Chapter Text
Innocence floated above them, laughing with a bright, crystalline joy that contrasted cruelly with the carnage below. The floating spires of Mount Gulg glittered beneath his radiant wings, and the blinding ocean of Light poured from him in waves that seemed to swallow the sky itself.
At the front of the charge stood his nemesis, the Warrior of Darkness: Izazu Izazalu, a Dwarf (no wait, he'd called himself a Lalafell) with wild green curls and bright eyes that always seemed to shine with a hidden fire. His shield flashed as he deflected blow after blow, and his sword carved through beams of searing Light with a stubbornness that surprised even Innocence. The companions behind him fought with desperate determination, each one pushing themselves as far as their bodies allowed, but Izazu bore the heaviest weight. Every breath from him came strained and shallow, and Izazu knew, deep down, why.
The Light inside him was too much.
Sin Eaters dissolved into aether as they fell, their cries drowned out by the roar of clashing magic. Innocence striking again and again, gathering Light with every movement, his voice ringing like burning glass as he unleashed more waves of brilliance that would have obliterated anyone but these heroes who dared to defy him.
***
Circling high above them, Feo Ul hovered in their Titania form, weaving protective magic around the massive talos that carried the party upward. Their wings shimmered with frantic energy, each beat pushing them harder as they struggled to shield them from the radiance pouring down like falling stars.
They watched Izazu’s movements carefully, sensing through the remnants of their bond how much he strained under the pressure. He had taken in too much Light already. Their stomach tightened with dread each time he staggered, and every time his blade faltered, they lifted their hand, ready to intervene. They knew the precautions they had taken would never withstand something like this. They had hoped, desperately, but hope was rarely enough against a flood.
The final clash burst across the mountain like a silent explosion. Izazu’s blade pierced Innocence’s core, and the resulting surge of aether washed over the battlefield, tearing apart the Lightwarden’s form in a shower of dissolving brilliance. The white-scorched sky flickered, dimmed, and slowly began to break open as Izazu absorbed the light, revealing the faint and trembling stars hidden behind it for so long.
Izazu collapsed. Feo Ul dove without hesitation, catching him before he hit the ground.
His skin shimmered with a dangerous glow. His breath was shallow, ragged. His eyes, bright even now, tried to focus on their face.
“Feo… Ul…? Did… we win?” They could not answer him. They only held him tighter, wings trembling with fear and exhaustion, and carried him away from the ruins of Mount Gulg as quickly as they could. The stars above seemed to watch silently as they brought him home.
***
Feo Ul laid him gently upon the moss of Il Mheg, the cool air carrying the first true night breezes in decades. It had failed, the frantic ritual to make him into a fae like them, using their bond as a starting point. Instead, it had only bound them tighter.
Izazu looked up at the sky as though seeing it for the very first time. He described the stars to them in a soft, wavering voice, pointing out shapes that didn’t truly exist but were beautiful enough that they pretended to see them too.
They stayed by him, every second weighed with dread, listening to the slow decline of his breathing. Even as the Light burned him from within, his eyes remained gentle, fixed on the sky he had fought so hard to restore.
He never surrendered to the Light.
No new Lightwarden rose from his body.
But when the last breath left him, the world fell quiet.
Their Sapling was gone.
***
Feo Ul carried him into Il Mheg’s palace with the care one uses for a fading dream. They shaped a crystal coffin with magic that strained against the grief in their chest, its polished surface smooth as clear water, its edges outlined by silver vines that glowed faintly in the dark. They placed Izazu inside, arranging him as if he were merely resting from a long battle, his hands folded around his sword, his face peaceful and still.
The fae of Il Mheg visited him daily. Pixies left garlands of shimmering petals. Nu Mou offered charms and whispered prayers. Even the amaro bowed their heads in silent respect. But Feo Ul felt none of it. They moved through the palace like a figure carved from pale glass, their light dimmed to the faintest embers. The spark of mischief and life that once defined them seemed to have dissolved with the Light of the final battle.
Every night they returned to the coffin, touching the cold glass, whispering stories or promises that never found an answer. The halls felt too large, too quiet, and the throne behind them felt like a weight they could no longer bear.
