Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is a realm beyond mortal sight, a transcendent plane home to the most ethereal and pristine of beings. It is this sacred, shimmering landscape—a celestial haven—that the short-sighted mortals inhabiting the accursed Earth refer to simply as ‘Heaven.’ It is a domain utterly untouched by the corrosive touch of sin, its unblemished, holy light perpetually shining, banishing shadow from even the deepest, remotest corners. Every crystalline structure, every soaring archway, every meadow of starlight, pulses with the pure, unwavering essence of the Divine.

Yet, for centuries, a current of fear and apprehension has snaked through the air, carried by fearful whispers that echo throughout the gleaming corridors. These furtive voices carry the weight of a dire prophecy, a terrible pronouncement that many of the elder Seraphim hoped had been long-forgotten, dismissed as the paranoia of a bygone era.

Now, those whispers coalesce around a single figure: the Enigma. Rumours of the Enigma—or the Deku, as the vast majority of the Heavenly host call him, usually with a sneer—circulate with a dark, pervasive infamy. Angels, those beings of supposed boundless grace, sully the poor boy’s name with vile accusations and disdainful pronouncements, without granting him so much as a second thought or a moment of compassionate contemplation.

He may bear the basic form and power of an angel, yes, but he was created from a foundation that is fundamentally unnatural. Something vile, unholy, and terribly discordant to the pristine symphony of Heaven.

From the tightly-curled, raven-black hair that seems to absorb all light, to his dull, frighteningly deep Vantablack eyes—orbs so dark they feel like a void—shot through with swirling specks of cold, malevolent gold, he was an abomination in every sense of the word. He was a walking contradiction, a blasphemy made flesh.

He was ungodly in a realm utterly ruled and defined by the absolute holiness of God himself. His mere presence in this sacred land is a profound profanity, a profane intrusion that actively challenged and insulted the divine order established and maintained by God.

His true origin, the terrifying circumstances of his creation, was the most closely guarded secret in the entire celestial kingdom. None of the lesser or even the greater angels were privy to the knowledge of how he truly came to be. The only thing they know for certain—the truth that was both whispered and preached—was that he was not born but forged, a grotesque culmination of destruction and darkness; of chaos and desolation. Fear of what he represented, fear of what he was, was so absolute that no one in the Heavenly realm dared to so much as stand in the boy’s presence for long, let alone address him.

He is a stain on the purity of Heaven. He is a sinner, nothing more.

That was why on this pivotal day—a day everyone had been meticulously preparing for and hailing as the day of sanctification—that vile creature, the Deku, was to be finally cast from Heaven. His expulsion was to be a public spectacle, a grand display before the assembled host, much to the profound, vengeful relief of the angels watching the entire display before them. This purification ritual, this judgment, would cleanse the sin from their realm.

“Praise be to our Lord, the most High, for the unsightly Deku will never again defile or even gaze upon the brilliant, blessed light of heaven!” Someone from the tiers of the vast, hushed stands screamed in triumphant zeal, their voice cracking with emotion and fervor.

Deku would never again feel God's palpable warmth or light shine upon his being, let alone stand in the transcendent realm ruled by the Almighty himself.

A collective prayer went up from the gathered thousands, a silent, fervent plea for the presiding elders to hold absolutely firm in their momentous, righteous decisions regarding the abhorrent creature standing before them.

Cheers and shouts of hateful, cathartic joy could be heard echoing throughout the entire colossal realm as the thing stood alone, its shoulders tensed, its back resolutely turned to the monstrous crowd of jeering angels. The boy’s jaw was clenched so hard his teeth felt like they might shatter at the mocking, cruel voices instructing him to just get it over with and jump already. He could hear a particularly vicious contingent screaming for the elders to simply cut his wings off and let him drop like a dead stone, and he allowed a weary, utterly cynical eye-roll at the ridiculous notion.

My wings would just grow back, you cretins, he thought bitterly, the concept of his own cursed resilience a heavy weight in his gut. Not like it hasn’t already been tried and tested.

Tuning out the boisterous crowd behind him, Izuku stood at the apex of the crystalline bridge, his figure a stark silhouette against the ethereal glow of the Heaven he was abandoning. He turned, the movement graceful despite the immense span of his wings, and plucked a single feather from the dense mass of black, gold-speckled plumage on his right wing. It was a deep, iridescent black, tipped with a shimmering fleck of gold, the very colors that marked him as the 'Angel of the Void,' a title less of honor and more of a cautionary label.

The feather, once detached, did not simply fall. It twisted, dissolving into a shimmering, wispy vestige of smoke that coiled and gathered, reshaping itself as Izuku channeled his intent. With a silent, internalized command, he summoned his Bow—not a physical weapon, but a construct of pure shadow and focused malice, an object that appeared only in the most dire or dramatic of circumstances.

The previously rowdy crowd of angels, drawn to the spectacle by Izuku’s notorious reputation, fell into an absolute, breathless silence. They watched, transfixed, as he drew the shadowy string back across the empty space of the Bow. The air itself seemed to darken around the action, and then, slowly, an arrow formed—not of wood and fletching, but of solidified Void energy, the blackest black with an aura of unsettling stillness.

A smile, predatory and stretching wide across his face, played on Izuku’s lips as a collective gasp rippled through the assembled angels. He relished their fear, their condemnation; it was the fuel for his defiance.

With a powerful, deliberate movement, Izuku unfurled his massive, inky-black wings to their full, terrifying span, catching the light of the celestial city and throwing it back into shadow. He released the arrow with a sharp, resonant snap! that echoed through the unnatural silence. Simultaneously, he dropped backward off the edge of the bridge, a deliberate, theatrical plunge into the infinite nothingness below, a final, dramatic exit.

The crowd erupted. Panic, raw and visceral, seized the angels. They scattered, flying in chaotic patterns, fully aware of the danger Izuku represented. The arrow, meanwhile, flew true, a dark streak aimed at a small, unassuming angel standing guard near a celestial gate. This particular guard, clad in shining silver armor, had clearly been ill-informed, or perhaps entirely uninformed, regarding the terrifying reputation of Heaven’s most problematic child, the entity they had so casually nicknamed "Deku."

“Run!” a desperate voice finally managed to shriek across the suddenly noisy air, directed at the oblivious guard.

But it was already too late.

The silver-clad guard, acting on instinct and training to intercept any projectile, snatched the Void-arrow from the air. The moment his hand closed around the shadowy shaft, the construct of pure malice fizzled from existence with a soft, ominous pop. In its place, where the angel's hand had been, a small, yet terrifyingly perfect, black hole blinked open.

The guard’s eyes widened in sheer, paralyzing terror. He thrashed, trying desperately to pull his arm free, to fly away, but the nascent singularity’s gravitational pull was absolute, inescapable. He would have been instantly, violently spaghettified and sucked into the cosmic abyss had not an infinitely greater power intervened.

With a soundless, universally felt snap of his fingers—a sound that resonated only in the fabric of existence itself—God halted the catastrophe. The small black hole vanished, and the guard plummeted a short distance before regaining control of his wings, shaking violently. God had rightened Izuku’s little goodbye present, neutralizing the immediate, destructive effect.

If there was one universal truth acknowledged by every celestial being in Heaven, it was this: do not, under any circumstances, mess with the Deku if the Almighty was not within the immediate vicinity. The little demon, a paradox of creation with the face of a gentle child and the destructive power of a nascent universe, always left a trail of chaos, and there was always, always a price to pay when he was up and running amok.

The stunned quiet descended again, a different kind of silence this time, as the angels processed the sudden cessation of danger and the clear divine intervention. The frantic flying and screaming stopped. The angels looked at one another, a moment of shared, terrified realization passing between them, before the silence was shattered by an explosion of sound far more joyous than before. Hollers of praise, relief, and outright celebration erupted from the crowd.

“Finally!” someone shouted with genuine elation.

“Good riddance!” another joined the chorus, shaking a triumphant fist.

“And don’t ever come back!” a third voice bellowed.

Cheers and relieved laughter mixed as everyone realized that the wretched Deku’s final, catastrophic attack—his terrifying parting gift—had caused no lasting damage… for once.

The only person who did not look happy was God Himself.

The large, incandescent visage of a giant man, radiating eternal, weary light, let out a slow, profound sigh. His eyes, vast and filled with the endless expanse of creation, never left the empty spot on the bridge from which his young, turbulent angel had just leapt. The sigh was a soundless weight of regret and inevitability.

“I wish you luck, my angel of the void,” God whispered into the stillness, the sound traveling across the heavens and perhaps, just perhaps, down into the darkness where Izuku was now falling. “May the Earth be kinder to the darkness within you than Heaven ever was.”

