Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku did not want to be here.

Izuku did not want to be anywhere.

Izuku, to simply put it, did not want to be at all.

His dream really was hopeless wasn’t it, a fanciful flight of fantasy that would never come to fruition. All Might himself, said it after all, he needed to be more realistic.

Though, what All Might hadn’t probably realized is that him being realistic would be synonymous to him being dead, the statistics existed to support that. Not the statistics released by the hero commission, which had excluded a lot of the data, but the proper ones recorded in the few quirkless forums that he had frequented as a child when he first received his diagnosis, desperate to be given the hope that he could be a hero. All Might, who said that everyone could be a hero, said that he couldn’t. He hadn’t been on the quirkless forums for a long time.

Heh, what a joke. He had foolishly clung on to hope for so long only for it to be smashed into a thousand itty bitty pieces. What a fool he had been.

He gazed listlessly down at the ground before him, teetering on the edge of the roof, on the edge of reality. He could just… fall off. Nobody would be too inconvenienced by him, and his mother may fool herself that she missed him initially, but would quickly be relieved that a burden had been taken off of her back.

It was quite easy to see that she had only kept him out of guilt.

His shoulder ached from explosion that had been set off near it and his whole body felt weak from the villain attack, but the pain was easy enough to ignore. Izuku had been in pain long enough that he had forgotten how it felt not to be in it.

The fall looked tempting.

Izuku stepped off the roof

               And

                 F

                                               E

                                                                              L

                                                                                                         L

He fell

He fell a minute ago

He’s still falling

The building wasn’t this high.

Why was he still falling?

The world went white.

A bard gazed at the stars as he strummed his lyre contemplatively, the breeze blowing around his teal tipped braids. The winds had shifted, similar to when the traveler had arrived.

 “I shall have to protect Mondstadt should anything happen, but either Way it shall be interesting to see this situation unfold”, the bard mused before heading off for the city of Mondstadt, it was time for him to bother Master Diluc for wine after all!

A small, green-haired child lay slumbering at the foot of Vanessa’s tree, unaware of the future that had been laid out for him, away from ones that had failed him. For the first time in years, he slept a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

A soft breeze blew gently against Izuku’s face, drawing him to consciousness, cold stone smooth against his left arm. Was he dead? He had fallen after all…

But he couldn’t be, cause everything about him was screaming that he was very much alive.

Then… what exactly had happened?

Izuku opened his eyes, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the bright light of his surroundings, sitting up with a wince as his body ached from being in an uncomfortable position for too long. Maybe he would recognise something about his surroundings. After all, if he did somehow survive, he would still be near the location of his fall or the hospital. Judging by the fact that it didn’t feel like he was on a hospital bed and that he could definitely feel the wind cemented that he wasn’t in the hospital. That didn’t really come as much of a surprise to Izuku – the place he had fallen was pretty remote after all, he wouldn’t have decided to jump if that wasn’t the case.

And it wasn’t like they would have allowed him in the hospital anyway – undeveloped people like him didn’t deserve to have access to medical treatment after all, he had found out about that when he had tried to get his arm set when he was 11 after Kacchan had broken it because Izuku was mumbling too much. He deserved it anyway, his mumbling was creepy and distracting, and it wasn’t Kacchan’s fault that Izuku was so fragile that he got hurt during a bit of roughhousing, all the adults said it after all. He only managed to get it set after about a day when the doctors got annoyed by him sitting morosely in the reception of the hospital.

He stared at his surroundings with wide eyes. Well, he definitely wasn’t in Musutafu.

Verdant, green fields spread out before him with pathways marked into the grass from regular use. Flowers whose petals spun like miniature windmills lay dotted around the place and a fluorescent blue glow emanated from somewhere behind him. A fluorescent blue glow emanated from somewhere behind him?

He spun his head around as fast as a whip, staring in surprise at the glowing statue of a winged being in hooded robes that glowed a striking blue, and just as quickly realized that he had been in the shadow of a humungous tree the entire time.