***
Feo Ul wasn’t sure how long it had actually been, but the day everything changed was in spring. As they sat on their throne, listening to the sounds of their realm, something flickered deep inside their chest. It was faint — a tiny vibration, like the distant ringing of a bell — but it sent their head snapping upward. They pressed a hand over their heart, closing their eyes until they felt it again.
A soul-echo.
A sliver of him.
Not here, not now, but somewhere beyond.
The failed ritual had left its mark. It had not saved him, but it had tethered a part of them to whatever path his soul chose next. Feo Ul returned to the coffin one final time. They rested their hand on the glass and whispered a soft, trembling promise. “I’m going to find you. However long it takes. My darling Sapling.”
They removed the crown of Titania from their brow, its glow foreign to them now, and placed it gently upon the coffin above his hands. Il Mheg would choose a new ruler. Their place was no longer here. Feo Ul walked across their realm, their steps slow but resolute, until they reached the furthest boundary where the land dissolved into drifting mist. They felt the faint tug of the echo and moved toward it without hesitation.
They stepped into the space between worlds.
***
The veiled lands between worlds stretched around Feo Ul like drifting currents of half-formed thought, each fragment of possibility glowing faintly with aetheric life. Even here, in the strange places where realms bled into one another, they could draw breath without pain. The familiar pulse of aether hummed through them like blood through a vein, answering their magic and sustaining their dwindling reserves as they followed the faint soul-echo they had coaxed into being the night Izazu died.
But as the echo grew stronger, leading them toward a particular fold in the drifting fabric of creation, Feo Ul felt something else: a steady thinning, a slow, unsettling silence ahead of them.
They paused once, testing the edge of the fold with a spark of glamour. The spell flickered, then sputtered outright.
The space before them tasted barren, like stepping toward a field of ash where a forest should have stood. No ambient aether drifted in the currents. No invisible winds of magic moved through the void. Only a hollow stillness greeted them, empty and cold. Feo Ul frowned, pressing a hand over their sternum. their own aether swirled quietly beneath their palm, but without an outside flow to replenish or answer it, the sensation was strangely claustrophobic — like breathing in a sealed room.
“I dislike this already,” they murmured, though their voice held more worry than irritation. “Sapling, wherever you’ve landed… it is far poorer in magic than any realm has right to be.”
They could have turned back. They could have waited, rested, gathered strength. But the echo pulsed again, strong enough to make their vision blur for a heartbeat, as if the soul they sought had cried out in fear.
Feo Ul stepped forward.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the full weight of the world hit them.
their wings faltered.
their breath hitched sharply as though they had plunged into freezing water.
Aether, normally drifting everywhere like invisible mist, simply wasn’t there. The world felt dry and echoing, full of strange energies they didn’t recognize — muddled, rigid, and painfully artificial things that twisted the fabric of life in ways their senses couldn’t easily parse. they sank to one knee, clutching their chest. “So little… how does this world survive with so little…?”
Their personal reserves thrummed uneasily. They had power left, enough to last decades if they rationed it, but here in this aether-starved world they felt suddenly mortal, acutely aware that every spell cast, every barrier raised, would drain them with nothing to refill the well.
But the echo called to them again, steady and bright, like a lantern shining across a barren plain.
Feo Ul forced themself upright, steadied their wings, and followed.
The path wound through an unfamiliar city of towering metal and humming lights, each step guided by the echo’s gentle pull. The world’s strange energy signatures, Quirks, as they would later learn, flickered around them like distorted shadows, impossible to read and uncomfortable to touch. They were powerful, yes, but brittle and unnaturally shaped, as though life itself had been forced into molds that did not match its nature.
But then the echo flared sharply, so close it nearly knocked them off course.
Feo Ul turned, drifted through a narrow corridor, passed through a wall in a shimmer of strained magic, and found themself inside a small, brightly lit medical office.
And the moment they saw the child sitting on the exam table, their knees nearly gave out a second time, not from the aether starvation, not from exhaustion, but from the shock of recognition.
The soul was unmistakable. Smaller, quieter, fragile as a new leaf.
Their Sapling.
***
Izuku Midoriya sat hunched on the examination table, green curls drooping over his red-rimmed eyes, his little hands twisted in the hem of his shirt as though trying to hold himself together. His mother hovered nearby, a shaking hand pressed over their mouth.