Izuku hurtled through the chaotic, swirling vortex of the dimensional rift, a terrifying tear in the fabric of existence. The air screamed past him, a deafening, cold roar that ripped at his clothes and skin. His magnificent, but currently inert, black wings, tipped with a shimmer of cosmic gold, were entirely useless, mere anchors of dead weight dragging him down towards the pale blue marble of Earth far below. As he plummeted, a sickening, freefall sensation in his gut, a thought struck him with absurd clarity: this is so anticlimactic.

He had been cast out, a defiant archer firing a symbolic arrow from a Void-forged bow—a weapon meant to pierce and unravel reality—yet the gesture felt hollow. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him more than the frigid atmosphere, that the shot had been meaningless, a final, futile protest.

I mean, come on. God was sitting right there, he mused bitterly. He knew it wouldn't have done any real harm.

The wind, a violent, scouring torrent, forced crimson tears—blood, mixed with the essence of his divine being—to gather and stream from his eyes. He squeezed them shut against the brutal flow of the atmosphere, covering his face with a trembling arm while desperately, fruitlessly, trying to force a spark of divine energy into his wings. They remained stubbornly limp, unresponsive, a cruel irony for a being defined by his flight.

Perhaps this descent, this final rejection, was a release. Maybe this is a good thing, anyway.

The celestial hierarchy had always viewed him with suspicion and scorn. He had been an anomaly from the moment his being coalesced in the celestial forge—a chaotic variable in a meticulously ordered universe. He was different, and difference in the Perfect Plain was not tolerated; it was reviled. He was destined, therefore, to be an outcast, a pariah for all of eternity.

The other angels were uniform, an army of flawless, radiant conformity. Their hair was straight, a pristine, blinding white that caught and refracted the light of the Throne. Izuku’s, by stark contrast, was a deep, unsettling black, an unruly mass of tight curls that seemed to absorb the light, a shadow in the brilliance.

The eyes of the other angels were a dazzling, unseparated expanse of white and gold, pure pools of light that saw only divine order. Izuku's eyes were pits of vantablack, seemingly endless voids punctuated by countless flecks of molten gold that danced and spun like trapped stars whenever his emotions flared—a terrifying, volatile display that unnerved the static minds of his brethren.

Their wings were soaring monuments of white and shimmering gold, symbols of purity and power. His were a menacing, obsidian black, the colour of a starless void, their tips dusted with a fine, crackling layer of golden specks that shimmered and moved, like living constellations. Every fibre of his being was a contradiction to the heavenly aesthetic.

And while the rest of the host were cherished and bathed in the boundless affection of the Almighty, Izuku was a subject of profound disapproval, not merely by God himself but by every single angel who walked the celestial plains.

He had always been the scapegoat, the quiet, brooding presence that the others avoided. They never spoke to him, not for fellowship, only for condemnation, and only when his existence proved too disruptive for their orderly reality. When they did speak, it was to unleash a torrent of vitriol, raining down names that scorched his soul: 'unholy,' 'demon,' 'aberration.' But the word that sank the deepest, the one that had become a bitter identity he had tried for millennia to shed, was 'Deku.'

'Deku'—the name meant “unholy,” in every sense of the word. He had worn it, hated it, and despised it for as long as he could remember. It was the crushing weight of their collective judgment.

Thankfully, they only dared to use that name to his face when God was present to enforce "damage control," to maintain a superficial order that barely masked the deep-seated hatred.

A wry, fleeting smile touched his lips at the thought of their suffocating hypocrisy, despite the freezing, high-altitude wind that stabbed him with thousands of pinpricks of icy pain. The smile immediately evaporated, replaced by a cold dread, as the finality of his situation crashed over him: he would never again feel the solid, golden ground of the Heavenly Plain beneath his feet. He was, to all intents and purposes, a dead angel.

Frowning deeply beneath the shielding arm, Izuku tried to rationalize the crushing sense of loss. He couldn’t—or at least, he shouldn’t—care less. They might hate him, but the loathing he felt for them was a far deeper, all-consuming abyss. He hated the taunts, the name-calling, the forced isolation, and most of all, the cold, clinical experiments and torture inflicted by the Elders, all sanctified under the banner of 'righteousness' and 'correcting the anomaly.' Every single one of them, from the lowest seraph to the highest archangel, could burn eternally in the deepest pits of the Demon Realm for all he cared.

Yeah, this is definitely a good thing.

He allowed a dark, reckless hope to surge through him. And would it be too much to ask that I somehow turn into a mortal and simply die from the impact of this fall to Earth?

Probably, he conceded, the thought a mix of fatalism and exhaustion.

He uncovered his face and forced open his stinging, watering eyes just in time. The ground was rushing up to meet him at a terrifying speed. Utilizing his enhanced, angelic vision one last time, he spotted two minuscule figures—mortals—sitting placidly outside what looked like a large, ornate house directly beneath his trajectory. He offered a final, desperate prayer (a final act he never expected to perform): he prayed he didn't crush them. Squeezing his eyes shut once more, he threw every ounce of his will into his wings, begging them to cooperate, to just fucking work.

Then, muffled by the wind's roar, he heard the faint, distant clamour of human voices shouting. He couldn't decipher the panic in the tumult. Before he could even try to make sense of the noise, his world dissolved into a cacophony of sound and pain as he violently impacted the Earth.

He heard the repulsive, sickening combination of sounds: the sharp snap of bones shattering, the wet, fleshy squelch of muscle and skin tearing, and the high-pitched shriek of flesh being ripped apart as he cratered into the ground. A single, stunned beat of silence followed, immediately shattered by a piercing, raw human scream.

That scream was the last coherent sound his mind processed. Then, the immense physical trauma finally registered, and his nervous system exploded in a blinding, all-encompassing world of white-hot agony. He surrendered completely to the agonizing pain that surged through every fibre of his being and let the welcome, velvet darkness that was clouding his vision finally take him. He lost consciousness, a fallen star extinguished upon the unsuspecting world.

Izuku doesn't care what any of the self-righteous celestial beings say. God is a complete fucking dick.

“All I’m saying, Shota, is that you and Hizashi would make amazing fathers,” Nemuri told the tired-looking man beside her, her tone laced with a comfortable matter-of-factness that only years of close friendship could forge. She took a slow, appreciative sip of her spiced rum and coke, the condensation from the glass leaving a cool, damp ring on the painted railing of the porch. The world was just beginning to wake up, painted in the soft, bruised colours of a rising sun that was already promising another oppressively hot day. She turned her face towards the growing warmth, letting the golden light soak in.

A loud, deeply exasperated groan ripped from the throat of the man currently slumped in the battered wicker chair next to her.

Shota had to physically fight the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, an action he knew would only serve to pull the skin taut over the dull, throbbing headache that had taken up residence between his eyes the moment Nemuri had shown up. Goddamnit, we’ve been over this already, he thought, the sentiment a worn, bitter mantra in his mind.

“It’s not about whether or not we’d be good at it, Nemuri. That’s not the issue here,” he grumbled, his voice as rough and abrasive as sandpaper. He hadn’t had enough coffee, hadn’t had enough sleep, and certainly hadn’t had enough peace of mind lately. “Did you hear a word of what Hizashi has been saying? Or what I’ve been saying?” His face twisted into a sour expressionas he reluctantly recalled some of the truly exhausting and emotionally draining arguments he and his infuriatingly optimistic husband had gotten into over the past few months.

“My sleep schedule is messed up enough as it is just being a Pro Hero and a teacher. I operate on three to four hours of non-consecutive sleep a night on a good week, and he wants to adopt a baby. A tiny, vulnerable, demanding, crying, fussing baby.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and stared intensely at a chip in the wooden floor, as if it held the answers to all his current woes. “Do you know what kind of living hell on Earth that would be for me? Think about how much worse off my sleep schedule would be then. It’s a logistical nightmare, not a question of morality or capability.”

Nemuri paused her thoughtful contemplation of the sunrise, a serious expression slowly replacing the light amusement on her face. She took another, smaller sip of her drink, the ice cubes clinking softly. “Then why don’t you meet in the middle?” she suggested, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, the gears visibly turning in her head. “You both get a kid, and you get to bypass the newborn phase. Adopt an older kid. Six or seven. They’re still cute, they can hold a conversation, and they mostly sleep through the night. Hell, maybe even eight or nine.” She glanced towards Shota, her eyes seeking his reaction, but he refused to meet her gaze, instead choosing to focus with intense scrutiny on the peeling paint of the porch railing.

