On the Sixth Day of Christmas, my favorite Authors gave to be: Six Glittering Stars!
LINEBREAK
Shouta of the Noble House Aizawa didn't much care for surprises.
They caused problems, and made him rework plans on the fly, and sometimes blew up spectacularly in his face or in the faces of his Pride and that generally made Shouta want to blow things up.
Being half Silvakian and half Star had caused some Instinct issues. Shouta really didn't deal well with anything messing with those he had claimed as his own. It was why they had these weekly meetings of theirs on the Ascended Plane, where they shed their mortal shells and appeared to each other as the luminous beings they really were. It didn't matter where they all were in space, in various entirely different places, they could all meet up together in this same place, being a step out of sync with the rest of the world.
Shouta- being descended from the Star Line that he was- could always tell how his Pride felt by the feel of their fires. Being that his Quirk was to take some of his own fire and push it into another's where he would smother it, and thus prevent any use of their fire and usually knock out his opponent, Shouta had encountered quite a few fires and knew how to gage mood and state of being with them. It comforted the Silvakian part of him to know his Pride was in good health if not always happy.
He had been antsy the entire meeting this time, anxious and furious that someone had taken one of his Pride's cubs, which had been why Toshi was not present this particular meeting. Shouta reached for the cool logic those of the Silvakian race were taught from birth to help get a handle on how much they could feel.
His breath caught when, in the middle of the meeting, someone new had burst into the Ascended Plane. Not only new, but in so much pain. Old pain. Looking at her scattered and featureless form, it was obvious she had been starved near to dying. His eyes widened and then narrowed in instinctive rage when he realized it was a cub.
It was instinctive, as he latched onto the signature and tried to track it backwards. They-she?- was close by his physical form. Aizawa reached out, careful not to actually pull the cub's attention to himself as he wrapped his own self around her signature, using his quirk as he pulled his own starfire forward and kept it up as a barrier between the cub and the world. He was acting to hide her form from any who may have sensed her Ascend even as he began to pull back towards his physical body- getting ready to track the cub down. Her physical state was not a good indicator that she was in a nice place, and anyone that may have been searching for her would be able to track her with how open she was being with her signature.
She wasn't even aware of what she had done. Shouta could tell, as her form arched under some unseen pressure, obviously unconcerned with what was happening around her, not reacting to their presence or his own actions to hide her away.
Something was happening with her physical body. Something was keeping her mental 'presence' from stepping sideways into the Astral Plane with the rest of her power. Shouta growled lowly, a quick glance at the other's communicating a promise to return and explain as he stepped backwards and back to his own body, leaving only enough of his power and focus behind to keep the cub hidden behind his own fire.
When the light of his true self dims and solidifies back into the matter of his physical form, Shouta leaps from his bed, urgency blurring the edges of his body as he pushes himself for speed. He races through the halls of his home, the palace of Silmek, barking out orders as he rushes to the hanger where his ships are parked.
Shouta's got a firm mental grasp on exactly where this new star is and even as he extends his senses and he already feel their own begin to waver.
He grits his teeth and gets into his ship, his guards falling in behind.
Time is running out.
LINEBREAK
They escape.
Izumi is barely holding off on hyperventilating because how, what, why too much, not enough and her thoughts are spinning a mile a minute.
She suddenly become aware that someone is making a terrible noise.
It sounds like betrayal and joy, maddening in it's hysteria and concerning in the way it hurts. It takes her longer than it should to realize the sound is coming from her own mouth.
The boy she'd saved has a hand pressed against her back, rubbing comfortingly, even as he says...something. She knows it's empty comfort words, but the tone and presence of a voice at all is a comfort.
"Easy, easy, starling, you're okay. It's okay, come on breathe, it's alright. We escaped, we're free, it's fine."
Tenko clings to the repetition of the words, projecting his fire out just enough to exclude a sense of safety, and protection, if not calm. (because he's not calm. He's not, he wants to go home, to be safe.)
But like hell he'd let this girl be taken again.
She'd acting like she'd never seen space before, never seen stars up close, and Tenko has to fight off how sick the likelihood of that being the case actually makes him.
Izumi eventually settles down, the sound she'd been making fading off to nothing, even as she looks up to meet the red eyes of the boy who sat with her. "My- my name is Midoriya Izumi."
Teko blinks, his stomach twisting in on itself at the sound of the name. He understood certain ways of speech from Earth, his father having protected it for longer than Tenko had been alive. More than that, he'd taught Tenko the languages of the place, and certain speech habits from various places.
He'd had a particular fondness for America and Japan, one on his own behalf, and the other because it had been the Queen's favorite place on the planet. It was why Tenko had understood the girl in the first place, why he slipped into the habit of English curse words, much as his father did.
But in this case, his stomach turned due to the familiar name.
His father's Lady Wife had been known as Inko of the Noble House of Midoriya.
...They had wanted to name their daughter Izumi.