Across from them stood Dr. Tsubasa, a broad man with round goggles and a bristling mustache that twitched nervously. He cleared his throat, avoiding their eyes as he held the results.
“I’m very sorry,” he said, and even though he softened his tone, the words still struck with the heaviness of final judgment. “There is no detectable Quirk factor. Your son… he’s Quirkless.” Izuku’s breath hitched sharply. Inko let out a small cry. Dr. Tsubasa adjusted his goggles in a helpless, apologetic gesture. Feo Ul felt something inside themself snap.
They slowed time with barely a flicker of magic, the effort heavier than normal in this aether-dry realm, and moved to the boy’s side. They studied the room, the charts, the machines, the posters, absorbing their meaning in the space between heartbeats. “Quirks,” they murmured to themself. “This world’s strange, artificial way of pushing power where little should exist.” They felt the child’s despair like a cold wind across their tether.
They would not let him suffer that.
They let time resume, gently, so no one would notice, and stepped into view with a shimmer of faerie light that cost more aether than they liked, but the look in Izuku’s eyes when he saw them made every drop worth spending.
The doctor stumbled back, knocking a clipboard against the counter.
Inko gasped and clutched her chest.
Izuku froze, mouth open, tears still clinging to his lashes.
Feo Ul floated before him, wings spreading softly, their voice steady and warm. “I am your Quirk,” they said, letting each word fall with the weight of truth he needed. “Bound to you by a pact deeper than anything this world can measure.”
Dr. Tsubasa sputtered behind his mustache. “A— a— sentient—? But the scans— that isn’t— I don’t—”
Feo Ul raised a hand gently, not even bothering to look at him.
“Izuku Midoriya is not Quirkless,” they said, their tone letting no room for argument. “His power simply rests in me, and our bond is called Aetherpact.”
Izuku wiped his eyes, voice breaking with hope he barely dared trust. “S-so… I really… I really do have a Quirk?”
Feo Ul leaned closer, letting their glow brush softly against his cheek, their own heart swelling with something painfully tender. “Of course you do. I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
***
Izuku woke earlier than usual, the soft morning light spilling through his curtains and warming his face. For a moment he lay still, blinking up at the ceiling, wondering if yesterday had been a dream, some wishful imagining born from heartbreak and exhaustion.
Then a small warm glow gathered above his pillow.
“Good morning, little Sapling,” Feo Ul murmured, stretching lazily in midair, their wings shimmering with a gentle pulse. “Up with you. You start your hero training today, I believe?”
Izuku sat upright so fast he nearly toppled off the bed. “It’s not hero training! It’s… it’s just school.”
Feo Ul tapped their chin thoughtfully. “Then you’ll simply be the most heroic student there.”
Izuku blushed, but his grin stretched all the way to his ears. The moment Inko dropped him off, the atmosphere in the small, brightly colored classroom changed. Preschoolers were not subtle creatures, and neither were their parents. Word had already spread.
A sentient Quirk.
A Quirk that could talk.
A Quirk that appeared in sparkles of glowing color.
By the time the first bell chimed, every teacher in the building had found an excuse to peek through the doorway, trying to catch a glimpse. Feo Ul perched primly on Izuku’s shoulder, pretending not to notice the teachers whispering to each other like startled birds.
“He really does have one,” a teacher murmured.
“A sentient support-type Quirk? At his age?”
“That’s… incredible.”
Feo Ul smirked, crossing their ankles delicately. “I should hope so.”
Izuku coughed softly and tugged at his sleeve. “F-Feo Ul… you shouldn’t brag…”
“But I am a remarkable discovery, Sapling,” they said. “And they should take appropriate delight in knowing me.”
“Please don’t make this weird,” he whispered.
“No promises.”
***
It was during recess that things changed.
The teachers stood together near the fence, still murmuring about Izuku’s Quirk. The younger kids watched him with wide curiosity, whispering questions he was too shy to answer. Feo Ul hovered near his head, commenting softly whenever a child asked something particularly strange. But a small group of older kids — maybe six or seven years old — lingered near the jungle gym, watching him with narrowed eyes. There was a way they whispered among themselves that Feo Ul instantly disliked.
