returning as she moved to press a kiss to his curls.

The next day, Izuku hid nearby as Shouto met with the letter’s sender. She was a classmate, and pretty at that, but Shouto seemed unaffected. Izuku listened as his love explained the nature of their relationship as best he could without mentioning magic (they’d gradually realized that bringing up the ‘used to be a fish’ thing to strangers tended to get weird looks). He finished his little speech my balling his hand into a fist and placing it over his heart.

“I appreciate your feelings, and I don’t want to hurt you…but I already have someone I love. I hope that you can find someone who makes you happy, but it can’t be me.”

As soon as Shouto came home that evening, he found Izuku waiting for him just inside the front door, ready to tackle him into a hug.

“Whoa, hey,” Shouto laughed, returning the strong embrace. “Glad to see me?”

“Always.”

Shouto smiled and nuzzled his face into Izuku’s shoulder. His voice muffled, he said, “Same here. Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

After that first time, they both agreed to handle such matters together from then on, and they both kept their word. When Izuku was later being chased by a nice but somewhat manic girl named Himiko, Shouto was there to support him. The same way Izuku was there to support Shouto every time Enji tried to make another move on the family.

Through the years they persevered through life's hardships, and their love persevered with them and only grew with time. Even the time they spent attending different colleges, which though difficult, did not manage to tear apart their relationship. Shouto studied and trained to be a firefighter while Izuku went to medical school to be a nurse, wanting to heal and help people as best he could. Med school wasn't easy or cheap, but having a mother who possessed healing knowledge as well as a father who had plenty of sunken gold and jewels tends to help.

Letters and calls were frequent, visits to each other and home were made as often as possible, and the second they graduated they found jobs in their hometown and moved back into the old family home. Though now they both took up residence in the attic, back to comfortably sleeping side by side, falling asleep under stars and waking up to morning light bathing them.

It was on one such morning when Shouto finally took the initiative to ask Izuku a question that he’d had on the tip of his tongue for years now. The two were curled up together, enjoying the sun’s warmth, talking idly, when Shouto was struck by the fact that he never wanted this to end. So, he sat up and knelt down at the edge of the bed. Izuku peered at him, curious.

“What’s up?"

“Will you marry me?”

Izuku did nothing but blink at him. “Huh?”

“I know it’s kinda sudden but...well, who am I kidding, as long as we’ve been together, don’t you think it makes sense?”

“I…don’t get it.”

This was a statement Shouto had long become accustomed to hearing, as despite his many years spent as a human, there were always some things that one tended to miss.

“Okay…” he started slowly. “Well, marriage is–”

“I know what it is,” Izuku interrupted. “My parents are married. I just don’t understand why you’re asking me to marry you when I thought we already were bound to each other.”

Ah. There was the issue. “Well yeah, we are,” Shouto agreed, “but this would be a human marriage — a wedding. Remember when we were younger and we went to Sir Nighteye and Tensei-san’s wedding?”

Izuku nodded. “Oh yeah, when they stood up in front of everybody and wore those suits. And then we had a party and I ate so much cake I nearly puked.”

Shouto laughed and leaned forward to take his lover’s hands. “Yeah, like that. Basically, a wedding is a way for us to legally and emotionally show everyone else that we belong to each other. And we would exchange rings to show that I’m yours and you’re mine – forever.”

As he spoke, a beam slowly spread across Izuku’s face until he leapt forward and flung his arms around Shouto. “In that case then, yes yes yes YES YES!!!”

The two broke into delighted laughter that didn’t end until Fuyumi called them downstairs for breakfast.

It was to the surprise of absolutely nobody when they received invitations to the wedding. If anything, they were only surprised that they hadn't done it sooner, as most people had assumed they would marry right out of high school. Fuyumi was the most vocal about her excitement, and the school teacher immediately launched into making plans for the wedding. Rei was right behind her in terms of enthusiasm and was quick to wrap both boys in a huge hug. Touya, who had become a chef, offered to cater the event, and Natsuo swore on his life that he would make it home in time to attend. As a Captain of a supply ship, he’d more or less followed in his father’s footsteps, but with the difference being that he was much more genial and therefore better liked and respected than the elder Captain Todoroki had ever been.

When it came time to track down Izuku’s siblings and send them invitations, things were a bit more complicated – several of them had decided to join the human world, and even the sea dwellers had taken the chance to spread their metaphorical wings and see what they could. Ochako was easy enough as she had actually been living with the Todorokis in Natsuo’s old room ever since she and Tenya Iida had fallen for each other and she’d taken to land. The rest, however, were going to be a bit of challenge.