"Shimura Tenko" he offered his name blankly, in a way she'd understand, trying not to hyperventilate. "Now that we have a moment to introduce ourselves."
They stayed in silence for a few moments, before Tenko reached for the pod controls. "There's a man nearby who could help us," he tells her, absently changing the coordinates to this solar system's ninth solar body "his name is Aizawa Shouta, and he'll be able to help us. He has a home on the dwarf planet Earth calls Pluto."
Izumi tried not to start screaming again.
People should not be casually living on Pluto.
LINEBREAK
Katsuki of the Noble House of Bakugou did not appreciate what his mother has asked of him. He understood that his mother owed Auntie Inko of Life Debt, and her repayment of that dept was to hide both herself and her daughter from the eyes and ears of all who would search for them, but…
He knew she was the Queen, and thus had every right to command them to be silent, and thus they would be bound to obey, but…
She was dying.
He could feel it.
Every time he and his parents came to visit them, he could feel that her inner Fire was dying, sputtering and guttering in a way that made his chest tight. And then there was his best friend, his sister by choice.
Izumi was suffering. He could feel how weak her fire was, and he made a point to push some of his own fire at her, help bolster her flickering flames where he could but...
She needed to get off of Earth. They both did. They needed to get off planet, and recharge, and tell the King that they lived.
It made him so angry that he couldn't tell Izumi what she was missing, that he couldn't just lay everything out for her, couldn't scream from the rooftops.
But he had his orders, and he knew what boundaries he could push, and this was not one of them.
Still...he was looking forward to meeting her again, and he was a bit annoyed when he and his parents showed up at Auntie's home only to find out Izumi wasn't there.
She was on one of her 'trips'. The Trips that Auntie arranged so she had a chance to replenish her own stores, keep herself alive, before she had to help provide the energy her daughter needed. He didn't mind waiting, he knew they'd stay for a while, and his Auntie needed their help. Her song was…tired, in a way that made him nervous, any time they showed up during a 'training trip'.
So even if he was annoyed, Katsuki knew better than to complain. This was needed.
And yet…
When Izumi's soft, feeble, flickering song, faint but present, suddenly cuts out, Katsuki can't help the way he screams.
Auntie screams too.
He comes crashing into the living room, even as Auntie Inko drops to her knees and screams, the feeble flickers of starfire able to manifest outside her core flickering over her skin.
His mom is the one to grab Auntie by her shoulders and shake her, demanding to know "Where is my niece Inko? Where did you take Izumi to train?!"
It takes a moment of sobbing, before Auntie provides an address, and then they all are scrambling into Auntie's car.
His dad drives, while he sits in front, and his mom and Auntie huddle together in the backseat.
When they arrive to the trash covered beach, Katsuki can't help the way he scrunches his nose up at the mess, and the smell. But he throws himself out of the car anyway, stretching his senses out as far as he can, searching for where his forge-sister may have been or gone. He can feel his parents doing the same, and though Auntie Inko's fire flickers and reaches, she's not strong enough to actively search.
They are all frantically searching the beach, praying for something, when his mother comes scrambling out of the trash piles, and rushes right up to her best friend and forge-sister "Inko! Inko she's alive, Izumi didn't die, she was taken!"
Katsuki almost collapses in relief. He has a chance to find her, this way, so long as she was not dead he would search.
Inko shutters in place, and the dead look in her eyes clears a bit, despite her tears not slowing in he slightest. "She- she's alive?"
Mitsuki has a tight grip on her shoulders as she nods sharply "Yes! She's alive, and we can find her, but we need to leave Inko, you can't stay here anymore! I need you to release me from the life debt, to consider it paid, so that I can take all of us off the planet!"
And Katsuki holds his breath as he watches his mother lay the choice before his aunt. They've been trying to get Auntie Inko to leave the planet for ages. To come with them, to let Uncle Toshi know she lives with their daughter. They may work for High Lord Endeavor, of the House Todoroki, but still loved Toshinori too, and the suffering of all of them had been torturous.
Still- they had been bound by the Life Debt, and they could not- physically could not speak of Inko's status, due to her demand in repayment.
(Eventually, it would come out that part of Inko's instinstance on remaining hidden, beyond her fear of the war and enemies finding them, was her status of starving and isolation having affected her mind. Her bonds were cut off, her body unable to feed properly, and she was stressed. Her mind had not handled it as well as it could have, and had only fed into her paranoia and insistence on remaining hidden and prepared for attack.)
Inko released them from the dept with a sob, and Katsuki shuttered at the feeling of the bond in starfire releasing them.
From there, the family all scrambled to get to their ship.
Katsuki resolved to search until the end of the universe if he had to. He would find his forge-sister, he swore it on Yagi's Crown.
And if anything had happened to her…
His starfire swirled around his body, the scent of caramel rising off his skin, even as his palms began to lightly smoke.
He'd leave ash and dust in his wake.