Izuku didn’t notice at first. He simply followed the painted hopscotch path with gentle concentration, humming under his breath. Then one of the older boys called out.
“Hey! Midoriya!”
Izuku froze.
The older kids approached, tall enough to tower over him. Their leader had a smug tilt to his chin and a scratchy bandage across his cheek, as though he’d gotten himself into trouble recently.
“So this is the new Quirk everyone’s talking about,” he said, giving Feo Ul a once-over. “A glittery fairy? Seriously?”
“They're’s not glittery…” Izuku murmured.
“She looks like something for babies,” another boy snickered. “Or girls.”
The leader leaned down until his face was close enough that Izuku could smell his breath. “If that’s your Quirk, then you must be a girl too, right?”
A small ripple of laughter followed. Izuku felt his cheeks flush hot. His throat tightened. Feo Ul slowly descended until they floated at eye level with the older boy, their wings going very still. “This is the best insult you can craft? Truly, your mind is a barren garden.”
The boy blinked. “...What?”
Feo Ul leaned closer. “If you intend to be cruel, at least be clever, child. Otherwise, you will embarrass yourself before you ever manage to embarrass him.”
Izuku tugged urgently at their arm. “Feo Ul, please don’t—”
They placed a tiny hand on his hair, soothing. “Do not fear, Sapling. I am educating him.”
One of the older boys snorted. “Wow, it even talks like a girl’s cartoon.”
Izuku felt a sick twist in his stomach. He wanted to speak up, to defend himself, but the words stuck behind his teeth. His breath came shallow, eyes stinging. Feo Ul saw it.
Their expression softened instantly. They drifted back to his side and placed a tiny hand on his cheek. “Look at me,” they said quietly. “Are you harmed?” He shook his head slowly, though his eyes glistened. “Then their words have no power,” they said. “Only the meaning you grant them.” The older kids scoffed and wandered away, muttering things they thought sounded clever but contained little real venom. They seemed unsettled, though — as if they weren’t entirely sure whether Feo Ul was a Quirk or a particularly small adult with wings.
When they were out of earshot, Izuku sniffed. “Why… why did they say that?” he asked, voice trembling. “Why does it matter if my Quirk looks… different?”
Feo Ul settled on his shoulder again, wings folding softly around him like a shawl of light.
“It matters only to people who do not understand power when it stands before them,” they said. “They see softness and mistake it for weakness. They see beauty and assume it is fragile.” They touched his cheek gently. “You and I will teach them otherwise.”
Izuku wiped his eyes, breathing a little deeper. “Really…?”
“Of course.” Their smile was warm, but there was steel beneath it. “You will show them the strength of someone who is kind. And when the time is right… you will show them more than that.”
Izuku nodded slowly, a glimmer of confidence settling into place.
Recess continued.
The other children returned to their games.
But Izuku walked a little taller now, Feo Ul glowing faintly beside him.
***
The next two years unfolded with a rhythm that felt strangely peaceful to Feo Ul, even within this aether-poor world. Izuku grew, little by little, into a boy who still startled easily but learned how to stand up straight after each stumble. They didn’t push him — they simply hovered beside him, steady and constant, offering sharp words when necessary and quiet warmth when nothing else would do.
Katsuki Bakugo — Katsuki, whose fierce grin had once been something Izuku chased after — drifted, slowly at first and then with an uncomfortable lurch, from friend to tormentor. It started with small things: eye rolls, scoffs, little shoves meant to test boundaries. His Quirk, a growing crackle of sparks in his palms, made him reckless and proud, and Izuku’s new “fairy quirk” had given Katsuki something he didn’t know how to process.
Feo Ul caught his intentions long before Izuku did.
One afternoon, when Katsuki tried to corner Izuku behind the schoolyard shed, Feo Ul shimmered into view between them, wings glowing with an annoyed luminescence.
“Your face,” they announced, “is far too smug for someone who has accomplished so little in life.”
Katsuki blinked. “What—?!”
“If you lay a single finger on my Sapling,” they continued, voice smooth as silk and twice as sharp, “I will turn you into shrubbery.”
Izuku gasped. “Feo Ul!”