Thankfully, Inko’s reach was far and she was able to locate each and every one. Even Yuuga, who was off in France working on his latest fashion line, received his mother’s calling and was elated to attend. The goddess herself was old enough that she better understood the significance of human weddings, and began tearing up when she first heard the news. Her tears were so massive that they sent forth a tidal wave, nearly knocking Izuku and Shouto off the boat they’d taken to visit her. Toshinori, aboard his own seacraft nearby, wasn’t quite as happy immediately, as he had several questions to ask.

“Are you sure? It’s a big commitment, you know!”

“Bigger than risking turning into sea foam?”

“Young man, don’t you sass your father!”

In the end, Toshinori naturally approved, as he’d come to love Shouto over the years, and looked forward to attending. For the sake of their aquatic family and friends, the couple decided to marry on the beach, which allowed nearby access to the water as well as plenty of room for all of their human friends as well. And there were many – not only did the majority of the island’s residents attend, but there were also friends from college and abroad. Izuku and Shouto were shocked to see how many people responded to their invitations, but it made sense – people had been waiting so long to hear that the two were getting married that they couldn’t just not go. Even the surly Sorahiko grunted and agreed that he would be there, and though he claimed it was for the free food, Izuku suspected otherwise.

The day finally came and everything began perfectly. The ceremony was decorated in shades of green and blue, from the streamers on the awnings down to the flower arrangements. The altar itself was a sight to behold as well, with a stunning arbory arch decorated in seaweed, shells, and other treasures of the ocean courtesy of Izuku’s family. The aisle was laid out parallel to the water, scallop and conch shells holding it down, with groups of tables on both sides, but also provided the water for Izuku’s still aquatic-bound siblings to witness the ceremony.

Instead of being escorted separately, the two grooms chose to walk up the aisle together, arms linked. They’d been together most of their lives, and this was just one more step on their journey with one another. As such, it only felt right to do it side by side. They also chose to forgo overly formal attire in exchange for simple pants and matching white shirts, with boutonnieres pinned to their lapels and bouquets in hand. Izuku chose green for his pinned flower with a red and white bouquet, while Shouto chose red and white for the former and green for the latter, allowing them to mirror each other.

Everyone watched as they walked the aisle, barefoot, up to the makeshift altar where Hizashi Yamada was waiting to wed them. When they reached him, Hizashi reeled back and shouted,  “GATHER ‘ROUND, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN! LISTENERS OF ALL AGES! FOR THE LONG-AWAITED NUPTIALS OF YUUEI’S CUTEST COUPLE!!! I’m of course talking about IZUKU MIDORIYA!!!! And SHOUTO TODOROKI!!!”

Both husbands-to-be snickered at the DJ’s enthusiasm, their own excitement only bubbling up further. Everything had gone as planned thus far, and even the sea was calm thanks to Toshinori and Inko’s influence. Not one thing could ruin this.

Or so they thought. The ceremony began well enough, with Hizashi discussing why they were there, giving a little speech about how he himself had watched the two grow alongside one another, and how there was no question in his mind that they were a perfect match.

“And I’m sure everyone else can agree with me on that! BUT! Just for formality’s sake, let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: if anyone has any objections to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace! Nobody? Good, then let’s–”

“I’ve got some objections!” At this outbursts, there were several gasps, and the two grooms turned to see Enji Todoroki stomping up the aisle.

“Goddamnit!!” Natsuo swore from the front row.

No one had seen or heard much from Enji since he’d been discharged from his job, and everyone was all the better for his absence. But here he was, taking one last opportunity to butt in and ruin everything. Fortunately, others were prepared to handle this nonsense. Aizawa-sensei jumped up from his aisle seat and stood in front of the ex-Captain, followed closely by Natsuo running over and then Touya.

“Get out of here, you fuck!” Natsuo shouted, shoving his father. Touya pulled his brother back behind him but agreed, ordering that their father leave.

Enji fumed and stood in place, pointing at the two at the front. “How can the lot of you stand around and let this happen? It’s bad enough that they’ve been ‘together’ as long as they have, and now you’re actually going to let them marry?? That one,” he shouted, pointing at Izuku, “isn’t even human!”

Izuku flinched slightly and Shouto moved to hold him. “He’s more human than you are,” Shouto spat back at his father. “And where do you get off thinking that you have any right to be here?”

