It's quite a thing to See the world as it actually is. To See the old aspects of it, of those who trod these lands for longer than any mortal. Izuku has always been drawn to the Neighbors that congregated near-natural lands: like a park or near the ocean on the cleaner area of the beach, or the forest just outside the outskirts of the city. Each Neighbor — quite mind-boggling, truly — come in all forms and colors. Izuku's Ariel Neighbors always greet him in the mornings by rapping on his bedroom window. They bring him flowers in exchange for a spoonful of honey. Sometimes they weave the flowers into his hair and other times they form crowns and settle it atop his head. Izuku loves it.

His mom takes his flowery hair in stride each morning and often wonders why they go through so much honey, always raising an amused and inquisitive brow when Izuku's giggles as she muses about it aloud.

Izuku always answers honestly, "It's for our Neighbors!" and so life goes on.

Until Izuku one day feels nauseous. His vision blurs and he falls to his knees during lunch at school. His Ariel Neighbors, ever the constant source of companionship since his fallout with Kacchan five years ago, yell in panic and Wisteria flits around nervously in front of Izuku's face, snapping her fingers and slapping her hands on his nose to get his attention. But Izuku's eyes glaze over, and he starts to heave and choke. There's upheaval and then there are hands, human hands, that grasp at him. Izuku heaves once more and coughs up blood that makes his throat burn. Wisteria is beyond worried, as are Chrys and Iris, and all settle in Izuku's hair when the paramedics finally arrive to whisk him away.

Izuku is in the hospital for five days following the day of his episode for testing. His mom is worried sick and hardly leaves his side, bringing him honey and small flowers — like Baby's Breath or Forget-Me-Nots — that are later on weaved into Izuku's hair by his Neighbors when no one is present. Chrys tells Izuku about the Queen of the Fae, Titania, and her husband the King of the Fae, Oberon. Iris weaves tales of magic to entertain him, about a Sleigh Beggy named Hatori Chise and her husband, the Thorn Mage Ainsworth Elias. Both who have lived in a small Cottage in England for the past three centuries. Wisteria, on the other hand, keeps on weaving the Baby Breath's his mother had brought in earlier that day into his hair, humming a joyful tune under her breath.

"What am I?" Izuku asks on the third day of being hospitalized.

Silence follows, all three exchanging wary glances but then Chrys nods his head in determination and floats up in front of Izuku's face, a good arm's length away.

"You are a Sleigh Beggy," Chrys says at last, "probably one of the last of your kind."

"A Sleigh Beggy." Izuku echoes despondently, and there are tears threatening to fall from the corner of his eyes.

"Izuku?"

"I don't want to die," he sniffles, hunching into himself. His Neighbors converge on him, whispering soft reassurances. "I don't want to die, I don't want to leave my mom all alone, I don't want to leave you guys. I don't want to die! I want to save everyone with a smile, like All Might, and how can I do that if I'm dead?"

"Izuku," Iris says softly. "We won't let you die."

"But that's not a promise you can keep." He wails.

"It's one we can try to keep," Wisteria says, "and have all intentions of doing so."

Izuku merely nods. He allows them to wipe his wet cheeks and lull him to sleep with their soft singing.

On the fourth and final day of his hospitalization, Izuku wakes to see a thick flower crown made of lavender on the table beside his bed. Chrys is snoozing in the middle of it while Wisteria and Iris are nowhere in sight. Izuku does not feel rested, at all, and instead feels as if his bones were suddenly weighed down with how lethargic he moves.

Then the door slowly opens and Izuku moves his head to greet his mom, only for the words to die on his lips when he sees that who's at his hospital room door is not, in fact, his mother. Instead, a young woman with short red hair and brilliant green eyes stands at the door. Most peculiar is the lone glove on only one hand.

"You—" Izuku licks his chapped lips, "you're not mom."

The woman smiles, "I'm afraid not. May I come in?"

"Go ahead."

The woman settles herself elegantly on the chair beside his bed, and something in the back of Izuku's mind strikes her familiar to him. It takes a second for Izuku to register that he himself asks the question, "Do I know you?"

The woman shakes her head, "You don't know me personally, but what I could gather you've heard about me.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Hatori-Ainsworth Chise, a Sleigh Beggy, just like you."

Chrys plops the flower crown on Izuku's head when he takes too long to answer, apparently having woken up sometime during the exchange.

Izuku rights the flower crown on his head, stalling some, before turning back to Hatori-san. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. I was told of your accomplishments to pass time by one of my Neighbors."

"You have kind Neighbors, Midoriya-kun." Hatori-san praises, directing the sentence to Izuku as well as to Chrys, who preens at the attention. "They came to me at dawn today, asking for a favor. Once I heard your story, my husband and I agreed to the favor. On a condition."

A condition?

"We'll explain everything to your mother and if she is willing, we will accommodate both of you with us and train you in the ways of magic." Hatori-san's countenance is serious. "That means, however, that you will have to move. Move away from here, from your home and friends, and leave everything you know behind to go to England."

— move? He clenches his fists, deep in thought. He'd have to move from everything he's ever known, everything he's ever cared about and made memories of, cherished, loved. But, at the same time, his life is on the line, his very future keeps dwindling every time he takes a rattling breath. He's willing to make such a big leap if only to have a future to look forward to; to see his mother smile with no restraint, without lines of worry etching on her face.