He stumbled to his feet, the movement of his shoulder causing him to wince in pain, and hesitantly walked towards the statue for a closer look. As he was just about to touch it, the voice of a young girl rung out from behind him.

“Hello Mister! Klee doesn’t know you, are you new to Mondstadt?”

Klee had decided that today was a good day for fish blasting! Really any day was good for fish blasting but today was especially good, what with it being brilliantly sunny and lively. Also, Jean was busy today, which meant that she was less likely to come looking after her!

So yes, today was indeed a very good day for fish blasting!

Klee had been about to go to the river behind Windrise (the traveler had said that she usually went fishing there) when she saw a green–haired boy in an outfit that consisted black button up high-collared shirt and black pants in the same shade stumble towards one of the statues of the seven.

Walking towards him, Klee grinned and said “Hello Mister! Klee doesn’t know you, are you new to Mondstadt?”

The green haired boy spun around startled, wincing in pain as his eyes widened in surprise.

Klee’s expression shifted to one of worry as she caught the wince.

“Are you hurt? Klee can take you to Barbara, she’s probably in the church! She’ll make you all better” the young elf exclaimed, “c’mon! we should go quickly!”

With that, she gently grabbed the boy’s hand and dragged him along with her, and the boy was too surprised to do anything but follow.

What was happening?

He was being kidnapped by a literal child was what was happening.

Izuku was too tired for this and his brain had stopped functioning the moment he had seen the statue, or maybe even before that, come to think of it. He had no idea what was going on, and at this point he couldn’t even bring himself to care, allowing himself to be dragged along.

Come to think of it, would this even count as kidnapping? He was going along willingly after all. Would that mean he was running away? What was he running away from? Who was Barbara? Why would she want to help a random stranger? Does she have a healing quirk or a quirk that would help with healing? Or does she have a quirk completely unrelated to her occupation? What was the small child’s quirk? She had pointy ears so it could be some sort of mutation quirk, or it could be the side effect of her quirk…

“What’s a quirk?” the girl’s (did she say her name was Klee?) voice piped up from beside him, dragging him out from his trance. They had been walking for around 5 – 10 minutes now and he had been absently listening to Klee ramble on about how she had been about to go fish blasting today and… bombs? Was that her quirk? Was her quirk similar to that of Kacchan’s? Anyway, he had been silent for the majority of it, or at least he had thought he had been until Klee had asked him a question. He had clearly been mumbling.

Wait, she didn’t know what quirks were? How was that possible?

“They, um, they’re like powers that are unique to every individual I guess?” he answered, wincing at the croaky sound of his voice, “like a sort of superhuman ability people are born with”

“Huh, I’ve never heard of them before. Maybe Lisa knows something about it!” she grinned before turning to face forward again, “Look we’re near Mondstadt city!”

Izuku focused forward.

Beyond the bridge, the grey city walls stood high, waiting for him to enter.

Chapter Text

Kaeya was having a completely ordinary day.

Please note the emphasis on was.

While Kaeya was on his way to visit Diluc, Klee had appeared out of nowhere with an unfamiliar greenette in tow, the boy’s eyes looking around him in pure, unadulterated wonder.

“Hi Kaeya!” Klee grinned at him, “he’s hurt so I’m taking him to Barbara! Also, Klee didn’t do any fish blasting today! Master Jean can’t be mad at me!”

Kaeya blinked in mild shock and trepidation as the two dashed past him towards the stairs.

That was not the usual reaction people get when they walk into Mondstadt City. Yes, there was some awe over the architecture and the rolling greenery and the giant statue of barbatos smack dab in front of the church, for the place was certainly beautiful, however that expression was one that conveyed that the person wearing the expression was not used to the scenery at all.

It was also a look that he had seen on the traveller, when she first entered Mondstadt.

Kaeya sighed and turned to jog towards the church after Klee and the boy – he just couldn’t have a normal day, could he?

Diluc was definitely going to tell him off for being late, wasn’t he?

Izuku stumbled up the stairs after Klee, raptured by his surroundings.

