Author's Note: SO! Here I am, with yet another new story. I've mostly given up trying to contain the Plot Bunnies at this point, because there are just too many to hold off. In my defense, My Hero Academia is an addicting anime and I did originally plan to wait until I had actually finished this one-shot series to post it. But then my planned seven chapters just kept growing and growing until I had enough plot notes for eight chapters, then ten, and then ... then I just gave up and decided to post this thing already. To anyone who came here from reading my Transformers story or my Fairy Tail story, don't worry, I'm still giving those love and attention and hope to post something for them soon. For anyone who came from Ballad, I FINALLY finished the latest chapter, it just needs editing and then I'll post it. For someone who discovered this browsing the My Hero Academia fanfic lists, welcome to my personal brand of chaos and crazy, I hope you enjoy.

To clear up any potential misunderstandings from the get-go, this will be an AU drabble series that got started when I made the mistake of asking my muses: What would happen is the My Hero Academia world had not only quirks, but Dying Will Flames from the KHR series? None of the KHR characters or artifacts like the pacifiers or rings, mind you. Just Dying Will Flames. What would happen to Izuku, the boy without a quirk but with willpower and determination and kindness practically oozing out his ears, in a world where his will could legitimately become power rather than one where he had to be lucky enough to be given a quirk by All Might? What if other members of Class 1-A ended up unlocking a physical manifestation of their Will on top of their actual quirks too? The answers to those questions was, of course, a flood of ideas that pestered me until I sat down and wrote them out. So here we are, with a story that isn't crossover enough to count as an actual crossover story (in my opinion anyway), but isn't your usual Deku-With-A-Quirk story either. I have several chapters of varying lengths already prewritten, but I'm going to try to parse them out in a schedule so that I have time to write more in between working on all my other stories. This story, just like Ballad, will only be worked on/updated as inspiration strikes, but hopefully I won't leave anyone hanging for TOO long (no promises though). Also, a heartfelt thanks to Wolfsrainrules for being one of the inspirations and supporters of this story. And also for being the one who introduced me to My Hero Academia in the first place (look what you've done, I was just getting my bunnies organized).

With all that rambling out of the way, I hope you enjoy the (very short) first installment of Empyrean Rising!

Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia, Katekyo Hitman Reborn, or any references made in this story. The only things I own are any OCs and the crazy plot that has partially combined the two fandoms.

Sky and Storm

It started when Izuku was five. Kacchan had gone off on one of his many adventures to places he was specifically told not to go, with Izuku following along like a shy, overawed puppy despite his fear of disobeying adults. They were playing in the woods again, much deeper than children their age were allowed to go, when they rounded a tree and were suddenly surrounded by three strange men.

Izuku could still remember the terror and the tears as they were roughly grabbed by the men. Could still remember the glint of sunlight on steel as his captor's fingers turned into knives and pressed dangerously close to Izuku's tiny throat. Izuku had frozen, to scared to move or struggle, while Kacchan had fought back. Kacchan had kicked and screamed and bit and slammed his sparking palms right where it would hurt. The man trying to hold down Kacchan had let loose several blistering curses and struck Kacchan in an effort to make him stop. Kacchan had continued to struggle and bite and scream until the third man had coldly snapped to just kill Kacchan and take Izuku as a lone hostage instead.

Kacchan had been scared then. As he was held down —still screaming and trying to use his quirk against them— Izuku saw the anger in his eyes turn to terror. The third man held out his pointer finger, the barrel inside it extending with a click so that it was pressed against Kacchan's forehead while the second man kept Kacchan's hands pinned to the ground. There was a moment where time stilled, where everything balanced on the edge of something unseen and Izuku realized that Kacchan was going to die.

Kacchan was going to die.

Izuku didn't want Kacchan to die.

Something started to burn inside him, pushing up in his chest and curling up his lungs as he struggled futilely for the first time since being grabbed. The man holding him didn't budge and Izuku realized he wasn't strong enough to break free, wasn't strong enough to save Kacchan, couldn't do anything because he was too weak and-

My-friend-my-friend-save-Kacchan-got-to-save-him-got-to-break-free-need-to-be-free-let-me-go-LET-ME-GO! The burning in his chest exploded and suddenly Izuku was on fire. Brilliant amber flames with rich flickers of purple surged across his skin, coating his arms in heat as he screamed. His captor yelled in surprise and his grip loosened just as the flickers of purple fire swirled down Izuku's legs and he lunged.

Izuku launched forward like a bullet, the world blurring around him as he crashed into man about to kill Kacchan. The impact sent the man flying into the nearest tree with a cry and a sickening crunch that Izuku would only remember later. He was only dimly aware of someone screaming as he whirled and slammed a fire-coated fist into the face of the man who had been holding Kacchan down. There was an endless chant in his mind, driving him on as something seethed and raged at the thought that they had touched something of his, tried to harm what was his. Mine-mine-don't-touch-my-friend-don't-touch-what's-mine-

The man's nose collapsed with a snap-crunch of bone and blood and he fell back with a howl. Izuku pursued him, straddling the man's chest and mindlessly slamming his fists into the man's face while the screaming he could distantly hear just kept going.

It wouldn't be until much later that he would realize that the screaming was his.

Something moved behind him and Kacchan's voice broke through the haze in Izuku's mind, "Deku, look out!" There was a loud crack of an explosion and Izuku twisted around in time to see that the man who had been holding him down earlier had tried to stab Izuku in the back only for Kacchan to barrel into him and set off his quirk.

