Chapter Text
This story will start, as all good stories do, a dream.
A dream of sweet roses and summer. The kind of dream where the sun's rays shift as they pass through the canopies of trees, its light a golden honey. Moss envelops their sturdy trunks, just enough to wick uncomfortable humidity from the air.
Gentle sprouts shoot from wherever sunlight manages to reach, straightening their spines from the laborious job of growing through various tree roots and detritus. They diligently work past the burden of the dead, and the shadow of the living. Attempting, despite everything, to make a start on their own accord.
Then, footfall. The skin of his floor length animal hide is the shade of blood and glory, yet its underbelly is the deep blue of a fading daylight sky. His boots are intentional and sleek, and despite how large he may stand, none of the vegetation that bears his weight dies. It’s whispered, in the deepest throes of the shadows, that everything that surrenders to him sprouts back tenfold.
Again, agency, but this time from the shadows of a great old wood. His hand, old and pale and deathly, brushes its bark. Like an animal, the tree curls away in disgust, and like something with a heartbeat, it begins a slow dismantling of itself. In this self destruction, the oldwood, despite its centuries’ age, cannot escape his touch and continue to be pure. Therefore, in all its nobility, it chooses above all to kneel defeat, crumbling to the ground in a series of splinters and wet mulch.
“Yagi, you and I have made up our minds, have we not?”
In a sweep of his gigantic arms, the old god makes reference to the forest. As he does so, it grows so quiet and still you would not even feel a beetle shift. The branches hold their breath. The birds do not sing. The sky nearly cries.
In his presence, nothing dares to be scrutinized.
“We are two old dogs.”
“You dare tease me with an obvious trick? I figured you were brutal All For One, but I never read you as a fool.”
“No, no, I assure you my words are as well founded as the soil you stand. You, Yagi, will continue to fight till the last of your ichor is bled dry. Till no amount of ambrosia may save you.” He laughs, and the ground creaks with the cruelty of it. “Yet I have no interest in entertaining such a fantasy.”
“You are running away? You and I both know that I won’t allow you to do so.”
“Allow? Allow? Such folly, when you know you cannot stop me. in your idleness of my absence, you will lose strength, Yagi. And I will only grow. Grow like the useless mortalities you waste your strength on.”
It is then One For All coughs, and with it, nature sickens and wilts with him. His chest is exposed from a rip in his tunic, the skin smooth and healed. Yet, despite this, something remains missing, having only just been ripped free. It felt like the cavernous gap a tooth leaves behind after it falls out.
“Oh, Yagi.” All For One chides, and in his palm rests a simple black stone. Color sapped from his venomous grasp. “Still so baseless. Still too human. Let me remind you where you come from.”
Then, One For All, in all his might—
“Izuku!”
He—
“Izuku? I told you—“
All mi—
“ IZUKU MIDORIYA! Are you even listening to me right now?”
Midoriya flinches hard, grumbling something unhappy underneath his breath. He turns from the curious and sweaty slick faces of the kids considering him with awe. Meeting head on the angry expression of his mother.
Inko Midoriya is a stout woman of renown. She’s kind, yet in her own ways commanding, and well respected by the other maids of the castle. After working here since her own teenage years, she’s garnered the respect of the old ladies through her cunning, and most the younger through sheer reliability and advice.
This being said, she’s a whirlwind, and no circumstance is a better example of her controlled force than when her too-young son gets lost in his fantasy of the royal guard. This, he has managed to do again, but with a legion of young tykes to make an audience for his tales.
Her apron has flecks of water half dry, and against her hip, is a large woven basket of white laundry. from what Midoriya can tell, it’s still laden with water.
“I told you to come in when the sun shined mid day! I’ve been doing the washing all by myself, young man.”
“Sorry Mom.” He mumbles to a chorus of giggles. “I didn’t realize.”
Midoriya, who got caught up in a morning game, had folded after the group of younger children began to beg him for another story. He hadn't had the opportunity to learn to read, but picked up a few working songs from the maids and began to craft his own stories from the framework of them. So, having deciphered one of the songs and thinking a long while, he agreed. He whisked them all into a long hallway of the maid corners, where dust and cobwebs made home.
Then, and only then, he began to speak of history. A whisper at the start, but as the story swelled, so did his voice. He enraptured them, and shared just a shard of what he truly loves to do. Analysis. Teaching. Storytelling.
“Your allowance is gonna get cut in half for this.”