He swore he saw giant glowing dandelions on his way in…

Where on Earth was he? Was he hallucinating? He was pretty sure he was hallucinating at this point, because this place had honest to goodness knights.

The knights at the gates had stopped him from entering in order to ask him some questions, but he was honestly too overwhelmed at this point to speak. He still has no idea how he had previously managed to be knocked out of his stupor and actually respond to Klee, at this point it could be considered a minor miracle.

 Despite his lack of response, the knights let him in after taking a closer look at him with undecipherable expressions on their faces (concern. The expression was concern. But it couldn’t be concern, who would care enough to be concerned for him?) and a statement from Klee that she was taking him to Barbara (again, who was Barbara? Izuku would really like some context as to what was happening here please!).

So yes, Izuku was being taken up the stairs by Klee, and he hadn’t a worldly idea as to where he was. He really hoped he would be getting answers soon.

Until then, he decided, he was just going to continue staring at everything around him – the place looked like it had been dragged out of a fairytale, what with the picturesque houses and the lively atmosphere. Children running through the streets and playing whilst the adults went about their business, conversing with the people around them and making idle small talk. There

“Look we’re almost at the cathedral!” Klee exclaimed while tugging Izuku along.

Izuku turned around-

And was met with the sight of towering statue of a figure with wings and twin braids.

He was dragged up another flight of stairs before he could properly process what he saw.

Barbara had just sent bennet off after patching him up (for the 5^th time this week) when the door flung open.

She turned around, slightly surprised when she saw Klee.

“Klee! What are you doing here?” she exclaimed before taking notice of the green haired boy standing behind her.

The green haired boy that definitely looked injured and in shock.

“I met him near Windrise! He was looking at the statue of Barbatos and I hadn’t seen him before so I said hi! But then I noticed that he was hurt, so I brought him to you so you could make him all better!”, Klee explained when she realized Barbara was looking at the boy beside her, “you’ll help him right?”

“of course I will Klee” Barbara answered as turning towards the boy to speak as she tugged him towards the cot closest to them, “hi, is it okay if I use my vision to heal you?”

“What’s a vision?”, the boy replied.

What’s a vision? Who doesn’t know what a vision is?

Barbara paused, her eyes widening slightly as she put together a theory of why it was that he didn’t know what a vision was, after all, even the most sheltered children have heard of them at least once.

What was it about Teyvat that kept drawing in otherworldly travelers?

Unless the boy wasn’t like the traveler and just had some sort of amnesia instead. The clothing, however, was making her think the former assumption was true.

Well, otherworldly traveler or not, she really should get to healing him, the starburst burn looked pretty bad.

“Visions are gifts from the gods that allow the wielder to harness the element of the vision.” Barbara explained, the boy’s eyes getting wider by the time she had completely finished.

“You can get powers from gods!” the boy exclaimed, a slightly hysterical expression on his face, “Aren’t they genetic though? And why do you call them visions? Why not quirks like the rest of the world? Have I been kidnapped by a cult?”, his mumbles turned inaudible at this point, too fast for Barbara to keep up.

Well, he definitely wasn’t from Teyvat, that’s for sure.

She had better try heal him without the vision – she would rather he didn’t go into shock from the overload of information.

He looked like he would pass out anytime now, better not let it get any worse.

Barbara internally sighed, her already long day only seemed to be getting longer.

Chapter Text

Needless to say, Izuku still had no idea what was going on.

He had conceded to the girl using her vision on him, though he was too distracted to pay attention to how the vision was working because of the fact that his thoughts were running a thousand miles a minute.

So, to summarise, he’d been dragged (kidnapped? He still wasn’t sure about that one…) into some church and the girl in the infirmary (Klee mentioned that her name was Barbara?) asked if she could heal him with something called a vision (some kind of gift from the gods? He still couldn’t wrap his head around that), which, from what he could see, was definitely not a quirk.

Barbara had then sat him down one of the cots and was assessing the bruises and the burn scar on his shoulder. Izuku was pretty sure he had offended her, judging by the momentarily offended expression on her face before it was neatly wiped out and replaced with the same calm expression she had before.