The man backhanded Kacchan with a curse, sending him spinning to the ground a short distance away. Izuku saw the man raise his hand again, fingers shifting to glittering knives that aimed for Kacchan's exposed chest and something inside Izuku snarled rabidly. Izuku abandoned his previous target and charged, flinging himself forward to stop the knives, the instinct in his head chanting incessantly to protect-protect-protect-. Pain ripped through Izuku's side and blood flew.

Izuku fell to the ground with a sob, the fire burning inside him and coating his arms doing nothing to soothe the agony or slow the growth of the red puddle forming around him. The knife-man only snorted and raised his hand again. Izuku, his head lolling back from the pain, opened tear-filled eyes and locked gazes with the horror-stricken Kacchan.

Red eyes locked with amber-tinged green, the world slowed for a moment once again as the knives came down for the kill…

Then Kacchan had lunged forward —over the writhing body of his friend— and Izuku was temporarily blinded by an explosion the same color as the blood pooling beneath him.

.

.

The heroes who had been pursuing the escaped villains arrived less than a minute later. An ambulance was called not long after that, and Izuku rushed to the hospital with a snarling, shaking Kacchan sitting next to him the entire ride because anyone who had tried to keep him from coming had promptly gotten their pants set on fire by Kacchan's quirk.

Izuku's and Kacchan's mothers arrived at the hospital not long after Izuku was admitted, Inko's face a mass of tears and Mitsuki's one of tight, worried rage. The two boys were praised for fighting off the villains —by the Pro Heroes— even while they had been lectured and grounded for going somewhere they knew they were not allowed —by their mothers—.

Of the three men who had attacked them, one had a shattered spine from his collision with the tree and was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The second had bad facial burns, a shattered nose, and broken cheekbones that required extensive surgery just to restore his face to functionality.

They never found the third villain. The heroes assumed that he had run away after injuring Izuku because he'd heard the heroes coming. Neither boy corrected their assumptions, just as they never spoke of the blackened, oblong crater in that section of the forest that was roughly the same size as a human being. The crater that was still there even when they grew to adulthood, the ground charred to the point no grass would grow.

They never spoke to anyone about what happened in the forest that day. And if Kacchan didn't use his quirk while in school or during his many squabbles on the playground for a very, very long time, well, they never spoke of that either.

What they did speak of frequently —once Izuku was out of the hospital and Inko was okay with Izuku being more than five feet away from her at any given time— was Izuku's new multi-colored fire quirk. The two boys —now inseparable and hardly ever seen apart from the other— experimented with it often in the privacy of Kacchan's backyard, testing what it could do and how it compared to Kacchan's now sometimes red-colored explosion quirk.

It was during one of their days in Kacchan's backyard after school that it happened. Izuku was sitting on the ground, palm outstretched so that he could examine his amber fire and try to figure out why it had dark purple streaks running through it. A few feet to his right, Kacchan was taking possibly too much pleasure in picking up rocks and seeing how many different ways he could disintegrate them with his quirk.

Neither noticed the subconscious feeling of something prodding at their respective fire that had been going on for days, reaching and curling around each other in companionship until it finally settled and clicked and both boys froze.

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.

.

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For Katsuki, it was the sudden sensation of coming home. Of safety that he had not felt since the attack in the forest. It was like there had been a jagged edge inside him, scraping his patience and nerves raw without his knowing until something had shifted inside him and the jagged edge was smoothed over by curling amber warmth. It was like he had been trapped inside a box far too small for him, raging and screaming to get out, only for the box to be suddenly opened and he discovered that there was nothing around him but endless yet safe skies in which to roam.

.

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For Izuku, it was like regaining his balance after a lifetime of being unsteady. Of something wild and unrelenting and ferocious —like one of those thunderstorms that he and his Kā-san sometimes watched together while huddled up in a blanket— curling around him protectively. He could feel the wild edge of danger, the barely restrained violence in the possessive tendrils of red, yet he was unafraid. Because he knew without even thinking about it that he was in the eye of the storm, that the storm would never rage against him, only for him. It would keep him safe.

.

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As one, the boys turned and stared at each other, knowing without being told that the feelings they had gotten came from each other. There was a connection between them now, bright and burning and strong and while neither boy would even think of protesting it's existence now that it was there, neither of them was entirely sure what to do with it. Or why it had happened.

Katsuki was the first one to break the stunned silence between them, successfully summing up what they were both thinking with a curt, "What the f*ck just happened?"

They wouldn't get a detailed answer until years later. But in the interim, the two boys eventually just accepted it and moved on with their lives, not even noticing that where once Katsuki had been on the verge of leaving Izuku behind, they now walked instinctively side by side.

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Preview for Next Chapter: People screamed and terror overcame adrenaline-induced confidence as everyone began to run away. Izuku half-turned to follow them -there was no point in fighting something that dangerous for no points- when his instincts screeched and dragged his attention back over his shoulder in the direction of the robot.

There was a girl trapped under the rubble that had come down when the robot first appeared.

He didn't know her. He had seen her in passing on his way with Kacchan to the lecture hall, but he didn't know her. He didn't know her name, didn't have any association with her. They were complete strangers. A part of him said to keep running, because he didn't know her and it wasn't his problem and surely the proctors wouldn't let anyone actually die in these tests, right? The robot would stop before it crushed her, or turn aside, or-

Tearful, terrified, helpless eyes looked up and locked with his.

Izuku ran.