Midoriya sucks his teeth, but says nothing. He knows it’s inherently fair, sure, but he’s disappointed nonetheless. Past the laundry and the days since he’s been roped into manual labor, he yearns for a life he will never quite have. He wants education. He wants a life beyond the castle walls. He wants to give and help, and above all, he wants to be like the figures he tells stories of.
“What was that?” His mom huffs at this non answer.
“I understand. I’m sorry.”
“Good. Come now, to the lines.”
The lines were a series of sturdy wool strings that were set up window to window in the maid district courtyard. He shuffled to a stand when his mother turned, but spared a small wave and smile at the kids he’s leaving in the hallway. The tykes knew their general way around the castle after being born in it, so he paid that part no worry, but, he knew that he now had to—
“But what i wanna hear the end.” One of the more loud ones whines. She must be no older than 5. “you can’t let him go!”
Midoriya pauses, and his mother turns to look, a word of soft comfort surely forming in her lips. She’s cut off when Midoriya raises his hand. A grin spreads across his face. “I promise to tell you all later, okay? But I have to go help everyone.”
This earns him a huff.
“Kay. Bye Zuku.” The kid manages to get out, and Midoriya laughs. He passes a hand through her messy hair when he swivels on his heel. The other kids begin to pipe up their own words of goodbye, and again he answers with a small and shy wave.
He follows the cadence of his mothers footsteps. Watching as a sheet in the basket bounces with each one. He notices how her step pattern is strange, and he frowns.
His mother had injured her ankle some time before his birth, and due to the demands of her lifestyle, it never quite healed right. When it flares, she has the tendency to hide her limp as if to comfort him, which only makes everything worse for herself. He wishes this part of her pride was eradicated. He is not a tiny tyke that needs to be told lies to feel better.
“That was very responsible, Izuku.” His mother ends up saying as soon as they are out of earshot.
“What-?”
“Talking to those kids. Teaching them history.” She sighs, stopping just shy of an archway to another set of stone stairs. Then, she deposits the wet basket on the floor to be able to face her son fully.
Nervously, she swipes her palms on her apron before continuing. Putting one hand on his shoulder in an attempt to either steady him, or herself. Midoriya doesn’t mind if it’s the latter, really. He never minds.
”I know never seeing outside the castle is hard for you, Izuku.”
“Wait, mom—“
“No, Izuku, let me say this. You’re a brilliant boy. And I want so deeply to be able to give you the life you deserve.” His spine straightens when he freezes. Entranced by the way tears begin to bob in his mothers eyes like pearls. Threatening to spill over and onto her upset freckled cheeks. “I want a life for you outside, and I know you want it even more than I do. There are certain things I can’t do, but that means there’s things I can.“
“Mom?”
“I’ve made an appeal to a partner of tailors I’ve become well acquainted with. They’ve promised to teach you the basics of reading and writing. I fear I cannot give you a life out of the castle, but by becoming literate, Izuku? You will be leagues more prepared for the future you have your eyes set on.”
Midoriya exhales thinly, heart still beating. “You mean they will truly give me the ability to read?”
“Yes.”
”but.. I won’t be able to help as much, will I?”
“No, Izuku. But I’m sure you’ll be glad about that.” She laughs, blinking away the emotion as if Izuku had not already seen it. Then, she brings him into a hug.
He thinks of her limp, as he wraps his arms around her. He thinks of her calloused hands and her stained apron. He thinks of all the pain she’s gone through to support him. He thinks, for the first time, he would not be glad, for his mother will be more burdened with it all from his absence.
He won’t let go of this chance, though. Only, that it gives him more opportunity to get her out of here faster. Yes. Some cottage on a hill with a backyard big enough for a garden and a tree to rest under. Where the only laundry she has to fold is her own, and the only bath she must draw she gets to enjoy. Where the humidity is not that of the wash chambers, and she is surrounded by a community of neighbors free from the drama of the castle.
“Okay, Mom.” He whispers. “I’ll do it.”
And when Midoriya pulls from the hug, he grabs the basket before his mother has the chance.
***
“C, see? But it also makes that Kuh- sound. Just like K does.”
“Then why have two letters?”
“Were you dropped or something?”
“Katsuki!” The back of Bakugou’s head makes a sharp thwap when Mitsuki’s hand connects with it . “Can you try not to be actively insufferable? Inko is a good friend of mine, and by extension you need to respect her son.”
“Insufferable?” Midoriya whispers. He hasn’t heard vocabulary like that in the maid quarters. He wonders how royals must talk, if this is the vocabulary a tailor had.