“I have every right,” Enji snapped. “I’m your father! I won’t have you sullying what’s left of our family name by–”

“That’s enough.” Toshinori commanded, standing his full height to tower over the incorrigible human. “You’re disturbing the peace, and if I recall correctly, there remains a standing ‘restraining order’ against you that states that you are not to come within 100 meters of your former family. Therefore, I suggest you leave. Now. You’re ruining my son and son-in-law’s special day.”

“Out of my way, you–”

Before he could finish his sentence, a large hand suddenly swooped down and wrapped around his body, lifting off the ground and into the air. He was brought before a pair of hauntingly familiar green eyes that were currently levelling him with a vicious glare.

“That’s quite enough out of you.”

The Goddess of the Oceans wasted no time in reeling back and hurling the despicable man as hard as she could, sending him flying, screaming, over the waters until he disappeared over the horizon. No one ever saw him again, though there were rumors that he survived and left Yuuei permanently due to “extenuating circumstances”.

Everyone either cheered or sighed with relief at Enji’s disappearance, and Izuku managed to laugh despite being shaken up and call, “Thanks, Mama!!” To which Inko gave him a serene smile and motioned for them to continue, and after everyone had taken a moment to relax a bit, they did so.

When it came time to exchange vows, Shouto’s were almost verbatim to what he said during the test when he was at the tender age of five. Izuku had to use all his willpower not to cry right there. His own vows were not particularly poetic, but they were still sweet and spoken from the heart.

There were several people amongst the attendants who cried, including the officiant himself, and Aizawa had to run up to the front and hand his husband a handkerchief so that he could dry up. Toshinori was doing his best to hold back any emotion and remain stiff and passive, but he was quickly failing, sniffing heavily with tears trickling down his cheeks.

Inko, on the other hand, was readily weeping. Of course, being magic, even though she had shrunk to her smaller figure, her tear falls nearly flooded the beach as a result.

“Careful, darling,” Toshinori cautioned, offering her his handkerchief despite being teary-eyed himself. “Remember Atlantis?”

“Right, right!”

The kiss to seal the nuptials was not their first, and would certainly not be their last, but it was special in its own way, and was closely followed by an abundance of applause and cheering.

The reception that followed was perhaps one of the most uproarious parties their little town had ever seen. Hizashi switched from his officiant role to DJ Present Mic and jumped on the music. Touya’s food went over splendidly, with Shouto playfully rolling his eyes at the “ironic” flavor choice as he fed Izuku the first bite of the strawberry and red velvet wedding cake. The grooms both danced with their mothers as well as each other, Fuyumi enjoyed a dance with Hawks, who had attended the wedding as Natsuo's plus one, and Toshinori could be spotted slow-dancing in the surf with his now smaller wife, the two of them lost in each other's eyes like a pair of lovesick teenagers.

Speaking of lovesick teenagers, laughter and “d’awwww”s abounded when both Eijirou and Katsuki caught a bouquet each, the latter blushing furiously as the former drew him into a teary manly hug. As people began asking when their wedding would be, Ochako nudged Tenya and teased, “We're next after them, right?”

As his girlfriend giggled, Tenya found himself blushing too hard to manage a proper response.

Overall it was a great time. Things got mildly out of hand when Denki tried to use the remnants of his electric powers to make a light show, but the fire was put out quickly and Hitoshi was there to comfort his electric friend. The local fire department, headed by Shouto's good friend Inasa Yoarashi, gave a collective salute to their fellow member, and Dr. Shuzenji pulled Izuku aside to tell her how happy she was that the hospital's newest member had found such happiness. Even Aizawa took a quick moment to tell the two he was glad they'd finally tied the knot.

“I know it's cliche, but I really could tell you meant for each other even back when you were in kindergarten,” he said before shuffling off to talk to Fuyumi about next week's lesson plans.

The two husbands smiled and leaned against each other as they watched their friends and family alike celebrate on their behalf. After a moment they found themselves wandering to the shoreline to look out over the sea together.

“It's strange to think how far we've come,” Izuku commented as he held Shouto's hand. “Strange and amazing.”

“It really is,” Shouto agreed. “And to think it all started just a little ways up the coast from here. Speaking of which, I thought about it and I really wouldn't mind just staying in the house instead of moving.”

Izuku bobbed his head, his curls bouncing. “I thought the same! I mean there’s plenty of space and I like being with the family almost as much as I like being with you.”

Shouto smiled. “I like being with you too.”

The pair shared a smile before sharing their second kiss as a married couple. The party would last on into the night, until finally everyone would eventually  pack up and go home. And after a short honeymoon on a secret goddess protected island, the two would return to live the rest of their lives together on the little house on a cliff by the sea, keeping their shared promise to love each other for as long as they lived.