The whole thing, the entire conversation and the very idea, was, quite frankly, utterly ridiculous and infuriating if you asked Shota. It was a massive, life-altering commitment he simply couldn’t afford to make. “Nemuri, we have so little time on our hands as it is. Between patrolling, teaching, grading, and keeping the house from falling apart, I barely have time to take a twenty-minute nap. Why would I want to waste what precious, scant time I do have looking after some more-than-likely traumatized orphan who needs constant emotional scaffolding and attention?” he grumbled, his voice a low, rough rumble of complaint. The very thought felt like tying a cinder block over water to his already struggling career.

Nemuri’s usual smile faltered, and a small frown creased her forehead. She considered his words for a moment, her own reality as a top-tier hero flashing through her mind. “But you know how badly Hizashi wants this, Sho. It’s… it’s a foundational dream for him. He lights up just talking about it. Even if it’s not a baby, even if it’s a twelve-year-old who gives you attitude, you should at least look into it. For his sake.” She began to fidget restlessly with the straw in her drink, twisting it into a complicated, pretzel-like knot. She truly didn’t know what else to say to convince him. If Hizashi, the devoted, endlessly loving husband, the literal light of Shota’s life, couldn’t get through to him, how on Earth could she, his slightly tipsy best friend?

Shota let out a sharp, audible huff of air that was more an expression of utter defeat than agreement. “Listen, Nemuri, I know you’re just trying to help. I understand that. But I get enough of this guilt trip and emotional blackmail from Hizashi, along with the incessant, absolutely exhausting nagging from everyone else in my immediate family. Hizashi’s mother calls me every week, not Hizashi, to ask if there’s ‘any news’.” He paused, raking a hand through his already messy hair. “I’ve probably heard enough of this from just about everyone, actually,” He muttered darkly under his breath, leaning back heavily into his chair. He looked up at the sky, the sun now a searing disk above the horizon, and made a cynical declaration. “At this point, the only way I’d ever agree to adopt a child, regardless of age, is if God himself descended from the heavens and personally asked me to. And seeing as to how I don’t believe in all that religious shit, Nemuri, it’s not going to happen.” The finality in his voice was absolute.

Nemuri’s shoulders slumped in a gesture of absolute defeat at his words. She knew, deep down, that she was probably fighting a completely lost cause by this point, but she was a hero, damn it, and she continued the conversation regardless. She mulled over his last statement, a mischievous glint slowly returning to her eyes. “So, if say… God came to you in a dream… and was maybe a cute, fluffy bunny demanding you give a kid a forever home…?” she muttered mostly to herself, stirring her drink with renewed interest.

Shota’s head snapped up, and he finally turned in his chair to face her, his eyes narrowed into suspicious, tired slits. “You are not sneaking Meiko into my house and having her influence my dreams again,” he warned, his voice low and dangerous. “I am already traumatized enough from when you forced her to make me dream about waking up in my own bed as a six-pound calico cat who couldn’t reach the coffee maker.”

Nemuri couldn’t help it; a loud, throaty chuckle escaped her. She remembered a few of the spectacularly creative and deeply panicked phrases muttered by a sleeping Shota during that particular prank, most of which were unrepeatable. Meiko and her dream-controlling quirk, which allowed her to manipulate the dreams of anyone in her proximity, were truly a Godsend for practical jokes.

Nemuri’s face then smoothly morphed back into something more serious and genuinely concerned. “Shou, honestly. I just wish you’d at least consider the possibility. For Hizashi. He deserves this.”

Shota’s eyes narrowed further, the slits almost disappearing entirely. He inhaled sharply, pushing the air out in a controlled, slow stream. “Can we please, please just talk about something else?” he asked. His voice was as monotone and deadpan as ever, but there was a faint, almost imperceptible hint of desperation in the timbre, a raw edge of pleading that Nemuri had only heard a handful of times before—usually when facing down a particularly overwhelming villain.

Nemuri fell silent for a long moment, the only sound the distant, growing traffic of the city. She debated internally on whether or not she should continue torturing her best friend for the sake of his husband, or if she should just gracefully drop the subject before he genuinely stopped speaking to her for the rest of the day.

With a steely, internal determination—a resolve that was entirely for Hizashi’s sake and the promise of tiny, future happiness—she opened her mouth, inhaling deeply, and prepared to continue on her tirade, ready to deploy her final, most emotionally potent arguments to make one of her best friend’s dearest dreams finally become a reality.

Before she could utter a single word, however, her thoughts and her impending monologue were abruptly and violently cut off by a piercing, unbelievably loud whistling sound. It was the kind of noise that vibrates in your teeth, a high-frequency shriek that was rapidly growing in volume. She and Shota exchanged a profoundly bewildered, wide-eyed glance, an unspoken question passing between them, before they both instinctively scanned their immediate surroundings. Seeing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary—no falling debris, no villain attack in the park across the street—both pairs of intensely sharp hero eyes turned skywards. They locked simultaneously onto a bright, blindingly golden light that was hurtling towards their peaceful little suburban porch at an almost unbelievable, terrifyingly high speed. The whistling sound became a deafening roar.

“Holy shit!” Nemuri screamed, stumbling backwards slightly, knocking her chair askew. She had seen countless things fall from the sky, but nothing like this. “What the hell is that?” The object, whatever it was, was coming in hot and fast, and it was going to hit the ground dangerously close to them.

Shota would have liked to know what was happening as well, but he was completely in the dark. The strange, high-pitched whistling sound was rapidly growing in volume, and the object was hurtling toward their home at an alarming velocity. The pair stepped away from the porch railing and hurried toward the sliding glass door, a natural instinct to seek shelter from the unknown. But before they could even reach the house, Nemuri froze, her eyes wide and fixed on the descending shape.

The horrifying truth dawned on Nemuri as the rapidly approaching object got closer and closer; she recognized it as a person, not a piece of falling debris or an errant drone.

"Shota, wait!" she hollered, her voice cracking with sudden panic as she grabbed his arm, her fingers digging in. Shota skidded to a stop, his hand still clamped tightly around the cool metal handle of the porch’s sliding glass door. He spared a quick, irritated glance at her, the urgency of the moment overriding his usual patience.

"We need to get inside, Nemuri. Now!" Shota barked, his voice tight with alarm. The object was terrifyingly close now, and the sound was a deafening roar.

The dark-haired woman shook her head frantically, a silent and desperate refusal. Her mind raced, desperately searching for a solution, for some way, any way, to stop this person from smashing into the ground at such an unimaginable speed. Surely, there was no way a human body could survive a fall like this.

Surely it will kill them, she thought, the realization striking her with sickening clarity.

"It’s a person!" She wrenched her arm free of Shota's grasp and bolted down the porch steps, her eyes glued to the figure with large black wings that was plummeting closer and closer to the earth.

"What are you doing!" Shota shouted, instantly snapping out of his momentary shock and rushing after her. He covered the distance in a few long strides, sweeping her up around the middle and holding her tightly in his arms, using his own body as an anchor to prevent her from getting any nearer to the spot where the person was destined to crash land.

"We have to help them!" She cried out, struggling fruitlessly against the iron grip he had on her.

Both of them were utterly and tragically at a loss for what to do. The person was hurtling closer to the ground with every agonizing second. The pair could now clearly see them frantically trying to gain control of what appeared to be two colossal black wings—which, Shota couldn't help but note in a detached corner of his mind, were significantly bigger than the person was tall. Despite their desperate efforts, it was horribly clear that they were failing. The erratic flailing of the massive appendages only seemed to hasten their devastating descent.

"Shit," Shota cursed, his jaw clenching. His neutral facade was crumbling under the strain of the imminent disaster. "Nemuri, there's nothing we can do from here. They’re trying to gain control of their flight. All we can manage is to hope they succeed." He began the slow, arduous process of hauling her back up the steps, but she fought him with a surprising, desperate strength in his grip.

She couldn't just stand by and do absolutely nothing! That person would die, pulverized on impact. There had to be something, anything she could do to mitigate the disaster.

Searching her surroundings with wide, panicked eyes, Nemuri frantically sought out a possible object—a bush, a pile of soft dirt, anything—to potentially break the person’s fall. However, the sickening truth was that even if there had been some perfectly convenient, massive object lying around, it most likely wouldn’t have made a significant difference given the incredible speed at which they were plummeting.

"What are you doing!" Shota shouted again, his voice raw with frustration and fear for her. She turned her gaze away from the falling person to look at him, her face heated and defiant. He returned her heated gaze with one of intense worry and incredulity. "What are you going to do, catch them?" he asked, the question laced with disbelief.