He didn’t comment on how he was being kidnapped by a cult out loud, did he? Oh no he definitely mumbled it out loud! Was she going to hate him now? What should he do? Should he apologise? He should apologise.

After two attempts at opening his mouth with no results, he finally managed to say, “I, uh, I’m sorry that I said I thought I was kidnapped by a cult. You don’t actually seem very cultish actually. Its just very strange, one minute I was falling, the next, I’m waking up at the foot of a giant tree next to a glowing statue… I’m speaking too much again; you probably didn’t want to hear that. I’ll just shut up now.”

The girl’s Barbara’s eyebrows slowly rose up as he stumbled his way through the apology, her expression growing more concerned than before by the time he had reached the end of his statement.

“You fell? from what height did you fall from? Did you hurt anything else? And why would I be bothered by you talking?” she questioned him as she turned her gaze back to his injuries.

Izuku, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be able to answer her question as the world became overwhelmingly hazy.

The world didn’t go white this time – it went black.

Hey at least he wasn’t going to be sent to an unspecified location this time.

That would suck.

The boy had fainted.

Klee had run over to him in an instant and was shaking the boy’s hand worriedly.

Barbara was getting increasingly concerned over the boy, she definitely should have treated him for shock first.

She decided to shift him to a more comfortable position and continue healing him.

She just couldn’t have an ordinary day, could she?

Kaeya had just entered the cathedrals infirmary when he heard a soft thump coming from that direction, accompanied by Klee’s worried chattering.

It was barely after breakfast and Kaeya already felt like he going down to angels share and drown himself in wine – he definitely couldn’t see himself being able to confront whatever was going on in front of him sober.

Alas, that wasn’t an option, so Kaeya found himself opening the door and walking in, as sober as can be.

The sight that confronted him was mundanely weird to say the least.

Barbara was using her hydro vision to heal the boy whilst Klee fretted nearby the boy himself paler than before and lying down on the cot, from the sound he had heard before, Kaeya could deduct that he had fainted.

The boy had murky green curls and freckles dotting his cheeks, the clothes he was wearing torn and burnt. There was a burn scar on his shoulder.

Kaeya might have gotten something like that if his vision hadn’t appeared when it had a few years ago. He and Diluc were getting better at this whole reconciliation thing though, so the thought was much easier to ignore. However, that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt.

He watched as Barbara healed him, treating the more minor injuries without the help of her vision, waiting until he was done until asking her anything. The girl sighed as she finished and informed a worried Klee that the boy would be fine before she noticed Kaeya.

She blinked at him in surprise before noticing the expression that he had on his face. The shared a tired look before Kaeya turned towards Klee.

“So, who’s our guest, Klee?” Kaeya asked, looking at the young elf

“Oh! I met him at Windrise! I don’t know why he was there but he looked hurt, so Klee brought him here! He said something about quirks and he didn’t know what visions were! he also said something about being kidnapped by a cult… what exactly is a cult? He apologised after he said it! Was it something mean?”

The slightly strained expression on Barbara’s face was all the explanation he needed. Kaeya tried not to laugh.

“So, what’s his name?” was the next question he asked, a small smile on his face as he looked back at Klee.

He was met with silence. Sheepish silence.

His already small smile became even smaller.

“You did ask him his name before dragging him to Mondstadt, right?” Kaeya continued; his eyes narrowed.

They definitely forgot to ask the boy his name.

Kaeya definitely wished he wasn’t sober right now.

Chapter Text

Oblivious to the world around him, Izuku dreamt of twin stars falling haphazardly from the clear night sky, descending upon unfamiliar lands, as if they were golden teardrops cast down from the heavens themselves, abruptly going in different directions mid descent.

What was that? He thought wearily.

Then the dream shifted.

Kaeya was now worried.

Sure, he was still tired of people from other worlds crashing into Mondstadt as they see fit, however, the boy definitely seems to be somewhat different from the traveller, for it didn’t seem as if he had come here intentionally. From what he had heard so far, he was just as if not more, confused about this situation as the rest of them were.