They placed a tiny hand on their chest. “A respectable shrubbery. Perhaps with little flowers.”
Katsuki backed up two full steps. “Y-you can’t do that!”
Feo Ul smiled. It was not reassuring. “Children can be pruned. Consider this a warning.”
From that day on, Katsuki never tried to bully Izuku directly again. He still glowered and threw insults over his shoulder, but something in Feo Ul’s tone had sunk deep under his skin. He never admitted it, but he kept a cautious eye on every tree and bush for months.
***
Izuku, meanwhile, began carrying a small green notebook everywhere. “Hero Analysis — Volume One” he wrote on the cover with serious concentration. Feo Ul watched him scribble down observations about teachers, students, small-time neighborhood heroes, and even Katsuki’s explosions. They hovered over his shoulder, offering commentary that wandered between helpful, confusing, and biting.
“That man’s cape is too long,” they said once, pointing at a hero on TV. “He will trip during a dramatic moment and die of embarrassment.”
Izuku dutifully wrote: Note: capes dangerous in wind. (Coincidentally, that hero did just that a few days later, while meeting with some government official. They both fell down a long flight of stairs, and suffered multiple broken bones. Feo Ul laughed about it for weeks.)
“Pixton Hero Agency hires solely based on fashion,” they said another time, flipping through an online article. “Their safety protocols are imaginary.”
Izuku wrote: Check if ‘fashion-first hiring’ is a real thing???
And when they added, “That woman’s battle mask is held on by hope,” he almost choked laughing.
He didn’t fully understand all their commentary, but he began annotating his observations in a more critical way — learning to identify flaws, anticipate problems, and analyze people with an eye sharper than most adults.
***
Older kids still picked on him sometimes, because kids rarely understood nuance. They called him soft, weird, fairy-boy — any insult they could twist into a weapon. Izuku still felt each one like a small bruise, but he didn’t cry nearly as often. He had learned something else instead.
“Your opinions matter less than chalk drawings in the rain,” he told one boy who mocked him for drawing heroes during art time.
Another child made fun of his green hair; Izuku calmly replied, “At least mine doesn’t look like a dusty mop someone stepped on.”
Feo Ul, watching from a nearby bookshelf, clapped proudly. “Such progress.”
Izuku smiled shyly, but he also straightened a little, shoulders no longer curled in on themselves.
***
While he went to school, Feo Ul, who could teleport to him in a moment, spent much of their downtime perched atop Inko’s bookshelf, reading through legal practice manuals with intense curiosity. They flipped through them faster than any human could, absorbing civil rights protections, anti-discrimination clauses, educational regulations, and social expectation frameworks.
“Inko,” they said one evening, “your legal system is held together by optimism and glue.”
Inko blinked. “Feo Ul, sweetheart, maybe slow down—”
“Did you know children have rights?” Feo Ul said, flipping pages. “Fascinating. I intend to use these, aggressively.”
Inko paled slightly.
***
It happened on an ordinary afternoon, during a moment that should have been nothing special, in the middle of a school day that felt no different from any other.
Izuku was six years old. He heard the cries before he saw the chaos.
And Feo Ul, perched on his shoulder, felt the first deep pulse of aether roll through him like a breath finally taken.
***
Recess had been peaceful that day, the kind of easy midmorning warmth that made the playground feel bright and gentle. Izuku sat in the grass with two classmates, showing them the drawings he’d made of a neighborhood hero. The children listened with wide eyes, curious, impressed, and pleasantly oblivious to the larger dramas of their young world. Feo Ul hovered lazily above them, basking in a thin patch of sunlight. They looked half-asleep, wings flicking idly, but their attention was always sharp. They had learned quickly that this school required constant vigilance.
That was why they heard the cries even before Izuku did.
A short, sharp yelp. A second, pained and fearful. Then the heavy thump of someone being shoved against the dirt. Izuku jerked upright. “Did you hear that?” he asked, voice thin.
Feo Ul’s wings snapped open. “Trouble.” Izuku didn’t think. He just ran.