"No, but—but there’s gotta be something we can do—!" Nemuri started, her voice a plea more than a statement. She quickly snapped her head back toward the person with the wing quirk, just in time to witness the most horrific event of her life. They hit the ground. A deafening, wet thwack echoed in the sudden silence. Nemuri froze in shock, her breath hitching in her throat. After a heart-stopping beat, a gut-wrenching, ear-piercing scream tore from her lungs as a mist of blood and flesh sprayed outward, coating both of them standing mere feet away. "No!" She cried out, the sound of her own voice hollow in her ears.

The person, who was moments ago a desperate figure in the sky, was now nothing more than a bloodied, split-open mess in a shallow crater carved into the grass. They were unequivocally dead. Jagged fragments of bone and gore painted the impact site, the person a grotesque heap of splattered flesh and shattered, white bone. The sight was profoundly nausea-inducing, a scene of raw, visceral horror, yet Nemuri found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the wreckage.

"Holy—... Holy shit…" She muttered, the words barely audible, her mind struggling to process the impossible violence she had just witnessed.

Shota, with a look of pure shock and disgust, took one fleeting glance at the broken, crumpled corpse on the grass and instantly spun away, his body shielding her from the scene. He cupped Nemuri’s face firmly in his hands and gently, but forcefully, turned her face away from the carnage, forcing her to look only at him.

"There was absolutely nothing we could have done to stop that from happening," He said quickly, his voice urgent and steady, forcing her head to stay in place so she couldn’t look back at the mangled corpse. "Okay? This wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t mine. It was an unexpected accident, a tragedy. It’s okay, you’re okay," He repeated, trying to ground her in the reality of the present.

Nemuri’s eyes, while unnervingly dry, were wild and brimming with panic, unfocused. Shota was still forcing her to maintain eye contact, but she strained against his hands, trying to glance back at the body. "Don’t look," Shota commanded softly, his own composure wavering.

"We could have— we should have—" Nemuri began quickly, her words tumbling out. Shota shook his head to silence her, refusing to let her spiral into self-recrimination.

God, how did things take such an unsightly turn so quickly? He thought, the magnitude of what they'd just witnessed shaking him to his core despite his attempts to remain stoic for her sake.

"There was nothing we could have done," he assured her, his voice firm and rational. "Neither of our quirks was suited to help them. That outcome was inevitable no matter what we attempted."

"But—"

"There was nothing we could have done, Nem," Shota repeated, his tone softening slightly. "We should go inside right now and phone the police. We need to get you calmed down," Shota added, looking at her with deep concern etched on his face. Nemuri finally gave a jerky, unnatural nod, and Shota slowly released his hands from her face. The very second he let go, she whipped her head back around, her eyes instantly locking onto the corpse in the grass.

"Nemuri, please," Shota all but begged, bracing himself for another outburst.

While Shota refused to give in to the morbid urge to get another look at the corpse, he watched Nemuri’s eyebrows knit together in a confused frown. Her face transformed rapidly, morphing from the image of desolate and disturbed horror to one of utter bewilderment, quickly followed by a spark of pure, disbelieving hope.

Bemused and deeply disturbed by her reaction, Shota finally took the trauma-inducing risk of looking at the corpse once more and quickly glanced down to the grass beyond the porch steps.

There, on the ground, surrounded by a thick, dark, wispy smoke-like substance that smelled faintly of ozone and burning charcoal, the shattered body was… healing itself. It was an impossible sight, a reversal of nature's final verdict.

Duel quirks? Shota wondered, his mind struggling to categorize the phenomenon.

Wet, squelching snaps and grinding noises could be heard clearly from where the pair stood as bones began to audibly twist and righten themselves. The thick, crimson blood that stained the vibrant green grass began to emit the exact same type of dark, restorative smoke that encircled the boy’s body. Then, incredibly, a low groan of pain could be heard from the person on the ground as their torn skin knitted itself back together with astonishing speed.

"Holy shit," Nemuri muttered once again, but this time it was in stunned awe, completely uncomprehending of the miraculous and horrifying spectacle she was witnessing.

She tore herself free of her best friend’s tentative hold and sprinted toward the person—who was undeniably a boy, no older than a young teenager, by the looks of the partially healed face—and fell to her knees on the grass just outside the cloud of black smoke.

"Are you okay?" She asked quickly, her voice a frantic whisper, but the boy had yet to regain consciousness, let alone respond to her desperate question.

"Check for a pulse," Shota demanded, rushing down the steps to stand behind her. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, not even Nemuri, but the entire impossible situation had his nerves absolutely shot.

"Yeah– yes," Nemuri responded, her voice shaky but determined. She reached up to the boy’s now non-mangled, non-bloody throat and pressed two quivering fingers over his pulse point. The skin beneath her fingers was cold but whole.

"Well?" Shota asked after a moment, looking hopeful despite himself.

"He’s—" Nemuri choked on her words, pure shock silencing her briefly before she managed to continue. "He’s alive," She said, completely dumbfounded by the miracle.

Shota instantly hid his own profound shock behind a practiced neutral expression, his mind already spinning. After a moment of pregnant silence, he muttered to himself, "What an amazing quirk. To not only have such impressive wings but to also be able to heal from such grievous, fatal injuries…. Truly incredible." His voice was low, almost reverent, the professional hero in him taking over.

Nemuri shot him an incredulous look over her shoulder, her disbelief quickly turning to severe admonishment. “Seriously? A boy—no older than thirteen or fourteen, by the looks of it—falls out of the sky, breaking just about every single bone in his body in the process, and the only thing you can think about is how incredible his quirk is?” she scolded severely, her protective, maternal instincts flaring up.

Shota mumbled something about the fact that the boy was alive, wasn’t he? But he could clearly see her point, and a surge of guilt washed over him. "You’re right," He conceded, acknowledging her genuine humanitarian concern while Nemuri continued to quickly check the boy over for any remaining injuries. "I’ll call an ambulance." He turned on his heel and sped into the house, grabbing his phone from where it had been charging on the kitchen counter.

He quickly dialled 119, the emergency number, and put the phone to his ear, waiting impatiently as the line rang.

"119, what is your emergency?" a calm, professional voice answered as the call connected.

"I need an ambulance at X street, house number XXX," Shota rattled off the address in a rush. "A boy was flying overhead and crash-landed in my backyard. He has a wing quirk and some kind of powerful healing quirk. He was in pretty rough shape initially, completely mangled, but managed to heal himself entirely. We— uh— we think he’s okay now, but he’s currently unconscious."

"Emergency services will be on the way shortly, sir," the voice replied, calm and efficient, already processing the bizarre details of the call.

Shota had called Hizashi from the hospital, the sound of the emergency room a muted, yet ever-present, thrum in the background. Hizashi, meanwhile, was mid-broadcast for his popular radio show, his usual buoyant persona filling the airwaves. When his husband's voice, usually a soothing low rumble, started with the alarming, "I’m in the emergency room," a spike of icy dread shot through him. The professional facade of Present Mic nearly shattered. He quickly managed to steady his voice, offering a clipped, professional apology to his listeners before the usual musical interlude could even begin, but the internal panic only truly receded when Shota clarified the situation. It wasn’t Shota or Nemuri who had suffered a catastrophic injury, but an unknown child. Shota, in his usual economical manner, gave a brief rundown of the shocking incident—the boy falling from the sky, the horrific injury, and the impossible regeneration. That was all Hizashi needed to hear. He signed off the broadcast earlier than the schedule allowed, a rare and telling move, his only immediate thought to rush to the hospital to comfort his husband and his closest friend, Midnight.

When the Voice Hero, Present Mic, made it to the sprawling, sterile hospital, his arrival was a whirlwind of motion and quiet anxiety. He rushed through the clinically-clean, echoing halls, the stark signage directing him until he finally spotted the familiar sight of Shota Aizawa (Eraser Head) and Nemuri Kayama (Midnight) waiting outside a private recovery room. Even as he approached, a Doctor was already mid-explanation, a middle-aged man with kind, but weary, eyes.

"...The child is perfectly unharmed and should wake up at any moment now. Remarkably so, given the circumstances," the Doctor, later identified as Dr. Kobayashi, was saying, his tone a mixture of professional detachment and genuine bewilderment.

"Sho!" Hizashi cried out, his voice just shy of a full-powered shout, the relief and worry a volatile mix. The group turned immediately to the source of the noise.

"Oh, thank God. You’re here," Shota admitted, the tension in his shoulders visibly easing as Hizashi rushed the final few steps and embraced him in a tight, desperate hug that spoke volumes of the scare the past hour had given the usually stoic hero.

The Doctor looked a bit unsettled by the open display of affection—the Professional Hero PDA—but he was a professional, and the boy's case was far more compelling than a small breach of decorum. He continued his crucial findings, speaking over their quiet moment.