On top of that, the kid had walked into the city injured (Kaeya momentarily wondered if the boy had accidentally set off one of the exploding crates near the hillichurl camps or if he had come to Teyvat with those burns. The latter seemed more likely at this point) and had been dragged to see Barbara, who was looking increasingly worried as she went through a more thorough inspection after treating the burn on the boy’s shoulder.

“The burn seems to have been done intentionally, Captain Kaeya” Barbara whispered to him, quiet enough that Klee couldn’t hear her, “It looks as if the blast was held close to his shoulder for a long period of time, I doubt such a thing would be accidental. From what I can see, there are a lot more of these scars dotted down his arm. It wouldn’t be far-fetched if I were to say his other arm would look similar. Some of the scars look years old.”

Kaeya glanced at the boy who was practically dwarfed by the size of the bed and was wincing quietly in his sleep. He mulled over Barbara’s words, not liking the conclusion that he was coming up with.

“The scars couldn’t have been from something like working in a forge?” Kaeya asked hopefully despite knowing very well that it was likely that his hopes would be dashed.

“No, it wouldn’t have been from something like that. And…well… the shape of the scar is similar to a handprint. Someone did that to him Kaeya. Someone looked at that boy and decided to burn him.”

Kaeya’s heart dropped.

It dropped just as the boy began to scream.

Izuku was falling.

Why was Izuku falling again?

Izuku wasn’t supposed to be falling anymore.

He was supposed to have stopped falling a long time ago.

Izuku was supposed to be dead.

Izuku was supposed to be dead.

Izuku didn’t want to be dead, not really.

He was just helping everyone, being realistic.

Just by living, he was being selfish, taking up everyone else’s resources.

He didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

No one would care if he was dead anyway.

He was better off dead, everyone said so.

So, if that was the case, then why was he still so alive.

Nothing was making sense, and Izuku was still falling.

Above him, figure blurred due to the glaring light, he could see someone’s hand reaching out from above him, as if trying to grasp him and keep him from falling.

He had the feeling that he should reach out and grasp the hand, it was calling for him after all. But Izuku was so very tired.

And so, he allowed himself to continue to fall.

The hand was out of reach, barely in sight.

And then everything hurt.

The kid (Kaeya still didn’t know his name) had fallen on the floor and was sobbing softly from landing on his injured shoulder. Klee hovered worriedly beside him unsure of what to do, glancing at Kaeya and Barbara as if asking them to help him.

Barbara had run to the boy after a few seconds of shock, attempting to calm him down and stop him from hyperventilating. As much of an unusual day Kaeya was having, the kid’s day had obviously just been bad. It didn’t even seem like the kid knew how he ended up here which was even more concerning than the thought that he had come here on purpose. That either meant that he some sort of ability or power that he was unaware of or he had been transported here due to the interference of some unknown entity. If it were the second option, it did not bode well for anyone.

Kaeya knelt down next to Klee and gave her a small smile

“Hey, do you think you could call down Grandmaster Jean for me? Don’t worry, we’ll make sure that the boy is ok, Barbara has already started to calm him down, see?” Kaeya said, and it was true, the boy was indeed calming down and his sobs had almost stopped. Archons, the child had been crying silently. They probably wouldn’t have even known that he had woken up if it weren’t for the abrupt scream at the start.

Klee nodded and immediately ran out of the infirmary’s door.

Kaeya slowly approached the boy; he would need at least some information about him after all.

Jean was having quite an ordinary day. She’d shifted through reports on hillichurl movement and the dismantling of their camps, progress on Dragon spire exploration, the many problems the citizens of Mond came to her with and other such things. She was in the middle of a discussion with outrider Amber when a knock sounded at the door.

“Come in!” she called out, shifting slightly towards the door.

“Jean! I found a boy and he was hurt so I took him to Barbara and he fainted and then big brother Kaeya came and talked to Barbara and I was standing next to the boy’s bed and he fell off and screamed and started crying and Kaeya told me to come and fetch you!”, Klee let out in a single breath as she stepped in, the door slamming open.

