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Ask any of the older folks. They’ll tell you the Five still walk among us.
Perhaps they remember when their village was entertained by a wandering magician only to realize after he’d left that they’d hosted the Eternal Showman, Atsuhiro, who has a thousand faces and ten times as many tricks up his sleeves.
Maybe bandits who were terrorizing a trade road were found dead, pinned to the ground like insects by varying swords that could have only come from Shuichi, Master of Blades and Hero’s Bane.
They could have come from the north, where they offer vials of blood in the cemeteries every fall to She of Many Shapes, Beautiful Death, the Lady Himiko.
Or, like my own grandmother, they could have caught sight of Them by pure accident.
She was only a girl then. Sneaking out into the forest to meet the blacksmith’s apprentice in the dead of night, she caught sight of a strange light from a nearby clearing. Creeping to the edge, she saw it came from a campfire—one unlike any other. The flames consuming the logs burned a brilliant blue, like lightning. My grandmother could feel the intense heat rolling off them from where she crouched meters away. It didn’t seem to bother the two men standing beside it, though.
In the ghost-blue light, she could make out the scars, like runnels of melted candlewax, covering the arms of the taller as he embraced his companion. She didn’t get a glimpse of either of their faces, but she was sure the slightly smaller man would have scars of his own. One in particular slashed down his lip, if his long white hair and the missing fingers of his left hand were any clue.
She knew she had been blessed to look upon the Withered Tree Himself. The Unmaker. The Crownless King. Shigaraki Tomura. And, with Him always, His general and consort, the Scarred Prince, the Phoenix, Dabi.
They simply stood like that, holding each other and staring up at the stars, not acknowledging the mortal intruding upon Their private moment if They noticed her at all. My grandmother left without disturbing Them. What for? Though we may petition Them and even have our prayers answered at times, They are not gods. They don’t demand the rest of us follow laws and shape ourselves in Their images, as the ancient rulers, the Heroes, did. No, for my grandmother it was enough to know that such a love existed. She took it as a good omen as she went on her way to meet the boy who eventually became my grandfather. After all, if They could tear down the world and begin it anew just to stay together, she could sneak out for some fun with a sweet, hard-working smith’s apprentice.
And you know what? Fifty years of marriage, seven children, and dozens of grandchildren are hard to argue with.