“While the boy is perfectly uninjured as of right now, he has extensive and major scarring all along his body. These aren't fresh injuries, mind you. They are fully healed, but deep. Oddly enough, the scars are a striking, metallic golden in colour—though that could be due to an active aspect of his Quirk,” the man explained, flipping through the boy’s extensive chart. Then, his face darkened, the jovial air replaced by a grim seriousness that immediately captured the trio’s nervous dread. "Along with the visible scarring, we did some extensive X-rays. We needed to be absolutely certain there was no latent or lasting internal damage from the fall. What we found is… disturbing, to say the least.”

Dr. Kobayashi cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses, a look of profound distaste crossing his features as he reviewed the notes on the chart. “It is clear that this child has sustained an alarming number of broken bones in the past. We're not talking about simple playground injuries. Some fractures look to have been broken multiple times. In fact, some breaks appear to be in the very same location, indicating either repeated, severe accidents or... something far worse.”

The three pro-heroes, accustomed to the brutal realities of hero work, were struck into stunned silence. The implication was horrific, far beyond a simple accident.

"But he’s– he’s okay now? He's safe?" Nemuri Kayama asked, her voice cautious, the usual playful sharpness completely absent.

The Doctor offered her a solemn, profoundly weary look. “Physically, yes. He's a medical marvel, truly. His regeneration has rendered him whole.” A deliberate, heavy pause hung in the air. “Mentally, however, we'll have to wait until he wakes up. Trauma leaves different kinds of scars.”

Nemuri nodded her head a bit shakily, her mind replaying the sight of the boy's seemingly pulverized body on the dirt. She just hoped the kid hadn't been through too much.

“We’ll also have to see about contacting his guardians at some point. The detective you called, Tsukauchi, should be able to get some basic information out of him once he's lucid,” Dr. Kobayashi said, then glanced at his watch. “As I told you earlier, I predict he will wake up within the next half an hour or so, assuming his recovery follows the rapid, albeit unbelievable, trajectory we’ve seen so far.”

“Thank you, Doctor Kobayashi. We'll do everything we can to help the kid," Shota said, his tone resolute.

The doctor gave a slight, formal nod. “Of course. It’s a fascinating, if heartbreaking, case. I will keep you informed until we get ahold of his parents or guardian. For now, I have other patients I must attend to.” Doctor Kobayashi offered a small sigh, the burden of his profession heavy on his shoulders, and the trio watched as the man turned and walked away, his scrubs a splash of colour against the pale hospital backdrop.

Hizashi waited until the Doctor's footsteps faded and the man was completely out of earshot before speaking again, his volume dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “What exactly happened? No one is hurt—at least anymore—right?” He asked quietly, his eyes subtly but meticulously checking both Shota and Nemuri over for any visible injury or harm, a nervous tick he couldn't quite suppress when worried.

“We’re okay, Hizashi, calm down,” Shota said with a genuinely fond eye-roll, a small smile briefly tugging at his lips. Apparently, the Voice Hero wasn’t being as subtle as he’d thought. “It’s just as I explained on the phone. Everything’s fine now.” Shota ran a tired hand through his long, unruly, black hair, his gaze fixed on the closed door leading to the room where the boy was lying unconscious on a hospital bed. “Nemuri and I were having a conversation on the porch, enjoying the quiet morning, when all of a sudden a child fell from the sky. Literally.”

“But he’s okay?” Hizashi asked again, his voice cracking slightly with residual worry. Shota and Nemuri nodded their heads in immediate unison. They knew Hizashi had just heard first-hand from the Doctor that the boy was fine, but Hizashi had always been an extreme worrywart when it came to children—a tenderness that was one of the many reasons Shota loved him.

“You should have seen it, ‘Zashi. I hope to never see anything like it again,” Nemuri recalled, her voice hushed and distant, a faint tremor running through her shoulders. She shuddered visibly, haunted by the visceral, instantaneous memory: a young body utterly broken, split-open flesh, the sickening, wet crack of bones snapping, and a gruesome spatter of blood against the innocent dirt and grass. “He was a mess… I– I was terrified. Truly.”

She paused, taking a breath to steady herself. “Then all of a sudden, it was like watching footage in reverse. He began healing at an impossible speed. Like nothing ever happened. Like regenerating after being violently smashed against the ground doesn't completely defy all laws of physics and reason...” She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the entire situation had her profoundly perplexed, leaving her brilliant mind unable to wrap itself around the biological impossibility of how he was okay.

There was only one chilling certainty Nemuri was left with: “That boy–... that boy should be dead. If I didn’t know any better, if I hadn't witnessed it with my own two eyes, I’d swear he was genuinely immortal.” Nemuri shook her head at the thought, struggling to categorize or understand the Quirk. Was it even scientifically possible to have such a powerful, reality-defying Quirk?

Hizashi looked at her with wide, almost star-struck eyes, his voice a bewildered whisper. “Is a Quirk like that even possible? Total, instantaneous regeneration?” He asked, voicing her exact internal query.

Nemuri glanced away from him, her brow furrowed in deep thought for a moment. She wouldn’t have thought it to be conceivable—pure, complete immortality—before witnessing the devastating sight and the resulting miracle for herself, but what she’d seen… the way his body had been so irreparably, instantly broken...

“I’m not sure, and I wouldn't bet on immortality, but there’s absolutely no way he should have been able to heal from that the way he did,” She muttered quietly, making sure no one else passing by in the hall would overhear the classified details. “I brushed off what Shota said when he first healed, focusing on the emergency, but he was absolutely right; he has an amazing Quirk. Not only does he have massive, feathered wings, but he can also heal from what I assume to be any injury, however fatal. It’s truly something to behold, Hizashi,” She concluded in a hushed, reverent tone.

“Any injury? Do you really think that? That he can survive anything?” Hizashi asked, his professional heroism experience making him incredulous but also deeply intrigued.

“Yes.” Nemuri, the excitement finally winning over the horror, grabbed Hizashi firmly by the shoulders, her face worried and guarded but her eyes alight with the brilliant, strategic spark of a Pro Hero. “Just think of what kind of hero he could become with a duel Quirk like that—wings for mobility, and recovery power like we’ve never seen.” She muttered, her eyes practically sparkling at the grand, glittering thought.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Shota cut in immediately, his voice sharp and grounding. He stepped between them, breaking Nemuri’s intense stare. “Let’s not go making life plans for this kid yet. We don’t even know who his parents are, what his name is, or what he wants with his life, Nemuri. He just fell from the sky and was possibly abused, remember the Doctor's report?” Shota told her firmly, his face a mask of exhaustion and concern.

Nemuri frowned, her momentary enthusiasm deflating. Shota was always shooting down her grand, optimistic ideas like that. But she was used to it. She was also used to arguing him back into her corner. “But, Shou, if he wanted to be a hero, one of us could easily give him a recommendation to Yuuei, we could—”

“Nemuri,” Shota scolded, his tone a clear warning.

Nemuri pouted, crossing her arms stubbornly. “But just think of the potential, Shou, it’s astronomical. He could probably even surpass All M—”

Before she could finish the name, however, a sound of unimaginable, ungodly intensity sliced through the hospital's quiet air, tearing through the sterile silence like a physical force. It was a raw, primal wail—a screech of pure, undiluted terror and agonizing pain—that seemed to vibrate the very molecules of the air. The sound echoed throughout the hospital’s bare, tiled walls, amplifying its debilitating volume and causing the three highly-trained Pro-Heroes—Eraserhead, Present Mic, and Midnight—to wince violently and instinctively cover their ears, the sound painfully vibrating in their bones and rattling their teeth.

“What is that, for God's sake?!” Hizashi Yamada shouted, his voice hoarse with alarm, but even the Voice Hero, Present Mic, with his powerful, volume-manipulating vocal cords, could barely hear himself over the sheer, debilitating sound. It was louder, sharper, and far more painful than his own Quirk at its maximum output.

The terrifying screeching continued for only a few more heart-stopping seconds, an agonizing peak of noise that felt like a physical assault, and then, as suddenly and violently as it had erupted, the sound was utterly and completely silenced, leaving an unnerving, echoing void in its wake.

“Holy shit,” Hizashi breathed out, completely bemused and slightly shell-shocked, slowly lowering his hands from his now painfully ringing ears. “That was louder than my Quirk. For God’s sake, what was that? A Quirk gone catastrophically wrong?” He looked from Nemuri to his husband, his wide green eyes demanding an answer neither of them possessed.