Jean blinked, trying to process the information before standing up. She glanced at Amber who nodded at her and stood up as well.

“Let’s go to the boy, shall we?”

Barbara was furious. The boy was still gasping for air, though much less then he had before, having calmed down significantly. He looked to be quite a few years younger than her, maybe 11 or 12 and was covered in intentional burns that looked years old. She could even spot some scars and none of them looked new either. Who would do such a thing?

Kaeya crouched down next to her and had started talking to the boy who was much more alert now that he had calmed down.

“Hello, I’m Cavalry Captain Kaeya, who might you be?”

“I’m Midoriya Izuku” the boy managed to get out, “you can just call me Izuku though”

“Well, Izuku, do you know where you are?”, Kaeya asked

“I - I would guess that I’m in the Cathedral? That’s what Klee told me anyway…” Izuku said, his voice a bit stronger than before, “I’m… I’m not in Japan anymore am I.”

The last sentence held the weight of a statement rather than a question, but Kaeya answered it anyway.

“No, you definitely aren’t. This is the city of Mondstadt, one of the seven nations of Teyvat.” Kaeya replied, “Judging from what you told me and what I already know, I would say you’re from an entirely different world altogether.”

The boy looked at him like his suspicions have been confirmed.

“Another traveller from a different world? A voice sounded behind her in mild shock as the door to the infirmary opened.

Barbara turned around to see Jean standing at the doorway next to Klee, Amber standing a few steps behind her.

Chapter Text

Correction - Jean’s day was no longer proceeding like it usually would.

She swept her gaze across the inhabitants of the room, taking in the scene before her. Her younger sister was standing beside the bed, a pained expression on her face, quite similar to Kaeya’s expression though he admittedly hid it much better than Barbara did.

 Before them sat a young boy on a cot wearing a black uniform, the material and design unlike any clothing she had seen before and curly dark green tangled hair haphazardly framing his face. He looked ready to take off any second and was eyeing the window furtively as if mapping out ways to escape. Kaeya seemed to have also noticed this judging from the way he tilted towards the side of the window but didn’t move any further in order to not further startle the boy.

The boy who was, apparently, also from another world.

When had this become her life?

“Jean, Amber, this is Izuku. Klee found him when she was out near Windrise to… uh… explore?”, Kaeya introduced him, faltering towards the end.

So, Klee had planned on going fish blasting again… at least the boy had distracted her from her initial goal. However now she had a pretty injured boy to deal with.

She turned to words Izuku pretending she didn’t see him suppressing a full-bodied flinch, “Hello Izuku, I’m Jean, the acting grandmaster of the knights of Favonius and this is Amber, our outrider. Kaeya said you weren’t from this world?”

“I, uh, yes Mr Kaeya said that we were in Mondstadt? I’ve never really heard of a place like that and it definitely doesn’t sound like it’s in Japan, let alone anywhere near Musutafu and Mr Kaeya said that he hasn’t heard of Japan at all and I don’t know how I got here and I still don’t know if I somehow got dragged into a cult after being resurrected, because I’m pretty sure I was going to be very much dead after what happened, and then I met Klee and she said something about fish blasting and churches and dragged me here, and I’ve never heard of anything like fish blasting, is it like a recreational activity and why on earth does that child have bombs, children and bombs are not a good combination from personal experience and everything is so weird and I had a dream? About stars? That made absolutely no sense and oh god I’m rambling again you must find that annoying I’ll just stop that now.” He managed to say without stopping for a breath

A multitude of concerning statements lay scattered around his answers that jean will be sure to pick through later. Jean blinked a few times to try and process everything that he’d just said (did he actually think they were in a cult? Was it the extravagant uniforms? Were extravagant uniforms needed for cults?)

Amber snapped out of the shocked state before Jean did and tilted her head, “you’ve had personal experiences with bomb equipped children?” she asked incredulously.