“It means I did something she didn’t like.” Bakugou growls.
“It means you’re being too much. Give your friend real definitions, or you aren’t getting dinner”
Hm. Midoriya draws the comparison between Bakugou and ‘too much’, to which he decides that this definition is fitting, and he would say he expects no less from Mitsuki. Yes, Bakugou Katsuki was entirely insufferable.
“Hah?— He’s NOT my friend.”
Midoriya considers the desk they are sitting at, which is a piece of furniture way nicer than anything that exists in his own residence in his corner of the castle, and can’t help but agree. Despite the proximity of their chairs so they both can peer into the book, Katsuki has expertly avoided even the slightest touches of their arms or legs. It’s blatantly obvious he fails to see Midoriya as anyone worthy of contact.
Midoriya cannot help but feel conflicted in his chest. Something deep and gnawing, and something he does not know. The thing is, he’s seen Mitsuki before. Initiating in one of those long, adult to adult conversations adults usually have with his mother. It must’ve been when he was four or so, because he remembers how he was clinging to his mothers leg. Equally, he remembers the sight adjacent to him. Bakugou wasn’t clinging to his mothers leg. But he was kicking at the floor nervously, and looking at the world with such curiosity it made Izuku smile and wave.
Then, Bakugou smiled and waved back. Signaling Midoriya over, and trading names.
It’s Katsuki, but my friends all call me Kacchan.
“That’s right, he is my teacher. We must keep it professional.” Izuku says, professionally. A word he picked up from Masuru that he thinks means official castle work . He hopes he’s using it right.
Mitsuki laughs and ruffles his hair. “If you are fine with it Izuku, I suppose I can deal with it for now. Sorry for being too busy to teach you myself, kid.”
“It’s okay, Ma’am. I need any help I can get, even if it’s Kacchan’s.” Izuku chirps. Mitsuki, satisfied, smiles and strolls away. He is blissfully unaware of the implied insult until the recipient is jamming his heel into his toe, which is the first time Bakugou touches him ever.
Midoriya recounts that brief interaction they had, and the few gazes they shared in the months afterward, but cannot remember a time they’d seen one another in the nine year gap in between then and now. Today, Izuku Midoriya is only thirteen, but he is infinitely older when he considers how easily it was to forget that Bakugou used to smile, and Bakugou once demanded his friendship. He frowns at the fact that it felt like it meant nothing now. What could’ve happened in nine years to turn him into his scowling personality?
Midoriya flinches his leg away, frowning. There’s furrows on his brow, but they’re more inquisitive than angry.
“Why are you so mean?” He grumbles, half asking his true question.
Bakugou turns red like a prude, and shoots him a haughty glare. “Am not.” He hisses. “You’re just so pretentious it makes me sick.” Then, Bakugou sticks his tongue out like he tasted something quite awful.
The Bakugou family lives on the outskirts of the castle, but close enough to commute to the castle gates within a reasonable hour. They are part of a guild of artisans who live in the surrounding area, and Midoriya recognized their renown immediately when he spied the second layer to their home.
When he first arrived at the plaza earlier that week, he had taken in the untold stories of those bracing for the markets in what felt like an infinite state of flux. Some packing for departure, and others coming home with empty wheelbarrows and tired oxen. The stone ground rumbled with the movement of it all, and Midoriya, for the first time since he stepped outside of the castle, felt incredibly small.
Then, he finally reached the address he had been told. A shop named The Bias Cut, which he later learned was Mitsuki’s signature style. In a corner of his mind he will never share, he thinks the name makes the Bakugou’s sound as if they are biased. And in another, he cannot help but feel it’s fitting.
After asking around and being pointed to a wooden sign decorated with red loops, he had nervously stumbled into the current moment. Mitsuki, guiding him upstairs from the workshop and placing him in a study corner of their living room, and calling down her ‘useless son’. It’d been three days since then, and they’ve set up a system for him to come every day except weekends.
“Pretentious??” Midoriya squawks. “You live in a two story house!”
(He primitively thought the word meant rich. Unbeknownst to him, Bakugou did, too.)
“Yeah, and you’re all cushy in that castle,” Bakugou says, and his tone is bitter like lemons. “must be pretty dang great, since my parents spend all their time there.”
Midoriya frowns deeper. “It’s not. My mom and I are always doing chores, and she doesn’t get paid all that much. It’s dirty, and even worse, it’s our job to clean it.” Midoriya thinks of the blood red tapestries. Of the sky blue carpets. Bakugou hums, staring at the pages of the book, but Midoriya knows he can’t possibly be reading, so he continues to talk. “I don't even get to dream of going to school. I don’t get to play, now that I’m tall enough to reach over the washbasins. The castle's only good to you if you’re the queen.”
