Chapter Text
Zerofuku Fortuna, Ace soon realised, was a very, very strange person.
After his rather memorable arrival at Night Raven College where his soul had been deemed “too vast” to read by the Dark Mirror, as well as the series of events that landed Ace in his orbit, the guy had become one of his closest friends. Then and only then did the Heartslabyul first year began to notice all the weirdness surrounding their unexpected arrival. Zerofuku had initially seemed like nothing special, aside from the odd circumstances of his staying at NRC – worse, he seemed very out of place, what with his frustratingly genuine insistence on trying to help most of those he met. To most of the student body, he no doubt still was exactly that; just a naïve boy easy to take advantage of.
As Ace himself had discovered in the mines however, there was far more to Zero than just that. He was the kind of mystery that only got increasingly frustrating the closer you got to unravelling it; the more you found out about Zerofuku the less sense he made.
The first and by far the most weird thing about Zero was his seeming invincibility. It sounded insane, even in Ace’s own head, but he knew what he was talking about. When he along with Deuce, Zero and Grim had went to the dwarf mines to get the magic crystal needed to not be thrown out of Night Raven College, Ace was the only one who noticed how unaffected Zero had been by any blows the monster they’d encountered threw at him. At first it seemed like a crazy high pain tolerance, because what else could it be? Still impressive – and honestly a little concerning – but nothing that out of the ordinary. Ace had made a mental note that his white-haired friend was much sturdier than he looked and moved on.
Not a big deal.
And then, as the year began and Ace spent more time with the Ramshackle Prefect, he discovered that no, actually. It wasn’t pain tolerance, Zero just happened to be completely unbothered by any attack sent his way, whether deliberate or accidental. Stray spells hitting the wrong target, summoned objects bouncing off harmlessly, even very much deliberate attempts to hurt him didn’t leave any damage at all. Ace once watched, goggling, as Zero calmly ignored the futile attempts of a bunch of Savanaclaw upperclassmen to attack him, eventually growing sick of being interrupted and leaving them all groaning in a pile on the ground with only one or two punches.
That was the last straw for Ace. He confronted Zero about it immediately after on their way to their next class.
‘Okay, dude, there’s no way you’re actually human,’ Ace stated flatly as they walked. The two of them were by themselves for now, Deuce and Grim having left five minutes earlier to get a drink before break was over.
Zero looked at him curiously.
‘How did you know?’ he asked, tilting his head. Some of his long white hair, typically left loose, fell to cover one eye.
‘How did I- you’re not even going to try and deny it?’ Ace baulked incredulously.
‘It’s true,’ Zero said with a shrug. ‘I’m just curious how you figured it out! Nobody else seemed to notice.’
Ace stared at him.
Is he serious? Does he really not notice or is he messing with me?
For now, Ace was inclined to believe the former. He may not have known the white-haired Prefect all that long, but he knew Zero was too nice to mock anyone. Unlike most people at NRC.
‘So, how did you know I’m not human?’ Zero asked again, seemingly oblivious to the torment he’d put his friend through over the brief time they’d known each other.
(To be fair, he probably was. Ace hadn’t told anybody of his ever-increasing suspicion about the innocent, overly cheerful and genuine Zerofuku Fortuna.)
(But still!)
‘Yeah, well, it’s kind of hard to miss.’ Ace said, rolling his eyes. ‘Humans don’t tend to just walk off spells like you do.’
‘Deuce and Grim never noticed though,’ Zero pointed out.
‘They don’t count.’ Ace replied with a shake of his head. ‘Wait, were you even trying to hide it? The not being human thing?’
Zero hummed, throwing his hair over his right shoulder, out of the way of his bag straps.
‘Not really? Nobody really asked and I didn’t know if people would believe me if they did, so I just didn’t say anything. I didn’t mean to keep it a big secret.’
For almost a full minute, Ace and Zero walked in silence, making their way through the corridors of Night Raven to their last class of the day.
‘So,’ Ace said eventually, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘If you’re not human, then what are you, Zero? Some kind of fae?’
(He was almost proud of himself for waiting that long to ask. This question had been killing him ever since he’d started noticing the oddities about his friend.)
Unexpectedly, Zero’s only answer to that was a bright giggle. He looked over at Ace, a mischievous glint in his eyes that the Heartslabyul student did not like one bit.
‘I’ll be impressed if you actually manage to guess!’ Zero said cheerily, the laughter clear in his voice.
Ace stared. And stared. And stared some more.
‘You’re not going to tell me?!’ he demanded.
‘Oh look!’ Zero said, lips twitching with a smile. ‘There’s Deuce and Grim!’
He sped over to the two, ignoring Ace’s protests.
‘What- hey! You can’t just – come back here! Zero!’
Ace didn’t spend too long dwelling on that conversation, surprisingly enough. All the trouble with his dorm head drove it clean out of his mind and he didn’t press further about the truth of who Zero actually was, to the not-so-young god’s secret relief. He had no idea how these people would treat him if they found out he was a god and had no desire to find out. For the first time in millennia, Zerofuku had found a place he could just be. Even if the mystery of how he’d ended up here still bothered him, for now the god quite liked his circumstances.