“Well, I guess he isn’t a small kid like Klee anymore but yeah.”, he whispered with a slight wince, “we were, uh, we were childhood friends, but he doesn’t much like me much anymore.”

Jean saw Barbara glance at his shoulder and suppress a wince. That did not boost jeans confidence that any of his injuries were accidental.

The boy was starting to look a bit uncomfortable with all the attention he was getting and had been throwing more glances towards the window.

Jean turned to face Amber, “Can you go get him some more comfortable clothes? There should be a few extra sets that we keep nearing the training rooms, though they might be a few sizes too big.”

Amber nodded before turning towards Klee, “Do you wanna help me pick something out Klee? I’m sure Izuku would appreciate you picking something out that would suit him!”

Klee glanced at Izuku before nodding with excitement, the door closing behind them as they left the room.

Kaeya really didn’t like what Izuku’s ramble had implied. He was definitely going to have a talk with Izuku about some of the more concerning statements when the boy was less nervous. (He tried very hard not to think of the fact that said statements had implied that Izuku had almost died. He failed spectacularly at the act of not thinking about this. He was going to have to schedule a meeting with his therapist soon, thank the archons that Albedo had bullied him into going)

He decided to talk about lighter topics instead

“You said that you were from Japan, what’s your home world like?”

“Oh, I live on this planet called earth and Japan is like a country, sort of how I guess Mondstadt is? Anyway, 80% of the people on the planet have superpowers over there, we call them quirks, and the types of quirks you can have been pretty diverse, like you can have mutation quirks or emitter quirks and such. I’m, uh, I’m part of the 20% of the population who doesn’t have a quirk, so uh, I guess we’re considered lesser to people who do have quirks? Its much worse in Japan, where only like 5% of the population is quirkless and 75% percent of those who are quirkless are in the older population. We have heroes there as well who use their quirks to capture and stop villains, they’re so cool. I’ve always wanted to be a hero but everyone said I was being unrealistic.”

A world where the majority of people had superpowers? Kaeya had a bit of a hard time wrapping his head around that but he guessed that superpowers must be pretty normal for the boy. But Izuku had said he didn’t have one. Being different from other people? There was always some prejudice against people who didn’t fit into the norms.

“Since I’m probably going to be staying here for a bit, can I ask about visions? What do you guys mean by them being gifted by the gods? Gods are actually real and exist?”

Kaeya nodded as he sat down on the cot nearest to him, tuning out and getting stuck in his own thoughts as Jean started explaining. They were going to have to try contacting the traveller so that they could figure all of this out.

Barbara had walked over to the medicine cabinets for another roll of gauze as Jean had started explaining about visions and such to Izuku, as well as telling him more about Mondstadt as a whole. They really should get some food for that boy, and maybe the address of Kaeya’s therapist too. He looked really interested to learn more about visions and how they work, looking particularly amazed when it was mentioned that most of them weren’t born with any innate superpower like abilities at all, except, of course, a few individuals like Liyue’s Adepti and the youkai in Inazuma, as well as Mondstadt’s own ever elusive wind sprites.

She decided that she was going to keep him in the infirmary for a few days until she was sure that he was better, but where he was going to go after this needed to be sorted out.

Hmm, it’s been a while, she wondered why it’s taking so long for Amber and Klee to get back.

“Hmm, this should be it Klee!” Amber exclaimed as she opened the last door near the 3^rd indoor training room, after not finding the clothes in the last 12 closets that they had looked in.

Sure enough, this storage closet had stacks upon stacks of back up uniforms in a few different designs. They hadn’t needed nearly as many of the uniforms since Varka had left with half of the knights and scholars, so they had quite a few of them laying around gathering dust.

“Which one do you think suits Izuku?”, she asked, grinning a little as Klee looked through the uniforms, taking the task that she had been given very seriously.

They shifted through the stacks for a few minutes before Klee settled on an old set which looked like it would fit Izuku. The collar had green detailing and had the standard knights of Favonius symbol on the left pocket. It wasn’t the best but it would have to do for now, most of the other clothes were much too big, seeing as they had been made for older teenagers and adults.