“Have you seen her?”
Izuku laughs. “Why would the queen ever be in the maid quarters? No. She’s always in her garden or room or whatnot. Doing whatever a kingless queen does. Spending too much time with her advisor, Chancellor Takami, to do anything. That's what the maids say, anyway.”
Bakugou nods. “She makes good calls with our military, though.”
“Only to those who have a war-convenient blessing.” Midoriya crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.
“And? What’s wrong with that?” Bakugou raises his brow.
“It means the only people who get to be generals are those who have physical power.” Midoriya reasons. “Which cuts out a lot of scholars. Who’d they much rather use as canon fodder, than the stores of knowledge they truly are.”
“I think you’re just salty that you don’t have a good blessing.” Bakugou grins.
“What!? Am not! Like you would have one that’s better. Your parents are tailors!”
“Ha! You don’t even know , Zuku. My blessing is the best around. Everyone knows I’m destined to be a general or higher. High enough the gods are forced to recognize me! ”
“Ha! Now you’re just proving my point. Tactless brutes rising to power with no actual knowledge.”
“Want me to remind you which one of us can read?”
“Yet I know more about how all of it works. Funny.”
“Maybe the political and emotional aspects, but none of that matters when you get into actual fighting. I’m never gonna be one of the tactless knights you keep rattling on about. Try me at chess, I'll destroy you.“
Midoriya purses his lips as he looks at Bakugou from the corner of his eye, squinting.
“So that's what you want to be, Kacchan? A knight?”
“better than being a stinky tailor.”
“Well I want to be a knight, too.”
“Hah? I thought you were just bashing on—“
“No, I want to be the first general without a flashy blessing, Kacchan.“ For his mom. For the people of the city he’s grown to admire in just a day. For the notion of One For All, and the righteousness of the god All Might.
“Are you stupid or something? That’s not possible.”
“Maybe.” Midoriya smiles, looking at his hands and tapping his thumbs together in his lap. “But I want to try.”
“TCH. Fine. Be delusional, but pay attention for now. I want you to learn to write as fast as possible so you can get out of my damn house before you infect me.”
“Okay, Kacchan.”
***
It’s been two months since Midoriya began visiting the Bakugou’s every weekday to learn to read and, by extension, write.
It’s also the first time he bears witness to Bakugou’s well designed room, and Midoriya feels the memory of his own is rather kitschy in comparison. The room has a raised bed with an oak frame, and matching oak shelves filled to the brim with various different books. They were all thick and leather bound, and Midoriya couldn’t help but wonder what knowledge each one was hiding. Additionally, there were few keepsakes, but that just made the ones Bakugou did have stand out more. There was a shape on the desk that was undeniably a knife handle, with its blade concealed behind thick leather. What struck Midoriya even more was the small mirror Bakugou possessed. Propped up on the corner of his wardrobe.
Midoriya tried not to look too impressed.
“Have you ever ridden a horse before, Izuku?” Bakugou grins, and it’s absolutely wicked. Nothing that he remembers from when he was four or five. Instead, it’s so wide it reveals the downward steeples of his gums, and so sharp it sends chills up his spine. Something about the way Bakugou says the question promises a dutch ride, rather than horseback.
“No. Why?”
“You need a horse if you wanna be a knight.” Bakugou easily strides to his table, and picks up that knife. He fixes it to his hip. Pinched in a satchel.
“Do you have a horse??”
“Of course I have a horse! We just don’t have a stable so we keep her in the livery stables instead. We’re going on a bit of a field trip today.”
“Field trip?”
“My mom needs me to pick up some spools from a craftsman outside the walls. All the way to the countryside where they keep sheep.” Bakugou rolls his eyes at Midoriya's continued confusion. Like what he’s saying is just a fact of life. And sure, maybe it is to him, but certainly not Midoriya . “She refuses to use the imported stuff”
“How far?” Midoriya, who’d been confused at Bakugou’s request to leave the castle at sunrise yesterday, suddenly was a lot less in the dark.
“A few miles. It’s nothing, Izuku. We’ll be back by sunfall if we leave now. Yer already here, and I’m not letting your accident prone self sit around my house all alone.”
Midoriya, worrying his shirt with his thumb, sees he has no other option, and he follows Bakugou into the uncertain street.