But before either Nemuri or Shota could formulate a coherent response, the heavy, white-painted door to the boy’s hospital room was violently slammed open from the inside, striking the wall with a loud, metallic thud that barely registered against the lingering phantom noise in their ears. The small, slender boy who had been lying unconscious on the bed moments before now stood framed in the doorway. He was wide awake, his large, luminous golden eyes wide with stark panic and a feral alertness, and he was staring straight at them with an intensity that felt like an accusation.

All three heroes paused, every ounce of their professional training momentarily forgotten at the arresting sight of him. His golden eyes seemed to hold the light of a thousand burning suns, and the intricate, glowing golden scars that decorated every inch of his exposed skin pulsed faintly. They watched him pause, taking in the sight of the three figures blocking his path, and saw the way his giant, vanta-black wings seemed to twitch and furl in on themselves, as if he were deeply intimidated by the small group of powerful individuals.

“Where the fuck am I, and what am I wearing?” He demanded, the words snapping across the tense silence in a language none of them understood. He gestured sharply to the plain, ill-fitting hospital gown draped along his thin frame. His voice sounded profoundly unnatural; it wasn't a single voice, but rather like many voices—a layered, ethereal seraphim choir—speaking over one another as he spoke. It was frightening to hear at first, carrying an inhuman resonance, but there was also something almost… hypnotically ethereal and alluring about it.

He looked towards the trio ahead of him, taking a threatening, almost predatory step forward, the panic in his eyes momentarily masked by a surge of forced authority. “Answer me, mortals!” he bellowed, attempting to mask his deep fear and utter confusion with a manufactured, overwhelming anger.

None of the heroes knew what he was saying, let alone how they should react to the terrifying display. The boy stared at them for a moment longer, his golden eyes darting between their faces, before he looked rapidly around the sterile hospital hallway.

“Where in the mortal plane am I, exactly?” He asked, the layers in his voice thinning slightly, and he looked more and more scared by the second as his surroundings clearly offered no answers.

“Kid, calm down,” Hizashi said gently, stepping forward slightly with his hands raised in a non-threatening posture, an attempt to bridge the communication gap with a soothing tone.

The boy gazed at him assessingly for a moment, his fear momentarily forgotten. The gold flecks in his eyes began to spin around rapidly, swirling like tiny galaxies, and he looked slightly shocked by something. “Japanese?” He asked, the question laced with more genuine surprise than false bravado or anger. His voice had also changed dramatically, shifting from the unnatural, seraphim choir-like lull to something distinctly more normal sounding—a single, young man’s voice. His accent was nearly perfect but at the same time strangely alien. It wasn’t one any of them had ever heard before, but the alluring, foreign lilt was somehow enticing.

The gold flecks in his eyes were spinning around more languidly now, like golden syrup, and it would have been a mesmerizing, beautiful sight if all three of them weren't scared utterly witless by his erratic behavior and unknown powers.

Nemuri, whose heart had nearly given out at the sight of the boy after such an unholy sound, was the next to speak, her voice professional but cautious. “Yes, Japanese. Do you know the language?” She asked tentatively.

What in God’s name is going on here? She wondered, glancing at her two best friends, who shared her bewildered expression.

“Yes, I know every language of mortals such as yourselves. They are all quite simple to grasp, like elementary mathematics. How you aren’t all multilingual is a mystery to me,” The kid said matter-of-factly, his tone dismissive and arrogant, as though discussing the weather.

The trio looked at one another, completely thrown by the boy's bizarre statements and celestial claims.

“O-kay…” Hizashi muttered, scratching the back of his neck. “Do you want to go inside your room and speak properly? There’s a detective on his way here to speak with you, he will be here shortly.” Hizashi took a small, cautious step towards him, but the boy only staggered back, his large wings flaring out defensively.

“Stay away!” He screamed, reverting back to that strange, resonant language.

Hizashi, while not understanding exactly what the kid was saying, got the clear, unambiguous message and immediately took a step away, his hands still raised.

“Where the fuck are the hospital staff when you need them?” Shota muttered dryly, deeply unamused by the unfolding scene. Of course the kid who crash-landed in their backyard had to be some foreigner lunatic with a powerful, unpredictable Quirk and delusions of grandeur.

I can always just make him unable to use his wings, Shota grumbled internally, his eyes already narrowed and ready to activate his Erasure Quirk.

“We’re not going to hurt you, okay, kiddo?” Nemuri said slowly, raising her hands placatingly to show she wasn’t a threat, her voice soft and maternal.

“Tell that to the last angel who was exiled to Earth,” The boy spat, his eyes darkening with sudden, intense bitterness. “They endured decades of torture at the hands of the American government before they were finally put out of their misery,” he muttered darkly, the memory clearly disturbing him.

Okay, so definite headcase, then, Shota thought in bewildered confirmation, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“All right, all right. We’re not like them, got it? No torture, no… putting anyone ‘out of their misery.’ We just want to talk, to help you,” Hizashi tried to console, his hero persona overriding his panic, sensing the child may be genuinely unwell in the head or deeply traumatized.

The boy looked at him assessingly for a long, silent moment. He reached a thin hand up to his chest, as if he could feel something there, before he finally conceded and gave a sharp, curt nod of his head. “Alright.” He muttered. “But I warn you, I am not like the others.” His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits as he spoke, a cold, dangerous edge entering his voice. “My abilities are far more complicated, far more powerful than whatever you thought possible for me to possess. One step out of line, one wrong move, and it’s your head on the floor, your blood at my feet.”

Holy shit. This kid is terrifying, Hizashi thought, glancing at Shota nervously, a bead of cold sweat trailing down his temple.

The underground hero simply shook his head in return to Hizashi’s anxious gaze, watching the boy curl his massive wings tightly behind his back as he stalked back into the hospital room. “His Quirks are those wings and healing. Nemuri checked him thoroughly; he doesn’t have any visible weapons on his person. We’ll be fine,” Shota assured Hizashi and Nemuri quietly before hurriedly following the unnamed, unstable boy back inside.

The boy was already sitting rigidly on the edge of the bed when they entered the room, his whole body tense. “We’ll wait for Detective Tsukauchi to get here. That way you can be questioned properly and legally,” Shota said, his voice flat as he eyed the boy wearily, not knowing what else he could say to a self-proclaimed angel.

The boy smirked at them, a flash of unsettling humour that didn't reach his worried eyes. He looked slightly nauseous, the color drained from his face. Nonetheless, the smirk caused the group immense discomfort as it only added to their already frayed nerves.

“What?” Shota asked, his patience wearing thin, not liking the arrogant, shit-eating grin spread across the boy's face. Even so, something told the experienced hero it was merely a mask the boy was wearing, a desperate defense mechanism. He could tell by the way the golden patterns in his eyes swirled continuously (and though he didn’t know exactly what that meant, he had a gut feeling it signaled deep nervousness), the way his wings twitched nervously every so often, and the way he was slightly curled in on himself, his arms laid across his stomach and his shoulders hunched.

If you knew anything about body language—which Shota, as an underground hero, did intimately—it was easy to see how profoundly anxious the boy truly was beneath his veneer of fury and power.

“You are afraid of me,” The boy once again said matter-of-factly, his smirk widening slightly, pleased with his observation. “Well, you two are. You think there is a distinct possibility that I could overpower you,” He clarified, pointing a finger towards Hizashi and Nemuri. “Which I easily could.” Shota went to speak, a rebuttal already forming on his lips, but the boy put up a single, slender hand to stop him, effectively silencing the man with an unseen, overwhelming force. Shota opened his mouth to object regardless but found, to his shock, that he couldn’t force a single sound past his lips.

Shocked by the possibility of a third Quirk, a power he had never encountered, but still level-headed and professional, he used his own Quirk on the boy. His eyes glowed a fierce, intimidating red, and his messy black hair began to float upwards as he tried once more to force sound past his sealed lips, channeling all his will into activating Erasure.

Not quite blinking in confusion as he opened and closed his mouth, he found his speech was still blocked. Is this not his Quirk? Is there someone else here, hiding? But a much more terrifying thought came to mind soon afterwards, sending a jolt of cold dread through his body. Or… does my Quirk simply not work on him? He wondered, the impossible notion shaking him to his core.

“It’s rude to interrupt people,” The boy said lowly while looking directly at Shota, his eyes full of cold amusement. His husband and best friend’s faces morphed into ones of total bewilderment as they witnessed the silent exchange.

He hasn’t said a word... Shota hasn’t ‘interrupted’ once… so what on Earth is he talking about…? Nemuri thought, as they both turned their attention to Shota, shocked to see him aggressively using his powerful Quirk when there was no visible, immediate threat. Then again, he sometimes did it to intimidate people, a silent warning.