His small shoes slapped across the pavement as he sprinted toward the jungle gym. Several children had already backed away, forming a loose half-circle around the source of the shouting. And in the middle of it—
Katsuki Bakugo stood with a wild grin on his face, palms smoking from recent blasts. His two cronies flanked him like eager shadows, each wearing the smug expression of children who had convinced themselves they were untouchable. On the ground knelt a boy named Hori, small and pale, clutching his arm. Shards of ice scattered around him, melting in the dirt. His hand trembled — the remnants of his quirk’s defensive reflex — but he looked terrified. “See?” Katsuki crowed. “Told you ice is nothing! My explosions beat everything!”
One of his friends laughed. “Bakugo’s the best!”
Izuku felt something hot spark in his chest. Before he could think, he shoved himself between Katsuki and the whimpering Hori, arms outspread like a shield. “K-Kacchan, stop it!” he cried. “You’re hurting him!” Katsuki skidded to a halt, his grin freezing in place. The sight of Izuku standing there — tiny, shaking, with his arms spread wide — seemed to confuse him more than anything. Izuku trembled, but he held firm. “Hori wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Izuku said, voice shaking but loud enough to carry. “You can’t attack someone just because you want to prove you’re strong! That’s… that’s what villains do!”
The playground seemed to still. Even the breeze paused.
Katsuki blinked once. Then again. Something flickered in his expression — an abrupt, startled moment of clarity, as if someone had yanked a record needle across the vinyl in his brain. “Villain?” he repeated quietly, confusion twisting his face. “I’m not a villain.”
Izuku’s heart pounded so hard it hurt. “Then don’t act like one.”
Katsuki stared at him. Really stared. And for the first time in a long while, there was no smugness, no anger, no superiority. Only shock and something that looked uncomfortably like doubt.
Feo Ul, hovering nearby, raised a brow. “Interesting. Growth. Unexpected, but welcome.”
Izuku swallowed and turned toward Hori and the two other kids he’d glimpsed earlier — both bruised, one sniffling quietly.
He dropped to his knees. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, you’re hurt! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what to do!” His hands shook violently. His breath came fast.
Feo Ul darted close, expression suddenly sharp. “Sapling, slow down—”
But Izuku didn’t hear them. He wanted to help so badly it burned inside him, a fierce, desperate need that pushed through his fear and panic. His heartbeat roared in his ears. Then something opened.
Not outside him — within.
A flash of light erupted around him, bright but gentle, like the first breath of dawn through a windowpane. The air shimmered. Magic crackled. Feo Ul’s eyes widened as they felt a surge of aether pulse through him like a heartbeat. When the light faded, Izuku was no longer kneeling in his school clothes. He wore long navy robes trimmed in gold, fabric flowing softly around his legs. His boots and gloves gleamed with small armored plates designed for movement and spellcraft. Upon his head sat a strange flat-topped cap, its edge marked by ancient runes he did not recognize but somehow understood. His notebook — once worn and soft-edged — now felt solid and heavy in his hand, wrapped in leather that thrummed with silent power. Arcane glyphs glowed faintly across its cover. Izuku gasped. “Wh-what…?”
Feo Ul whispered, awestruck. “Sapling… you manifested a Job.”
The notebook flipped open as if guiding him. His eyes fell on a page titled with characters he’d never seen before.
Succor.
The spell caught in his throat like a remembered song.
Izuku raised his hand. A gentle, rippling barrier spread outward, soft green and blue light washing across the injured children. The air hummed with quiet power. Cuts sealed. Bruises faded. Hori’s shaking eased. One of the younger kids blinked in wonder and let out a relieved sob.
The spell ended with a soft pulse.
Silence swept the playground.
Every child stared.
Even Katsuki’s mouth hung open, eyes wide in a mixture of shock and something that looked dangerously like awe.
Feo Ul floated close to Izuku’s ear, their voice full of breathless relief. “Oh, thank the stars,” they murmured. “You’re making aether. Fresh, bright, beautiful aether.” They closed their eyes for a moment, letting the wave of energy wash through their depleted reserves. “And I can finally breathe again.”
Izuku held the grimoire to his chest, robes fluttering faintly in the light breeze. Katsuki took one hesitant step forward. “Izuku… what… what did you just do?”
Izuku swallowed hard, heart thundering. “I… I think… I healed them.”
Feo Ul smiled, wings flaring with pride. “Yes, Sapling. You most certainly did.”