"I don't want to die." He says with finality. "I want to live! To look forward to the future with my family. I don't care if I have to move for that, I'll do it!"

Hatori-san smiles again, and another voice pipes up from behind her, from her shadow, actually. "You have the conviction."

Izuku stills his trembling hands on the comforter when the shadow warps, rising and forming into the humanoid body of one Ainsworth Elias — the most prominent feature of all is certainly the skull (perhaps of some canine: a dog? Wolf?) and curling horns. He's dressed impeccably, and honest to god absolutely towering.

"Ainsworth-san," Izuku says, trying to bow in greeting but a gloved hand from Hatori-san stops him in place.

Hatori-san gives him a wry quirk of her lips, "Save your energy, Midoriya-kun."

"She's right," pipes in Chrys, "especially after your episode last night."

Izuku's lips curl at the memory. He'd woken up at the crack of dawn, with his own blood choking him until he was blue in the face and the nurses forcing him up into a sitting position until they got the blood to flow out of him naturally into a bucket. The amount lost had made him dizzy afterward and he had passed out. Come to think of it now, they connected him to an IV. A quick peek and yeah, he has an IV needle poked into his arm. Wonderful.

"How many of these episodes have you had?" Hatori-san asks worriedly, exchanging a glance with her husband.

Before Izuku can reply, Chrys butts into the conversation again. "His first one was at school, and since then, he's had about two episodes since being hospitalized."

Izuku looks at Chrys, betrayed, but the Ariel is unrepentant as he stares back.

"That's quite a few," Hatori-san says, sounding strangled.

"We'd have to make the move soon." Ainsworth-san states. "You're quite susceptible to magic, it seems. You're intaking too much of it without anything to stifle it."

"We'll have to commission Althea," Hatori-san continues, "have her make something like her mother made for me."

Hatori-san smiles, all soft and caring, like his mom's. "We won't let you die, Midoriya-kun."

Izuku feels fresh tears start to gather at the corner of his eyes, and he can't help but sniffle. Chrys settles on his shoulder and hugs his neck, muttering soothing words.

Until his mom arrives, Hatori-san shows him small bouts of magic and her wand. She talks about magic and what it entails, how wonderful it can be, and also how careful one should be when studying it. She explains that her longevity is caused by an Immortal Curse that she gained by Joseph's Eye, and how she eluded the repercussions of being a Sleigh Beggy up until that point.

"I used to be very uncaring about myself," she explains, "to the point where I was uncaring if I lived or died. I didn't have the same will to live as you do, and it took me a while to find that same conviction to keep on going, to strive forward, and until Elias offered me a home and a family, I was just a husk going through the motions.

"Then, alongside Elias and Ruth and Silky, I found my will, my conviction, to keep striving forward. I guess that was a key stepping stone in my life."

"Since being diagnosed as quirkless," Izuku says sometime later, beaming when Hatori-san places his flower crown on her head. "It's been hard. I lost my childhood friend because he believed himself to be better than me due to his quirk. The other kids look down on me for my quirklessness, they belittled me. But, throughout all that—" Izuku finds it hard to breathe past his swirling emotions.

"You had your Neighbors."

"I had my Neighbors," Izuku agrees with a shaky grin. "I would blind to not see how caring they are of me."

Hatori-san matches his grin.

On the fifth day of his hospitalization, his mom agrees to the condition, taking everything about magic in stride. Midoriya Inko is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the well-being of Izuku, and so they sign Izuku out of the hospital despite the many objections of doctors and head home with Hatori-san; her husband lurks in her shadow.

"We'll move you guys today," she explained back at the hospital, "magic can travel great lengths in a short amount of time. So pack what you need for now, and we'll be back at a later date to collect everything else."

When they enter their apartment Izuku is nearly tackled off the ground by his exuberant Neighbors. Chrys, Iris, and Wisteria immediately settle in his hair and Sara the Salamander begs to be lifted into his arms, whining incessantly. He complies, nuzzling into her as she coos. The two Cotton Flies glide in circles around him, bumping into his legs and overall happy that he's back.

"Quite the band of Neighbors you've got here, Midoriya-kun."

His mom is trying hard not to stare, but her eyes keep looking at him, pointedly staring at his arms where it must be weird for him to be holding something she cannot see. As if he were cuddling the empty air.

"Yeah," says Izuku. "They're the best."

By the time his mother and he finish packing, the sun has bathed the sky in warm colors of late evening. His Neighbors are either on his person or in one of his bags, stubbornly refusing to just let him go. Izuku gives Hatori-san a what-can-you-do face at the antics of the Neighbors, to which she shrugs, clearly amused.

His mom is doing one last round in their apartment, silently saying her goodbyes to their memories.

"Are you ready?" Ainsworth-san asks, forming behind Hatori-san.

Izuku glances at his mom, who steels herself with a newfound resolve. Izuku nods.

"We are."

Ainsworth-san starts to chant. "Nettles in the shadows...A wheel of hollies...Ten-folds and twenty-folds...Weaves the spider's thread of the nest to the branch."

Long tendrils of briar start to sprout and swirl around them. Then, they're simply gone.

Off towards the next great adventure.