The man continued glaring assessingly at the boy, still desperately trying to use his Quirk to erase whatever ability was blocking his speech. Hizashi went to speak, a worried question about his partner in love and life, but the boy dismissively waved him off, continuing his assessment before the Voice Hero could so much as open his mouth. “As I was saying. This one,” He then gestured to Shota with a flick of his wrist, “Was slightly concerned, but now he’s just confused and a tad bit nervous,” His grin widened at his own precise observation. “Then again, you’re all feeling that way. I have to wonder about the concerned part, though. Is it because you watched me fall from the very heavens themselves?” He asked, his eyes flickering like candlelight as he placed his elbows on his crossed legs and rested his chin in the palm of his hands slyly, looking like a devilish puppet master.

“We aren’t–” Nemuri cleared her throat, trying to make her words sound more confident and believable than she truly felt. “We aren’t scared of you,” She told him firmly, meeting his gaze.

“Really?” The boy asked, once again reaching a hand towards his chest, pressing his fingers into the plain gown. “Because I can feel other people’s emotions. It’s like a dull ringing in my ears, but for feelings. And the moment I talked about rolling heads and spilled blood, I could feel just the smallest prickle of fear—a spike of fight-or-flight hormones—from all of you,” He informed them calmly. “But with Hobo over here,” he said, nodding towards Shota, “Those feelings quickly went away when he told you and blondie that he had searched me for weapons… though they’ve returned now that I’ve taken away his ability to speak and proven my abilities are far beyond your comprehension.” His smile vanished abruptly, his face twisting into a cold, grim, and intensely serious expression. “On a side note, if you honestly think angels don’t have celestial weaponry, you’re only fooling yourselves, you simple mortals. I am never unarmed.” Finally finished speaking, he lowered his hand, the invisible pressure instantly releasing, effectively returning Shota’s ability to talk. “You may speak,” he commanded.

Nemuri and Hizashi turned to stare at Shota in shock, finally having put two and two together and realizing, with a chilling certainty, what the boy had just demonstrated.

Is that why Sho used his Quirk? Hizashi wondered, his mind racing. But then why didn’t he speak after using it? He couldn’t, could he?

“How many Quirks do you have, kid?” Shota asked, his voice low and dangerously calm, interrupting Hizashi’s frantic train of thought. He was now operating on pure, professional instinct.

Everyone in the room was slowly starting to look more and more nervous, not just from the boy’s threats, but at the sheer, impossible number of powers the boy was demonstrating. Shota initially thought that the boy may have simply been reading their facial expressions and body language for that last one, but the description of Shota’s specific, nuanced emotions—and most likely Nemuri and Hizashi’s, too—had been spot-on, moving beyond simple observation.

Not to mention the fact that he’d shown three confirmed Quirks already—wings, healing, and an unheard-of sound-manipulation ability—if not four by magically cancelling out Shota’s Eraser Quirk.

So four so far, not counting the language acquisition, Shota thought, his mind already tallying a threat assessment far greater than any he had faced before.

“Quirks?” Izuku asked dumbly, looking genuinely bemused and perplexed by the term. “What are Quirks? Is that what you call your gifts?”

The trio didn’t answer. They only stared at him, shocked and utterly incredulous. Just what on Earth is going on here? Shota wondered, his confusion battling his professional skepticism. Is this some sort of elaborate ruse? A villain with multiple powers and an unbelievable backstory?

Carefully assessing the unprecedented situation, Shota thought about what kind of individual this kid could truly be. All the possibilities spun around his mind: everything from the boy being certifiably insane, a deeply traumatized child with a powerful set of Quirks, to the much darker possibility of him being a deliberate, highly-dangerous villain. After all, it may have been more than a coincidence that he’d fallen directly into two Pro-Heroes’ backyard.

Before Shota could ask any further, crucial questions, however, there was a timely, decisive knock at the door. The man eyed the kid for another moment, his gaze a warning, before slowly turning towards the door and opening it.

“Ah, Detective Tsukauchi, what good timing,” Shota said, a deep sense of relief washing over him, glad to be saved by the arrival of someone who could likely verify the boy's statements and get the answers they were all desperately looking for.

Naomasa Tsukauchi, a man whose professional demeanor was a fortress against shock, entered the room and promptly stopped dead, his composure utterly fractured by the sight before him. It wasn't merely the presence of a boy; it was the sheer, breathtaking, and unsettling spectacle of him. The detective’s mouth fell slightly open, drawn by the child’s massive, impossibly glorious black wings that seemed to drink the light in the room, tipped with feathers that caught an almost unholy golden sheen. His gaze then snagged on the boy’s eyes—unsettling pools of abysmal black and gold, swirling with an ancient, hypnotic energy. Most striking of all were the intricate, glowing golden marks, like celestial script, that covered his body when Tsukachi entered the room, as if tied to emotion, pulsing faintly beneath his skin and disappearing the moment he calmed down. Something about the boy was profoundly disturbing, a violation of natural law, yet at the very same time, strangely, undeniably, and tragically beautiful. It evoked a visceral sense of immense, ancient power tempered by an unbearable, deep-seated sorrow.

I’ve never seen a mutation like this before, Naomasa thought, the sheer astonishment a heavy weight in his mind. He swallowed hard, forcing his slightly agape mouth closed, and with a conscious effort, he began to shake off the boy’s profoundly strange and compelling appearance. He had a job to do. “Hello, I am Detective Tsukauchi from the Musutafu Police Department. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?” His voice, though intended to be calm, held a slight tremor of residual awe.

The boy’s lips curved into a small, knowing smirk, an expression that felt too old for his young face. “Oh, this one’s intrigued,” he cooed, the sound a low, musical note. “By my appearance, I’m guessing?”

Naomasa coughed, a deliberate attempt to regain his professional footing, and cleared his throat. He glanced momentarily at his partners—Shota Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada—who were watching the interaction with an intensity that bordered on fear. “I’m not sure if feeling my emotions is part of your quirk, but yes… your appearance is very… ‘intriguing.’” He offered a small, hesitant smile down at the boy, who responded with a curious, quizzical frown.

“I still don’t know what a quirk is, but go ahead and ask your questions, Detective Tsukauchi. I suppose I have nothing better to do.” His tone was devoid of typical childish flippancy, replaced by a deep resignation.

Shota Aizawa, the underground hero Eraserhead, watched the man carefully before quickly pulling out his notebook. He drew a small, firm checkmark, indicating that the boy was telling the truth about his profound lack of knowledge regarding quirks. A bizarre truth, yet verifiable by Tsukauchi's powerful Quirk, Lie Detector.

The boy could feel the distinct shift of emotions in all three adults—the detective’s continued disbelief, the hero's professional assessment, and the third man's quiet anxiety—but he couldn’t yet piece together the full context of their inner turmoil.

“Okay, we’ll start simple,” Naomasa said, striving for a soothing, calm tone despite the profound strangeness of the situation. “What is your name?”

The boy narrowed his unsettling gold-flecked eyes, appearing to genuinely consider the question as if retrieving a dusty memory. “I think my name is Izuku, but it’s been a while since I was actually called that. Everyone just calls me Deku.”

Naomasa’s brow furrowed, a shadow of deep concern crossing his face at the boy's phrasing. He carefully wrote another checkmark on his notepad. He wanted to press for a last name but hesitated, sensing the boy might not even know one, judging by the uncertainty of his previous response. He decided a different matter was more pressing. “As in useless?” he asked, the distaste in his voice unconcealed. Izuku glanced at him, his sorrowful expression deepening.

“Sort of, but not really,” he muttered, his gaze dropping to the floor.

Naomasa studied the boy intently, noting the way the specks of gold in his otherwise dark eyes seemed to spin more rapidly—a tell-tale sign of deep emotion—at the painful confession. “What does it mean, for you? The name ‘Deku’?” he pressed.

“It’s a word used to describe an unholy being, someone who defies God and everything he stands for. In other words, a demon.” Izuku’s voice was a flat, miserable whisper.

Hizashi Yamada, or Present Mic, looked sharply at Shota, silently mouthing the word ‘cult?’ His own vibrant, expressive face was etched with worry. Shota, however, shook his head, his face a mask of weary confusion, acknowledging that he had no answer for this enigma.

Izuku, lost in the dark well of his memories, didn’t notice the silent exchange between the two heroes. He looked back up at Naomasa and continued, the words spilling out with a weary familiarity. “If I wasn’t being called Deku, I was being called things such as ‘abomination,’ ‘freak of nature,’ ‘abhorrent,’ ‘ungodly,’ ‘sinful…’ you name it. Any horrible word you can think of—especially something meaning ‘unholy’—I’ve probably heard at least once.” He turned his gold-specked eyes away from them, utterly unable to look at the group after admitting something so deeply embarrassing and humiliating.