They turned around to head back to the infirmary when Klee abruptly stopped, a gleam in her eyes as she spun around and ran in the opposite direction.

Amber called out to her and had no choice but to follow when the young knight didn’t respond.

What in teyvat was Klee doing?

Chapter Text

Izuku struggled to wrap his mind around everything that had just been said to him, it was a lot of information to process at once. Acting Grandmaster Jean and Mr. Kaeya seemed to be talking to each other whilst he wondered if everything that just happened was real or some sort of weird dream he was having whilst being in a coma. But that would mean that he had a dream in a dream and Izuku was already to overwhelmed without his thoughts heading in that direction, thank you very much.

“You’re probably tired after everything that just happened, why don’t you rest for a bit? We’ll be keeping you here overnight anyway.”, Barbara told him with a small, weary grin

Izuku acquiesced, he was feeling tired despite having woken up just a while ago.

Maybe a nap would help him make sense of things.

…yeah, he really wasn’t too optimistic about that possibility coming into fruition.

“Klee! Can’t you at least tell me where we’re going?”, Amber shouted after the younger girl whilst climbing the stairs after her.

Said younger girl hadn’t seemed to have heard her, and kept running ahead at a steady pace, the keychains on her backpack clinking as she weaved through the corridors.

After a fair bit of running (and a few wrong turns that had been taken due to Klee’s excitement) the pair made it to an unassuming door with a nameplate that read ‘Chief Alchemist’s Office’. Klee pulled out a silver key from somewhere in her bag and opened the door before running in, heading straight towards a small, Klee-sized desk pushed against the wall.

“Big brother Albedo barely ever uses this room!” Klee grinned as she shuffled through one of the draws, “So, he said that I could use it whenever he didn’t need it for any sort of official business! Look, I even have a nameplate!”

She was pointing towards a wooden plaque that read ‘Spark Knight’s Office!!’ in a cherry red hue, a small Dodoco engraved beneath the text. The desk itself was slightly sparkling due to glitter that had been left behind on it and was covered in stacks of coloured crayon drawings, some of the drawings having fallen to the floor as well as a few picture books accompanied by the occasional chapter book displayed on the bookcase beside the desk.

Amber watched on curiously (and with no small amount of trepidation) as Klee pulled out a plethora of seemingly random objects out of the desk drawer, including but not limited to: a small wind spirit plushie, a bunch of well used colourful notebooks, a few jars of black powder, more crayons and paints, some vials of glowing liquid which should probably not be anywhere in the vicinity of a child, a small Dodoco themed piggy bank that Jean had got her last year and a small frame displaying a photo of Kaeya, Klee and Albedo having a picnic at Starsnatch cliff.

After emptying a sizable portion of the drawer’s contents, Klee seemed to have finally found what she was looking for, holding her prize triumphantly above her head.

In her hand was a small stylized green keychain made of what seemed to be white iron in the shape of a four-leaf clover.

“I found the perfect welcome gift for big brother Izuku!”

“Do you think you could house him temporarily, Kaeya?”, Jean asked the cavalry captain as they both contemplated the current situation.

Kaeya couldn’t say he didn’t expect that suggestion, but it threw him off guard for a second nonetheless. As much as he wanted to say he was unsuited for the job, he was probably the best suited by a long shot, given that he had at least a little experience in looking after kids (read: looking after Klee when Albedo was busy) and was also one of the few people privy to the knowledge that other worlds existed in the first place.

He looked at the kid who had now fallen asleep and sighed.

“I should ask Albedo first - according to his last letter he should be returning from Dragonspine this  week - but yeah, I think I could take him in for a bit.”

Diluc had been waiting for 2 hours now, and Kaeya still hadn’t come.

He had a day off today, Diluc was pretty sure, so it couldn’t be his work that was holding him up.

What on earth was he up to?

(no, he was not worried, what in the name of the drunk bard who is the bane of Diluc’s existence are you talking about?)

Diluc set out to search for him.