He may have possessed the lineage of an angel in name, and he may have been more powerful than any of his kind. But in the grand, terrifying hierarchy of Heaven, none of that mattered. To the celestial realm, he was nothing more than a stray drop of water suspended in a stormy, tumultuous cloud, destined for rejection. They had all patiently, cruelly waited for the inevitable day it would finally rain and he’d fall to Earth like the useless, despised drop of water he was. They waited for him to be cast into the vast, indifferent sea of nameless mortal faces, abandoned, scorned, and utterly alone. Lost in the unrelenting waves of the mortal plane, never, ever to return to the perfect, pure white clouds of his former home.

Naomasa, his expression grim and his hand steady despite the horrific implication of the boy's words, wrote another checkmark on his notepad page, his gaze never leaving Izuku. “And where do you come from, Izuku?”

“The celestial realm, Heaven,” He replied solemnly, the answer delivered not as a boast, but as a confession of a profound and painful failure.

Naomasa stared at him, openly shocked now. The entire room held its collective breath, all eyes flicking between Izuku's unusual form and Naomasa’s notepad. The detective slowly raised his hand, his grip on his pen notably shaky, and with a deliberate motion, he made another checkmark.

The silence that followed was heavy and absolute, broken only by the faint sound of the boy's ragged breathing. Izuku could feel the tidal wave of their profound shock, but he refused to elaborate on the matter, his mind lost in the devastating calculation of all he had lost.

“If– if that’s true…” Naomasa paused, Izuku’s impossible words slowly, sickeningly sinking in. “Then why are you here?” he finally asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Izuku’s face instantly paled at the brutal mention of his exile. Before he could speak, red, viscous tears gathered in his eyes, further cementing the terrifying possibility that he was, in fact, not of this world, or at least, not of this dimension.

“Because I’m not like everyone else. I’m–… I’m different.” His voice was a strained mutter, the effort of forming the words visibly shaking him. “I wasn’t born of the same celestial power as the other angels, and I was hated for it. Not to mention the fact that none of my abilities are the same as the others. Sure, there are similarities… but… I’ve never been normal to them. To the angels, to the elders, to God.” The bloody tears that had gathered in his eyes began to fall, tracing twin crimson paths down his cheeks as he admitted to his inherent, unforgivable faults.

He wanted to say more. He had never truly had anyone to talk to, no one who would ever listen without judgment. He reasoned he may never see these people again; what was the harm in emptying his soul? For once, could he just spill his heart out for someone, anyone, to hear the terrible truth?

“You know,” he said after a strained moment of silence, his voice now laced with an ancient bitterness. “I didn’t have one friend up there. Not a single angel treated me kindly. I was nothing more than a monster bred from sin to them. They all hated me, they laughed at me and threw harsh words at me every chance they got. I was always made fun of because of my black hair, eyes, and wings, while they all had their perfect white and gold. There was not a day that went by where I prayed to that stupid oaf, God, to just get it over with and kill me already.” The tears of blood began falling more rapidly from Izuku’s eyes as he spoke, fueled by years of pent-up anguish. He wiped them away quickly, the thick, red liquid smearing horribly all over the palms of his hands.

“When I was a child, the other children used to rub it in my face that they got to go to school while I sat alone in my empty house reading those stupid books to fulfill my education. I hated being isolated, but I was always by myself. I was alone every. Single. Day. I had no one. No one ever loved me or cared about me.” His small body began to shake violently as he let out small, high-pitched keens while he cried. The strange, almost inhuman way he wept only further amplified the possibility of his celestial origins. “So I started acting up. If I was causing trouble, at least someone would pay attention to me, if only for a little while. Is it so wrong of me to crave interaction?” Bloody tears continued to build up in his eyes, a continuous, horrible flow, but every time they got close to spilling over he’d wipe them away angrily, desperately.

“I was a kid! I’m still a kid! I’ve got millions of years ahead of me, and they just cast me out like I’m nothing! I’m not nothing! The only reason they hate me so much is because I’m stronger than them. It was fear that caused their hatred, nothing else. The fear that I would one day surpass their precious, ancient hierarchy and expose their hypocrisy for what it was.”

“And what does God do? Not a damn thing. He left me to rot, alone with my thoughts and useless prayers. Prayers to not be so alone, prayers for a friend, prayers for anything but the life I was fucking born into. But what does he do instead? He exiles me to this place, the accursed mortal plane, where sin is second nature to all. Because that’s all I am, all I’ll ever be. A sinner!” By the time he had finished his heart-wrenching, furious rant, he was full-on sobbing into his blood-smeared hands, the sound high, ethereal, and utterly strange. He wanted to scream until his throat was shredded, he wanted to open a black hole that would swallow up the entire Earth along with himself, extinguishing his agony for all eternity.

“I hate God!” He howled, the sound a ragged tear in his throat, finally surrendering to the desperate, terrifying urge that had been building inside him since his fall. His magnificent, soot-black wings, usually held taut with rigid self-control, trembled violently, momentarily losing their ethereal sheen. He threw his head back, a gesture of pure, agonized defiance, and flung his arms out to his sides. From his hands, where his celestial blood mixed with tears, red specks of the terrible mixture flew, splattering against the far wall like macabre paint. “I hate him, and everything he fucking stands for!” The final cry was a shriek of pure, unadulterated venom, an oath of hatred so profound it left the entire room in a stunned, terrified, and utterly deafening silence.

The room’s occupants—the seasoned heroes and the detective—were paralyzed. The adults stood in a shocked tableau, their expressions a mixture of horror and deep, genuine pity. Izuku felt their swirling emotions as if they were physical blows: their concern for his evident suffering, and the mortification, the sheer, helpless bewilderment, at the words he had just shouted into the face of creation.

He slowly lowered his head, his magnificent wings drooping low behind him, brushing the edge of the uncomfortable hospital bed. His vibrant, emerald eyes, which had held a burning intensity moments before, were now dull and still leaking those impossible, bloody tears. He turned his gaze toward the figures gathered before him, the raw anguish on his face softening into a fragile mask of remorse.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, the violent rage entirely spent, leaving him sounding hollow and small.

All eyes immediately swiveled to Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa, the only person in the room whose quirk allowed him to navigate the truth in this unbelievable situation. The detective only nodded his head, his own face grave and etched with weary disbelief.

He’s telling the truth, He mouthed silently, the confirmation ringing with a devastating finality.

The adults looked from Naomasa back to Izuku, the renewed silence in the room heavy and oppressive, a vacuum created by the boy’s—the fallen angel’s—earth-shattering outburst. They had seen violence, death, and destruction, but never a creature so fundamentally broken.

“It’s… it’s gonna be okay, kiddo,” Hizashi Yamada, Present Mic, finally managed to say, his usually boisterous voice softened to a gentle, shaky murmur. He took a single, hesitant step toward the bed, gauging the boy’s reaction. When Izuku remained unresponsive, staring blankly ahead, Hizashi took another step, and then a third, until he was close enough to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed beside the distressed angel.

The simple act of human contact seemed to finally break the dam Izuku had erected. His shoulders began to shake with a fresh wave of despair.

“How can it be okay?!” His voice was a wretched whisper of its former power. “I’m trapped in the mortal realm! I’m not worried about being kidnapped and experimented on like stupid Makeil was—I’m strong enough to prevent that, if nothing else—but dear heavens now up above, what am I– what am I going to do?” He finished with a racking sob, his face burying itself in his hands as his wings convulsed.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Hizashi wrapped his strong arms around the boy. Izuku flinched, then leaned into the warmth, trembling violently in the hero’s hold as he let out a thin, heart-breaking keen of pure sorrow and loss.

Across the room, the Pro Hero Midnight, Nemuri Kayama, turned slowly to her perpetually exasperated partner, Shota Aizawa (Eraser Head), her stunned expression on full, vivid display.

“Shota…” Nemuri began, her voice unusually careful, watching as the exhausted, eye-bag-laden man turned to face her, annoyance already creasing his features.

“What?” He asked, his gaze deliberately flicking away from the miserable, sobbing angel on the hospital bed. He had seen enough trauma for one decade.

“You said–… you said you wouldn’t adopt a kid unless God himself asked you to, right?” Nemuri muttered lowly, ensuring that her voice wouldn't carry over the distance to where Hizashi was attempting to soothe Izuku.

Shota’s face, which had been registering general fatigue, morphed into a look of deep, profound displeasure. He frowned, the wrinkles around his mouth deepening. It was painfully obvious where Nemuri’s logic was leading.

“Well,” she concluded, a strange, half-hysterical smile touching her lips. “I think he just asked.”